by Jillian Hart
"It's not far at all."
"Yeah, too bad Grandpop can't come along. He gets a kick out of hearing about Chester. He laughed so hard he cried."
"So did Grandmama. Maybe they can come along, too."
"No!" Frisco put his foot down. If his parents came along, they would be in charge and give the boys every little thing they wanted, likely every pony in the entire territory. What else could a right-thinking man do but turn down the notion, nip it in the bud? "No grandparents. They can be pleasantly surprised or not, but you don't take Grandmama to a negotiation. She is terrible at playing hard for a good deal."
"Pa, we don't want a good deal."
"Yeah, we want a pony. I have my money in my pocket just in case we run across any candy to buy."
"Me, too."
"How can I argue with that?" He took the empty plate from her and handed it through the open doorway to the youngest sister, who was unabashedly watching. "I'm going to take Jada away from you for a little bit. Hope you don't mind."
"Mind?" Mindy raised her eyebrows comically. "We've been secretly hoping to get rid of her for any amount of time. We can pay you in baked goods if you take her out of our hair for bit."
"It's a done deal," he quipped.
"Hey, I'm standing right here. And I see what you're up to, Mindy, and you're in trouble."
"Ooh, I'm scared now." Mindy's eyes laughed at her. "Go on and get out of here, sweet sister."
"Here's a warning. I'll be back." Jada brightened, teasing her sister so lovingly and she avoided his gaze, a little shy, more than a little sweet.
Yeah, she got to him, no doubt about that. He cleared his throat. "It's real thoughtful of you to come along. I'm glad and pleased to have your company."
"I feel the same." Her skirts rustled as she accompanied him off the boardwalk and into the street, glancing over her shoulder at the boys in front of the window tugging on Chester's bit-less bridle reins. "And it's a lovely day for it, too."
"Do you think Chester will ever behave for the boys?"
"Oh, I'm guessing they might figure out eventually, especially if another pony is involved."
"Heaven help us, or at least maybe law enforcement will step in. We might need it. You do not know the trouble I've seen."
"I'm getting the idea that it's something like that." She stopped in the street, spun around and watched the boys far behind them now, still tugging on the reins begging Chester to move.
He planted all four hooves, tossed his head up in the air, and refused.
When she smiled, everything within him went still. He knew in the depth of his being that she might be his one chance for real happiness. Who else could laugh at the twins, not find fault, and be so amazing? What took root and grew in his heart was a one-hundred percent, all the way kind of devotion to her. The kind that threatened to never end nor diminish, that changed a man's life forever.
"Chester!" Aiden huffed out a sigh and stomped one booted foot on the boardwalk. "Please, oh please giddy up."
"Chester, please, please move!" Austin begged. "Oh, Chester."
Frisco rolled his eyes, following Jada back to the boys. "Are you sure you want another pony?"
"They're awful lucky to have Chester, you know." She slipped by him, sparkling with gentle good humor and a magical enchanting power to disarm him and charm him completely. He sputtered, unable to argue with her, knowing she was right when no one would agree, not even him, and yet, still, he was nodding, falling under her spell. "This is one fine pony, aren't you, boy?"
The pony whinnied as if in agreement and took a step backward. He wasn't about to capitulate and bow down to authoritarian rule. He had his pride, he had his sense of style and his dignity. She leaned forward and whispered something in his ear.
"What are you telling him?" Aiden wanted to know.
"Yeah." Austin knuckled back his hat brim. "Is it a threat or a bribe?"
"Neither. What do you take me for? I have a way with horses. Why not with ponies?" Jada took hold of the reins and the boys let her, stepping back, eyes widening and jaws falling open as Chester obediently took one tentative step forward, testing it out and, finding it to his liking, took another and another, stepping right down into the street. As Frisco grabbed his riding horse's reins and released him from the hitching post, she caught sight of his smile.
Dimples cut into his cheeks as he paused in the sun-swept street. "You seem to have a way with that one. What's your secret? The boys have tried everything to no avail."
"Goodness, it's easy, you'll see." Jada laughed, walking softly alongside him. "I'd hate to deprive the boys of the discovery for themselves."
"Yes, that will be greatly amusing." Humor drew handsome crinkles his face, and his gaze held a gentle look as he led the way around the corner and into the shade of buildings on the intersecting street. Tinny music rose from one of the saloons, not to mention loud angry voices arguing over the outcome of a poker match. A gunshot rang out, and one shingle flew upward from the roof to sail down into the street.
Jada walked around it.
"You handle the unpredictable nature of living in this wild west town pretty good-naturedly, pretty lady."
"Me? Well, I'm happy to be here. Let's just say I wasn't happy back home in Indiana and I feel a greater sense of freedom here, where no one knows me and can't prejudge me."
"Interesting. I like it, and I know the feeling. I get the idea that society back home was too restricting for a lady who mysteriously dresses up in trousers at night when no one can recognize her and can convince a tenaciously stubborn pony to obediently comply. Look, and with a grin on his face."
"Chester does look happy, and so do the boys." She glanced over her shoulder behind them in the dirt road where pony hooves and little boy boots kicked up clouds of chalky dust on purpose, stomping along and grinning.
When she turned back to Frisco, he seemed to dwarf the depth of the sky, the grandeur of the landscape and stole every bit of oxygen from her lungs. She nearly missed the ground with her foot and tumbled forward like a klutz but caught herself before he could notice. Much.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine now." A bit embarrassing, but that's what happened when she was mesmerized, caught up in living a dream, if only for this one moment in time.
"Stand still!" Aiden's plea came as if from a great amount of wish and pain. "Please! I want to ride you so much, Chester."
"Yeah, Chester. Stop, please stop!"
Jada couldn't tear her gaze away from Frisco's captivating one holding her like gravity to the earth. Sparkles of good humor danced in his eyes, and together they broke out in laughter. Peals of it rang in the open air, sailing on the wind, and together they stopped to turn around in the road to see the boys unable to convince the pony to behave. Frisco nudged her elbow with his and never had she felt this close to a man. How did he do it, make her feel this way? So connected, as if from the soul, and with joy. With happiness.
Before she could stop him, Frisco broke the connection and moved away. "Let me fix this," he whispered to her as he padded toward the boys.
"Guess I might as well lift you two onto his back." Frisco hefted one boy by the arm pits and swung him, squealing with glee, onto Chester's bare back. The pony refused to stop. He lifted his nose, scented the air and walked faster.
"Chester, you are cute enough to get away with anything and you know it." Frisco swung the second twin up and dropped him gently behind the first and reached to right the reins so the boys could command their mount. All he had to do was to glance at Jada, and the short distance between them faded, didn't matter at all. The closeness he felt to her remained.
"C'mon, Chester, let's gallop!" Aiden, in command of the reins, gave them a giddy-up shake.
"Yeah, go fast, Chester!" Austin encouraged.
The pony tossed up his head in response.
"Is he going slower?" Austin asked.
"Real slow," Aiden answered. "So slow, he stopped."
"Th
at's a real disappointment. What do we do now?" Austin sighed.
Chester swished his tail, unrepentant.
"That's a pony for you," Frisco drawled quietly to her, rolling his eyes. "I can't take it when the boys are disappointed."
"I can see why." Jada's throat felt scratchy, too full of emotion.
"Chester, we love you so much!" Aiden buried his face in the pony's mane. "Please, oh please love us back."
"Even just a little," Austin begged with all his heart.
Just like that, she spied a glimpse of her possible future. Days spent just like this with the sweet twins' entertaining chaos and antics. What if a lifetime spent with Frisco was in her future? What if she had a chance for that again, when she'd thought for sure it would never be? Why, that dream felt too close, it hurt for the wanting of it, for the depth of that wish.
What if he could understand the debacle of her past? Happiness filtered through her as bright as the sun as he reached out for her hand and caught hold of her, his touch sizzling hot sending frissons of lava-like desire thudding through her entire being, not just her body. The loving look in his eyes made her hope that he might love her enough not to care about her past. That he wouldn't let it come between them.
"We'd better find a way to go rescue them," she said as Aiden leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the pony's neck and gave him a kiss on the mane.
"If don't, Chester might stand there stubbornly forever," Frisco quipped.
She laughed, happier than she'd ever been. "Do you want to do the honors, or should I?"
"I would hate to have a lady of your quality trouble herself with horse matters." He winked, so handsome he made her teeth ache and her womb contract as if ready to come. He squeezed his hand, so large engulfing hers, and it felt like forever was a heartbeat away, and then he snatched it from her. "I never thought a quality lady like you would find us suitable at all, or I would have hunted you down and asked to beau you long before this, the moment you came to this backwater western town."
"What do you mean?" She pushed a stray curl out of her eye to better see him. Suddenly the sun felt cold, the wind unforgiving. She shivered. "I guess I'm not all that quality, I'm just a regular woman, but I like that you see me as fine. It's how I see you."
"Then I'm in luck, and I'm in bliss." He lifted her hand and ran his thumb over the bare spot on her left ring finger, making her heart plummet and when the sun should have seemed brighter it felt as it dimmed entirely, as if her heart had a premonition of what was to come. "I've been searching for a woman kind enough and quality enough to fall in love with, and because of the boys I need a woman with a sterling reputation, a heart of gold and one hundred percent quality. I'm in luck finding you."
"A sterling reputation, huh?" Oh, Frisco. Her heart sank. She bowed her head, choked down a sigh and slipped her hand out of his, trembling from what felt like cold but was really shock.
25
She'd been wrong about him. He wanted a fine, spotless reputation after all, above all. So when he learned of her past and rejected her, when he saw her with a different view, it would shatter her.
He said something. She didn't know what. She'd gone completely solid inside, frozen all the way through. Lesson learned. Regardless of how far she'd traveled, she could not escape her past. She'd been a fool to think it wouldn't matter. Frisco was no different than any other good and kind man, and she couldn't blame him for that. Only herself.
She blinked back the tears from her burning eyes, because she would not cry in front of him. The hopeful girl she'd been felt as if she'd died, and she knew that nothing would soften Frisco's view. She did not want him to change his good opinion of her, so that meant only one thing. She could not carry this relationship one more step forward. They'd gone as far as she could go.
Jada blinked the last of the tears from her eyes as Frisco turned around to walk backward down the dirt road that had unbeknownst to her carried them from the edge of town and a little way into the country. The dirt road stretched out ahead of her, grass growing in a strip right down the middle, grass blades rustling in the wind and daisies, buttercups and dandelions raising their faces up toward the overhead sun.
"I'm not sure what will happen if the boys have two ponies," he quipped gently, as warmly as the summer day. "This is the Johnson's field on the right, but I don't see any livestock in it."
As if to defy him, a pony's neigh rang out on the sweet summer air. Chester froze, his nostrils flared, his ears pricked up and he gave an answering neigh, a trumpeting call that should have been a warning for the boys but they were too busy to notice in their attempt to get him to move forward.
Ignoring the persistent "pleases" and the boot heels lightly pressing against his side, Chester whinnied a second time, flicked his tail and took off in a rear-like leap that had Austin sliding off the back of his rump, grabbing onto his twin for dear life.
He was dangling, flapping over the pony's tail sort of like a flag, Jada decided, watching in fascination and amusement. Aiden tightened his grip on Chester's neck, laying stretched out flat out on his belly now along the back of the pony, pulled there by Austin's weight as he held on tight to his brother's waist.
Bounce, bounce, bounce, went the boys, bobbing up and down, teeth chattering together as Chester sped up from a trot to a cantor that did not dislodge the boys. Aiden held on with all he was worth, even as he slipped to one side, and Austin hit the ground, dragging along first in the grass and then the dirt. A chalky dust cloud rose from beneath his trousered bottom and legs.
"Now that's something I haven't seen before," Frisco commented as the boys were dragged by with the now galloping pony.
"I'd hate to have to be the one to launder that pair of trousers," Jada commented, and laughter felt good as Chester skidded to a stop and touched noses with his fellow Shetland across the wooden fence rails.
Mission accomplished. Second pony found.
* * *
It wasn't easy to go on as if nothing happened, as if her heart and dreams weren't broken and dashed. She smiled and made helpful comments when Frisco was negotiating for Maynard. Mr. Johnson was loathe to charge a penny, horrified Chester's previous owner had done so, rooking the boys, and would not do the same.
Eventually, Jada suggested the man pay a penny to each boy for the sale of the rather unmannerly, older and practically unbroken pony. Mr. Johnson cautioned that Maynard had not been ridden in so long, he could not guarantee the outcome. Everyone agreed.
But through it all, Jada hid her sorrow. What had happened earlier could not be forgotten.
"Oh, boy! I've got me a horse now, too," Austin said. "Even if we share him."
"We both got two horses now," Aiden said proudly, petting Maynard's rather long thin nose. "We're as good as rich."
"Like Pa, we have to start somewhere. We will teach them up good."
"Go backwards, Maynard," Aiden requested, giving the pony a gentle tug on the halter's lead.
Maynard snorted, stomped one foot, gave a particularly innocently dumb look and lipped Aiden's cheek in a sweet horse-y kiss.
"I think the pony has the boys all figured out." Jada reached for the gate.
"I think you're right. You hit the nail on the head exactly. This spells trouble."
"Big time trouble." Before she could open the gate, Frisco's big, warm, scintillating hand closed over hers, tugging the gate's latch. Boy, did she really need to ignore that kick of desire roaring through her veins and thudding tight and low in her pelvis.
Drawing her hand away, she stepped back. Distance, that's what she needed. Best to get some space, clear her head and attempt to shake off the pain gripping her heart. With Frisco, it had always been a maybe. She reminded herself of that and cleared the hurt emotion from her throat, but her voice came out squeaky, showing it anyway. "Do you think the boys will figure out the ponies?"
"Are you kidding? Not with the way they're going." He gave a friendly laugh, his gaze intense on her, fu
ll of intimacy and what she feared was attraction. Desire. Sexual hunger.
So, he felt this, too. Disappointment roared through her for what could never be and yet she still wanted with all her might.
"Maynard! Whoa! Stop! Uh oh!" the boys chorused in tandem.
Jada looked up in time to see a pony dash by her, running like the wind. She heard the gate swing shut behind her and Mr. Johnson coughed with amusement.
"Looks like I got the better part of that deal," he said in good humor while walking away. "Good luck with that one, Frisco, and I won't buy him back, no matter how much money you offer me to take him. Ha! The wife is gonna be thrilled."
"That can't be a good sign." Frisco braced his hands on his muscled hips, awash in the sweet gold of summer sunshine, watching patiently as the runaway pony skidded to a halt in the grassy center strip of the road to touch noses with Chester. Happy nickers sailed on the air, the sound of good friends united for all times.
And united against the boys, she thought, unless they figured out how to handle them.
"Pa!" Aiden grinned as he grabbed hold of the pony's halter and handed it over to his brother. "This is the best day yet that we've ever had. We each have a pony now, both of us. Now we can go riding without Austin falling off the backend. This is going to go quite well."
"Very well," Austin said, certainty ringing in his little-boy tone. He gripped the rope tightly. "I won't let go, Maynard. You're our boy now."
Maynard took a step and pulled Austin along. The boy nearly lost his balance, but the pony's next step gave him the momentum he needed to right himself, catch his balance and stumble along with him. "Hey! I'm walking him and everything!"
"That's optimistic," Frisco muttered to her, eyes bright, dimples bracketing his wide, attractive, sculpted grin. He looked as if he were enjoying this far too much. "The pony is walking the boy."
"However are you going to get them home?"
"Bribery. It might be the only thing that works. Here, Austin, try to turn him around. Maynard, I'll give you two carrots if you come with me. Does that sound like a good deal to you?"
