A Love Like Ours (9 page)

Her apartment had two bedrooms. She sailed into the one she’d made into her studio and lowered onto her stool. Nope, couldn’t bear to sit. Back on her feet, she crossed her arms and fumed, staring out the window at her dogs below.

His call had angered her, but it had also sharpened her purpose. No matter what he thought of her or how often he tried to persuade her to leave, she was dead set on working for him.

Whether or not he felt the same tug of attraction toward her that she felt for him—which, clearly, he did not—she was going to do an excellent job for him. She hadn’t done anything to benefit Silver Leaf or Jake yet, but she firmly believed that she could.

She could and she
would
.

Then why, despite the brave turn of her thoughts, were her eyes brimming with tears?

Lyndie spent the following Friday evening exactly the way she preferred to spend her Friday evenings: with a paintbrush in her hand.

The meet-up event at Fellowship Church that Amber had talked her into attending was still more than a week away, blessedly. Which meant that she had a few more days to carry on with her not-very-social life. She’d grown accustomed to a schedule that included her family, riding, art, and pets. She was familiar with those things and content, for the most part, with her undisturbed peace.

She’d changed out of her riding clothes and into even comfier stuff hours ago: yoga pants, slipper socks, and a lightweight burnout hoodie. She perched on her stool and used the tip of her brush to swirl pale pink watercolor paint along the top of a fairy’s wing.

Yes, indeed. Undisturbed peace was wonderful! And would be even more so if Jake Porter would quit stealing into her thoughts.

It had been three days since he’d tried to fire her. Since that time, he’d treated her the same way he’d treated her on her previous workday mornings. In return, she’d endeavored to treat him the same, too. He’d decided to let her keep her job, for the time being anyway, so she’d been polite and friendly to him. She’d tried to pull him into conversation just as often.

Inwardly, though, her feelings toward him had shifted. Before he’d tried to fire her, Lyndie’s emotions for Jake had revolved around compassion. She’d felt about him the way she’d feel about an injured lion limping around, doing its best to soldier on. This week, though, the lion had proven that he had teeth. And ever since, she’d been stewing in a peculiar mix of frustration, empathy, hurt, and cautiousness.

If her libido would quit noticing the lion’s handsomeness, then all the rest would be a lot easier to manage.

Drawing back, she tilted her head to study her painting. She’d been praying for Jake twice as often as she had before his phone call to her. Again and again, she’d asked God to intervene in Jake’s life. She kept telling God that she was ready to do whatever He might call her to do on Jake’s behalf. She just needed Him to show her what that looked like.

She dropped the brush into water, picked up a pen, and added a bit more thickness to a unicorn’s tail. After capping her pen, she jabbed it into her bun and left it there. She almost always twisted her hair into a topknot while painting. It got the unruly strands out of her way and made a serviceable pen and pencil holder.

The watercolor paper mounted on her easel revealed a scene she’d drawn first in ink. A majestic gray unicorn inspired by Silver dominated the drawing’s center. Just beside and behind him stood a smaller chestnut unicorn inspired by Blackberry. A short fairy with wavy blond hair that tumbled all the way to her thighs gazed up at the unicorns fondly, her hands interlaced behind her back. Zoe, in fairy form, hovered in the air in front of the unicorns, her knees bent and feet crossed, her smile broad, her hand outstretched to the animals.

Mrs. Mapleton rubbed against Lyndie’s ankle. Gentleman Tobias let out a shuddering snore from his spot on the chair in the corner, Empress Felicity asleep beside him. Both spaniels had, as usual, ignored the perfectly good doggie pillow Lyndie had placed on the floor for them.

Music helped Lyndie’s creativity, and she always chose tunes that matched the mood of the piece she was working on. Sometimes happy, sometimes dramatic or adventurous. At the moment, a track that sounded mystical and contemplative played.

As Lyndie considered her painting, she leafed through the potential plots she’d come up with for these four characters. She wanted to write a book about friendship and bravery and kindness—

She gasped softly as an epiphany expanded inside her.

Slowly, she brought her hands up to her cheeks. She looked in turn at each of the characters she’d painted, her pulse skittering excitedly.

She . . .

She may have just stumbled upon Silver Leaf’s secret.

T
he moment Lyndie finished riding and cleaning tack the next morning, she went in search of Jake. She found him inside one of the training barn’s two-and-a-half-acre paddocks, working a black filly on a lunge line.

She knew exactly when he’d registered her approach because his big shoulders hunched beneath his charcoal sweater. Resting her forearms on the fence, she watched him bring the filly from a walk to a jog and back out again. If a horse was beginning to experience leg problems, the transition between the two could reveal the issue first. To a trainer, anyway, who had the experience to spot tiny breaks in form.

Once he’d let the filly come to a rest, he glanced at Lyndie, his expression inscrutable. “What do you think?”

“I think she looks fine. What do you think?”

“I agree.” He unclipped the line from the horse’s halter. “I thought I saw something this morning, but I’m not seeing it now. She looks good to me.” He approached the fence, rolling the line. He’d worn his hat earlier but at some point had abandoned both it and his jacket.

She wasn’t used to seeing him without his Stetson. Sunlight glimmered in his dark hair and illuminated the world-weariness in his eyes. Faint lines marked his forehead above straight brows. Without the hat he seemed less protected, since he could do nothing
to shadow the scar that crossed his face and ended at the clean, hard angle of his jaw. “Is there something I can do for you?”

His fierce beauty tangled her thoughts for a second.
You’d do best to be careful, Lyndie. This lion has teeth
. “An idea came to me last night. About Silver Leaf.”

He waited for her to explain.

“He should have been named Casanova,” Lyndie said.

“Casanova?”

“Because I think he’s a lady’s man.” She smiled, excited about her theory.

“I don’t understand.” He let himself out of the paddock.

She stepped away from the fence and faced him. “His groom, Zoe, is female. Blackberry, the only horse in the barn he seems to have a deep connection to, is female. And now his exercise rider is female.” The sight of it on paper last night, a male horse surrounded by females, had jogged the idea free. It made perfect sense to her.

Jake was staring at her, though, like it made zero sense to him. His body language told her she’d stepped too far over onto the imaginative side of things.

Her hunch about Silver was just that—a hunch. But sometimes in life and in horse racing, the future could turn on the knife’s edge of a hunch. “When you moved Silver Leaf from Whispering Creek to the racetrack in the past, did Zoe go with him?” she asked.

“No. Some employees stay here with the horses in training, some go to Florida, and the rest come to Lone Star Park with me. Zoe’s always stayed here.”

“What about the exercise riders Silver’s had at the track? Male or female?”

“Male.”

“His jockey?”

“Male.”

It wasn’t surprising. Though women had made deep inroads into the world of Thoroughbred racing, the majority of grooms, foremen, exercise riders, jockeys, and trainers were still men.

“You think Silver Leaf will run better for a woman than a man,” Jake said.

“The short answer is yes.”

“I’ve never heard of a horse like that.”

“Me either. But you and I both know that each horse is unique.” Many of the great Thoroughbreds possessed one-of-a-kind foibles. “I suspect that Silver Leaf prefers the ladies.”

The sound of a whinny carried past them on a rush of wind that smelled like cut grass and possibilities. Heavy awareness pulled between them, almost tangibly.

“You really haven’t changed much,” he stated.

He was referencing all the crazy schemes she’d chased as a girl and repeating one of the things he’d said during their ill-fated phone conversation. “And?” She placed her hands on her hips and purposely kept her tone and expression light. “Are you going to try to foist me off on another trainer again today?”

“Foist? Is that a word?”

“It’s a word. Are you? Going to try to foist me off?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Not yet, anyway. It’s only ten thirty in the morning. I still have time.”

Had he just made a little . . . joke?

He started off in the direction of the barn.

Lyndie fell into step beside him. She could clearly sense the mass of his body next to hers—the weight of him, his size, the solidity and power in his muscles.

It came back to her forcefully, how many times they’d walked just like this as children, next to each other. Day after day. Year after year. She’d always hurried along beside him, chattering about their next adventure. She’d convinced him once that it was up to the two of them to find the Dunham family’s lost cat. Another time, she’d insisted that they ride their bikes to the tire swing hanging from the old pecan tree to make sure that trolls hadn’t taken up residence.

Jake had always listened to her respectfully, had always done his
best to support her strange plans. The simple pleasure of walking next to him again the way she once had caused a lump of tenderness to form in her throat.

“What’s the long answer?” he asked, staring straight ahead. “You’ve told me the short answer. I want to know the long.”

She drew in a big breath, trying to think where to start. “Silver Leaf strikes me as a regal horse. There are horses who work their way up and take on a regal air once they’ve won a lot of races. In Silver Leaf’s case, it seems that he was born regal. If he’s treated that way first, he may respond by winning races.”

His chiseled features hardened with skepticism.

“He’s dignified,” she said. “He treats everyone politely.”

“He’s well behaved.”

“But I’ve only seen him display what I’d classify as true affection to Blackberry and to Zoe. Zoe told me she’s been his groom ever since he came into training.”

“Yes.”

“He loves her.” Love was love, rare and wonderful in all its forms. “What about Blackberry? How long has she been stabled beside Silver Leaf?”

“More than two years. But Blackberry’s not running the way she used to. She’s had a solid career. I’m about to send her to the brood mare barn.”

“Is there any chance she can come with us when we move the horses to Lone Star Park? We can give her the stall next to Silver’s, and she can be his lead pony.” As lead pony, Blackberry would escort Silver to the starting gate before his races.

He frowned.

“We move Silver and some of the other horses to the track next week, yes?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll need to bring Blackberry and Zoe when we go.”

“Is that all?” he asked dryly.

“No. We’ll need to bring the rest of Silver Leaf’s home comforts. His favorite kind of hay, his blankets, et cetera.”

“Lyndie. You’d be better off with a different—”

“I will not be better off with a different trainer. I’m staying.”

He stopped and turned toward her. They’d neared the entrance of the barn.

“I don’t think Silver Leaf gives away his loyalty easily.” She drew herself up and strove to sound rational in an effort to temper her outlandish suggestions. “With Silver, it has to be earned.”

“He’s given me his loyalty.”

“I don’t think so. He’s merely polite to you the way he is to everyone.”

He pulled back his head, insulted. “I was there the night he was born.”

“No offense, but to Silver Leaf you’re the guy that stands at the rail. You’re not the one that bathes him and feeds him and talks to him constantly the way Zoe does. Also, you’re male. You can’t motivate him to run.”

His hazel eyes blazed with such ferocity that she couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t feel bad, Jake. He’s not loyal to me yet, either, and I’ve spent days with him in his stall. I’m hoping to get there with him, but I’m not there yet.”

He crossed his arms over his muscular chest, the lunge line dangling from one hand.

“Your horse thrives on familiarity and routine,” she continued. “I’m guessing that he’ll never be a good traveler, so we’re going to have to compensate by keeping all the things he cares about around him when we move him to the track. And we’re going to have to surround him with females.”

“Which jockey am I supposed to use?”

Me
, she wanted to say. The fledgling hope had just begun to take shape in her mind. She wanted to jockey Silver. If she told Jake about that now, however, on top of all her other odd requests, she knew she’d push him over the edge. “A female jockey.”

“I use Hank Stephens.”

“Hank’s an excellent jockey. And he can keep on riding all your other runners. But he’s no good for Silver Leaf.”

The door to the barn bolted open. At the sudden noise, Jake threw an arm in front of her instinctively, as if to protect her.

One of the grooms exited, nodding to them with a slightly confused expression.

Lyndie looked up at Jake. Their eyes met for a brief, scorching instant before his face went blank. He stepped quickly away from her. At his side, his free hand curled, then flexed.

She wished she could ask him about Iraq. But the trauma that had changed him was also the trauma that separated them. She could all but see him wrapping his isolation around himself like a cloak.

“Your ideas about Silver Leaf?” he asked.

“Yes?”

He presented her with his back and stalked away. “I’ll think about them.”

“Will?”

Will McGrath looked up from where he sat at his usual table at Cream or Sugar. Celia Porter, the bakery’s owner, stood nearby alongside a pretty brunette.

He rose to his feet.

“I’d like you to meet Amber Richardson,” Celia said. “Amber, this is Will McGrath.”

He extended his hand and Amber shook it. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” Amber’s big blue eyes were surrounded by the longest, darkest lashes he’d ever seen.

The link of their hands broke, and they straightened apart.

“Amber lives in the Old Candy Shoppe building,” Celia told him. “She mentioned to me the other day that she might like to have a deck put in at some point. I was just telling her that you build decks on the days when you’re not working for the fire department.”

“Right.” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and handed Amber one of his cards. “I’d be happy to come by and give you an estimate any time.”

“Great. Thank you.”

“More coffee, Will?” Celia asked.

“I’d like that.”

“Sit, sit,” Celia waved Amber to the table next to his. “I’ll bring coffee to you both.” They settled into chairs. Their side-by-side tables kept them in easy speaking distance. Since Will had already given her his card, he wasn’t sure what else to talk to her about. It was eight thirty on a Monday morning, and while Amber was attractive and seemed nice enough, he’d been enjoying the peace and quiet of sitting by himself. Small talk had never been his strong suit.

“I want one of these, Mom.” A young boy turned in Amber’s direction, his finger pushed against the glass display case, pointing at the chocolate glazed donuts.

“When Mrs. Porter comes back,” Amber answered, “ask her nicely if you may have a chocolate glazed.”

“With sprinkles.”

“Fine.”

“Is this your son?” Will asked. She looked too young to have a child this kid’s age.

“Yes, this is Jayden. He’s five and a half. Jayden, this is Mr. McGrath.”

“Hello, sir.”

“Hi.”

Celia hurried over with a coffee pot, then made a return trip with a chocolate glazed donut with sprinkles for Jayden and a slice of banana nut bread for Amber. Jayden took a seat beside his mom, swinging his legs and drinking milk through a straw from a little carton.

Amber caught Will’s eye, her expression friendly. “So tell me about some of the decks you’ve been working on lately.”

He did so. And before he knew it she steered the conversation to his work with the fire department and mutual Holley friends.

She was surprisingly easy to talk to. Outgoing. With a smile that lit up the whole room.

“What kind of work do you do?” he asked.

He found it hard to look away from her as she told him about her job as a nurse for Dr. Dean. There was something very interesting about her, something warm and genuine. And that smile . . . I mean, it
really
lit up the room. On the other hand, he didn’t want to look at her too long because she might think he was a creepy old man and get the wrong idea.

Good grief
. Self-conscious, he stared at the watch his daughters had given him for a few seconds before looking back up. Next to Amber, he felt every one of his forty years.

Amber had to be at least a decade younger than he was, and he’d guess that she’d had Jayden in her very early twenties. His ex-wife, Michelle, had been twenty-one when their oldest daughter, Madison, had been born. He’d been twenty-four at the time. Michelle had split at age twenty-five to go and experience all that life has to offer twenty-five-year-old women who aren’t wives and mothers. She’d left him with a four-year-old and a two-year-old.

Had the early baby plan worked out better for Amber than it had for him? He wondered whether Jayden’s father had stuck around, whether Amber was still in love with him and happy. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but she might be married. Not all married women wore rings every minute of every day.