Summer at Mustang Ridge (10 page)

“Having a hiccup in the learning process doesn’t mean a kid isn’t bright, even brilliant, or that she can’t catch up. For some of them, it just means they need a little extra help to get over a hump here and there. That’s how it was for Lizzie, at least when it came to reading.” She paused, wondering how it was possible that those chaotic, upsetting months could boil down to a couple of sentences. “By that time, though, the SM had kicked in and Patrick had moved out. We kept the divorce as amicable as possible, and he promised to be good about visiting, but when she went all the way quiet, he disappeared. I haven’t heard from him in more than a year.”

Foster made an annoyed sound at the back of his throat.

“It wasn’t his fault, at least the SM part. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It just . . . happens sometimes.” She looked up at the stars and the pretty blue half-moon overhead. “I did everything I could, read everything I could get my hands on, tried all the therapies, but nothing helped. She slipped away, into her own head, getting quieter and quieter. After a while she even turned off the volume on all her games . . . and I got in the habit of leaving the radio on all the time, or the TV, just so there was some noise in the condo.” She glanced back at him. “Not here, though. Here, the quiet doesn’t bother me nearly so much.”

He stayed silent for a moment, then exhaled a pent-up-sounding breath. “I wish I knew what string to pull here, what button to push that could help her.”

Pressure lumped beneath her heart. “You’ve already done more than I can ever repay.”

Another harsh noise. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“Lizzie, then. You’ve been incredibly helpful, and since she’s not going to tell you she’s grateful, I will.”

“That’s not what this is about.” He turned to face her fully, voice dropping, almost as if he was talking to himself when he said, “Maybe it started that way, but even then I was fooling myself.”

Her pulse thudded in her ears. Did he mean . . . ? No way.
Down, girl
. “I don’t understand.”

His rusty chuckle seemed even more out of practice than the lopsided smile that curved his lips, making him suddenly look younger and easier, and maybe even a little mischievous. “Then I’m even worse at this than I thought.”

The
thudda-thudda
of her pulse suddenly went to a
boom-chicka-wa-wa
and the heated prickles in her belly flared outward, becoming an all-body flush. Still not sure she was reading him right, she said, “Worse at what?”

“This.” He moved in and kissed her with unerring aim in the moonlit darkness.

W
h
en Foster
had finally given in to the urge he’d been battling all week and gone to find Shelby, he’d meant to ask about Lizzie and Loco, and talk to her about riding plans for both of them. He’d told himself “hands off” so many times it’d become a Yoda-esque mantra:
Stay professional, you will. Hands off, you’ll keep
.

Yeah,
he thought as he tasted her.
Not.

This might be the worst move he’d pulled recently, but it sure as heck felt like one of the best. Maybe
the
best. Her lips were soft and lush, and they parted beneath his with a surprised noise that invited him in. He took that invitation, sliding closer on the dock and slipping an arm around behind her to deepen the kiss.

And hello, fireworks.

He didn’t remember the last time he’d kissed a woman—okay, he did, and it was way too long ago—but he sure didn’t remember this sort of sizzle. If there had been, he wouldn’t have waited so long. Because, damn.

The curve of her breast brushed against him as his arm settled naturally at the dip of her waist, bracketing her against him. The dock rocked beneath them as his tongue touched hers—or maybe that was the whole dang world moving as her flavor lit him up and made the icy water feel warm around his ankles. It was the kind of moment that cowboys had written songs about for more than two centuries, the kind of kiss that could end old feuds and start new ones. And make a smart man make a big mistake . . . like getting in too deep with a woman like her.

But where before that had rung true, now the vibe was faintly off, because even though she was from the city, and fancy as all get-out—even in curvy Wranglers and snap-studded shirts that should’ve made her look like a local—there was more to her than just that. She was Lizzie’s mom, Krista’s friend, Gran’s backup, Loco’s new human. She liked it here, and the people and animals at Mustang Ridge liked her back.

Which meant . . . heck, he didn’t know what it meant, or if it should mean anything at all. Especially when she made a sexy noise at the back of her throat and cuddled up against him, making his skin feel like it was stretched tight. He ran a hand over her thick, glossy hair and drew her closer as he added a nibble, a nip, a heated breath against her throat. He wanted to ease her down to the dock that swayed beneath them and lie beside her, wanted to take her, make her his own.

Instead, slowly and with piles of regret coming straight from the tight places inside him, he ended the kiss and pressed his lips to her forehead.

Then, after a moment that wasn’t nearly long enough, he shifted away, still with an arm around her in case she was anywhere near as wobbly as him.

Shelby blinked up at him and pressed her lips together in a move that sent a lightning burn of heat straight to his gut. “Oh,” she said, her voice soft, husky, and surprised. “I thought . . . I kept telling myself . . .”

“What?”

“That this was all about Lizzie. That she’s a project to you, like one of your mustangs.”

“You said she wasn’t a horse.”

“She isn’t. But, Foster . . . you and me . . .” She shook her head even as she lifted a hand and touched his jaw with a soft caress that heated his blood. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

He didn’t have any answers for her, didn’t even have them for himself. “Can we just leave it that it’s a pretty night and you’re under my skin, and we’re both going to think about that kiss after I leave?”

As cowboy poetry went, that pretty much sucked. But she smiled a little, anyway, and ducked her head to exhale a soft breath. “Okay. Yeah, okay.”

He climbed to his feet, careful not to touch her again, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop things this time if they started up again. “Meet me in the barn tomorrow morning. I’ll take you riding.”

She looked up and met his eyes. “It’s a date.” She hesitated. “Um, unless it’s not. In which case, it’s just a ride. Either way, I’ll be there.”

It’s a ride,
he thought, but his mouth mutinied and said, “It’s a date.”

•   •   •

The next morning, Shelby headed to the barn alone, mentally running through what she needed to say to Foster. The key points she needed to remember were things like “only here for the summer” and “need to focus on my daughter” with detours through “flattered” and “if things were different, I’d love to ride you like a trick pony.”

Okay, so not that last part. But still. That kiss.

Wow.

Within a nanosecond, her cowboy crush had gone from being hands-off to being extremely hands-on, and wonderfully so. She didn’t even remember the specifics of who did what—the details had gotten lost somewhere between
ohmigod
shock and
mmmmm
while her hormones sat up and sang a medley of soda commercials, heavy on the “What a feeling!” refrains.

After, though, she’d seen his face and heard the little voice in her head, and knew there were big reasons why she shouldn’t go there.
Not in the market, just here for the summer, focusing on my daughter
. Know it. Love it.

But as she reached the parking area in front of the barn, her boots were dragging and the voice inside her head had stopped being all logical, and instead sounded way more like Krista, telling her,
“You need to do something for yourself now and then.”
Granted she hadn’t said, “You need to do Foster”—she’d been thinking more along the lines of a hobby. Karaoke, maybe, or trout fishing. And Shelby didn’t think Foster had been thinking about sex when he’d suggested she find a way to burn off her frustrations rather than letting them build up.

Then again, maybe he
had
been thinking about sex, because apparently still waters ran pretty deep in that department, and the attraction she’d been fighting was a mutual one. Ever since their kiss, she’d been seriously thinking about things like summer flings and temporary hookups for the first time in . . . well, ever.

And she should really stop it, man up, and be a grown-up about this. She needed to be a mom right now, nothing else.

Choco-delights,
a small voice caroled in her head.
Because being a grown-up is overrated
.

“Oh, shut up,” she muttered. The ads—showing women busting out of their offices and whooping it up at amusement parks, motocross, and other events—had been one of her more successful campaigns, sure, and she had a feeling the Choco-delights account had been the deciding factor in her boss’s giving her a summer sabbatical rather than an ultimatum. Still, she didn’t really need the Choco-chicks weighing in right now.

The barn doors were closed despite the early warmth of the day, which was unusual. Frowning, she rolled one of them aside, and called, “Hello?”

“Hey, Shelby,” Stace called back. “Come on in!”

An initial pang of disappointment turned to confusion as her eyes adjusted and she saw a small crowd gathered at the far end of the aisle. Krista and Gran were there, along with Stace, looking expectant. Nearby, male voices rumbled from inside an open stall.

“Oh,” Shelby breathed as comprehension dawned. “Sassy!”

Krista’s grin lit her face. “We’re having a baby! Come see. Or, wait, do you want to go get Lizzie?”

She only hesitated for a second before deciding that the experience would be good for her kiddo, even if it sparked a more in-depth version of the birds-and-bees conversation than the basics they had already been over. “I’ll be back in a flash.”

It was more like five minutes by the time she and a breathless Lizzie made it to the barn. Krista beckoned them in, eyes alight. “It’s a boy, and he’s almost all black, just like his daddy!”

Lizzie dogged Shelby’s heels into the barn, pressing close as they joined the little knot of people outside the stall door, and looked in.

“Oh,” Shelby said, her breath catching.

The double-size broodmare stall was thickly bedded with straw rather than the usual shavings, and the bedding rustled as Sassy reached down to nudge at a dark, damp foal that lay sprawled in the stall, its little ribs heaving with each labored breath.

Foster stood at the mare’s shoulder, his face lit with such quiet pleasure that the stains on his shirt and jeans didn’t seem that awful, and the earthy aroma of the stall was almost pleasant. His eyes went to Shelby the moment she came into view, and she met his gaze, too caught up in the moment to worry about what she was supposed to say to him, how she was supposed to act. Instead, laughter bubbled up. “Don’t you look like a proud papa?”

He grinned and patted Sassy’s sweat-dampened neck. “She did all the work.”

“You don’t need a vet?” Shelby suddenly realized that she and Gran were the only ones there who’d given birth, and there was a good chance that Gran had done something ranch-approved, like popping her son out in the back bedroom with a midwife and no drugs.
Shudder
.

Foster shrugged. “If things go wrong, it usually happens too fast for outside help to arrive, so it’s best for a rancher to be ready for anything.”

“He’s being modest,” Stace said. “Our Foster is a miracle when it comes to births. Foals, calves, puppies, kittens, you name it.” She shot a fond look in Krista’s direction. “Granted, it’s not too often that we keep a riding horse stalled up with a Foal-Alert stitched in and a closed-circuit camera hung in the corner. Usually, we just keep an eye on them when it gets close to their time.”

Krista just grinned. “The stud fee wasn’t cheap, and Sassy is special. And like Stace said, I knew I had one of the best in my corner. Foster here has dealt with pretty much every possible delivery problem a horse or cow can have, and has a damn good track record of pulling everybody through safely.”

He shrugged, looking a little “aw, shucks” about the whole thing. “I just do what makes sense.”

“And read everything you can get your hands on, plus do the occasional ride along with Doc Lopes to the university’s repro barn.” To Shelby, she said, “He tries to say it’s all about feel and listening to the critters, but he studies his butt off, too. Not one to leave things to chance, our Foster.”

He cleared his throat. “Moving on, Doc will be here in a bit to make sure everything’s good with Mama and pull blood on this little guy. Hopefully by then he’ll be up and at ’em, and will have gotten his first bellyful of milk.”

“Speaking of which,” Krista said, winking at Shelby as she took pity and let him change the subject, “do you think we should help him up? He should be about ready to get vertical and nurse.”

They all turned to study the little foal. Everyone but Shelby, that is. She took the moment to study the man of the hour.

Foster stood hip-shot at the mare’s side, totally at ease with himself and the animals who relied on him. With a wisp of straw in his mouth and his hat tipped back on his head, he should’ve looked like the print ads for the ill-fated
Farmer Wants a Wife
, or, better yet,
Cowboy U
. But he wasn’t one of those cowboys, at least not the way the target demographic thought of them. He wasn’t outdated, wasn’t so focused on the land that he ignored technology.

She didn’t know what he was, except that he wasn’t anything like what she’d expected to find when she and Lizzie had headed off on their big Wyoming adventure. None of it was how she’d expected, really. Especially him.

As if he’d felt her eyes on him, he glanced over and winked.

Flushing a little—and since when did she blush so easy?—she looked down at Lizzie, who stood pressed against her side, staring raptly at the foal.

The creature was the general size and shape of a Great Dane, with a dished face and bunny-lop ears. He was all black, or maybe dark brown—it was hard to tell with his hair still curled in damp rings—with one white hind leg and a star on his forehead. His wispy mane, stumpy tail, and pale, soft-looking hooves reminded her of Lizzie’s trusty Mr. Pony, but he was no stuffed animal. He breathed rhythmically now, and when Sassy looked away, he made a soft “wheee” sound that brought the mare’s head back around.

That was about it, though, and Shelby saw Gran and Krista looking more and more worried as the foal’s eyelids drifted open and then closed again, and his breath stirred the straw. He stayed lying flat out, not making any real effort to stand.

“Let’s give him another minute,” Gran suggested. “He’s just tuckered out from all the excitement.”

Krista made a humming noise. “He needs to eat.”

Lizzie looked up, and Shelby gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “He’ll be up in a minute. You’ll see.”

But one minute dragged on to five, and then ten, until finally Foster said, “Stace, how about you come on in here and give me a hand?”

Working together, they folded the foal’s legs underneath him and rolled him up onto his chest, into a more natural-looking position. But he seemed content to stay there, head nodding as if he was falling back to sleep.

Foster rocked back on his heels, considering. “Not much fight in him.”

“He knows you’re helping him out,” Gran said, but her expression was troubled.

“Come on, little guy,” Krista urged. “Your mama’s waiting for you. The dairy bar is ready for business.”

The little horse didn’t lie back down. But he didn’t try to stand, either.