Summer at Mustang Ridge (7 page)

Focusing on that—and ready to admit that his suggestion was a decent one—she said, “At least let me pay for my lessons.”

“Not happening. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

“How do you figure?”

“I’ve got an older gelding who could use some work outside of the dude string.”

“Let me guess. Another one of Krista’s rescues?” It hadn’t taken her long to see that the ranch was sprinkled with three-legged cats and geriatric cows. A retired horse or two wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest. It also wouldn’t shock her to find that it was missing an ear or something, which in a way made her feel better about the whole thing. They would be a couple of charity cases helping each other out.

“Is that a yes?”

Still not sure how to take him, or his interest in Lizzie, she nodded. “Yeah. Okay. And, Foster, seriously. Thank you.”

“No biggie.”

“It’s a biggie to me.” If he’d been Krista or one of the others, she would’ve reached out for a handclasp or one-armed hug of thanks. As it was, she gripped the edge of the dock. “You don’t know me or Lizzie except in passing, but you’ve given this more thought than most of my friends back home ever have, you came up with a new suggestion that nobody else had thought of, and you came out here to talk to me about it. That’s . . . it’s not what I’m used to. So thank you.”

He shrugged. “Things work different out here.”

“I guess they do.” Different from the people she knew in Boston, different from her family, different from everything she was used to.

“So . . . come to the barn around ten tomorrow morning, after the airport shuttle heads out and things get quiet. And bring Lizzie.”

A smile tugged. Apparently, he’d been confident enough in his plan that he’d already set things up for Stace to come in on her day off. Mentally promising to pay the instructor for the lesson, she nodded. “Okay, ten tomorrow. And again, thanks.”

He just nodded and stood. “I’ll leave you to your alone time.”

“Actually, I think I’ve had about enough. My feet are freezing.” In fact, they were full-on numb, as if her legs ended at the ankle. “I think I’ll pull myself together and hobble over to the bonfire. You headed that way?”

“Not tonight. Enjoy yourself, though.” He melted back into the darkness, until all that was left of him was a low whistle and a call of “Come on, Vader.”

A patter of paws on the pebbly shore was the only sign that his constant shadow had been waiting patiently for him. And then they were both gone, disappearing as quietly as they had come.

Shelby stared after them for a long moment, then shook her head. “Gift horse. Mouth. Don’t do it.” She’d be grateful, instead, and find some way to repay the head wrangler for his kindness, whether he liked it or not.

Retrieving her iceberg tootsies from the water, she rubbed some warmth back into them with her socks, then put her boots back on. A look across the lake said that the dancers had given up on the line and were doing the boogie-woogie, though the numbers had thinned. Ty was still strumming his guitar, though, and the fire was still going strong.

An hour ago, she had been tempted to head for the hills. Now she headed for the party.

•   •   •

“Shelby!” Krista waved her into the firelight. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it!”

The bonfire, which had started the night as a huge pile of logs and pallets, was halfway burned down, and threw off enough heat that most of the plastic chairs had been pulled back to a safe distance. Twenty or so people were left, some guests, some employees. Ty had just set aside his guitar in favor of a beer, and the others were sitting around in twos and threes, rocking conversation and marshmallows with equal enthusiasm.

Krista and Gran were sitting a little apart from the others, near a folding table that was loaded with bags of marshmallows and Hershey’s bars. Herman’s bowl sat at Gran’s feet. Apparently, when she’d said, “Everyone who’s anyone comes to the bonfire,” she meant it.

Krista dragged an empty chair over and wedged it between her and Gran, then patted the seat. “Plant it, sister.”

Shelby planted it and poked her feet toward the fire. “Sorry I’m so late. What’d I miss?”

“You’re only late if the fire is out. However, you missed the last round of speed dating.” Krista gave her a shoulder bump. “I waited for you as long as I could, but I finally gave in.”

“I’m crushed.”

“Thought you would be. How’s Lizzie?”

“Sleeping off a doozy of a cry hangover.”

Krista’s eyes filled with sympathy. “I heard. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks, but hopefully it’s just a bump in the road.” Not wanting to dwell on it anymore tonight—especially now that she had a new plan—Shelby looked around, counting heads. “So . . . what’s the final tally for singles week?”

“Tracy Lee and Dwayne have been inseparable since day two, and they only live a couple of hours apart, so that seems promising. A few other couples are maybes, and everybody seems to have had a really great time, even if they didn’t pair off.”

“S’more?” Gran held out a toasting fork, handle first.

“Absolutely.” Shelby leaned over to take it. To the bowl, she said, “Hey, Herman. Enjoying the heat?”

Gran laughed. “That’s the graham crackers.”

“What was I thinking?” Shelby asked, and got an elbow from Krista, who smothered a laugh.

“Silly girl.” Gran pulled the towel back, selected two specimens that apparently passed her quality control standards, and held them out, along with a Hershey’s bar. “You know the drill, right?”

“Five years in Girl Scouts, thank you very much.” She accepted the ingredients and loaded a couple of marshmallows onto the fork. “So, did everybody make it down to the party?”

“Everyone but Gramps,” Krista said matter-of-factly.

Shelby winced. “Sorry.” She’d meant to fish a little on Foster, not hit a sore spot. She hadn’t even officially met Gran’s husband of more than four decades, but she’d seen Big Skye from a distance a few times, and had caught a reassuring glimpse of him and Gran sitting on their front-porch rockers, holding hands and watching the sunset.

“Don’t tiptoe around it on my account,” Gran said, nibbling on the corner of a cracker. “I love my Arthur dearly, but Lord, he is
stubborn
. It’s not that he wants to go back to running cattle, but he can’t bring himself to accept the dudes, either. He just wants to ride around the upper pastures, pretending that nothing’s changed and he’s not getting older.”

Krista pulled her in for a hug and kissed her cheek. “You’re not getting older, you’re getting better, both of you.” After a moment, she said, “Speaking of family members you’d occasionally like to strangle, I talked to Mom today.”

Gran rolled her eyes. “And how are things on the
Rambling Rose
?”

“That’s my parents’ RV,” Krista told Shelby. “My mom’s name is Rose, and they’re rambling, for sure. Right now they’re in Niagara Falls, on the Canadian side.”

Gran frowned. “I thought they were headed for Virginia Beach.”

“I guess they took a detour? Some famous chef or another is doing a guest stint in Niagara, and Mom just had to be there.”

“What is it this time,” Gran grumbled. “French? Indian?”

“Pastries.”

The older woman made a sound that could only be described as a growl.

“Anyway,” Krista hurried on, “Dad sounded like he was having a good time. He talked his way into one of the hydroelectric plants and got a behind-the-scenes tour.”

“I bet he loved that.” To Shelby, Gran said, “My Eddie was only a cattleman because this is a family ranch, but he’s really an engineer at heart. When he was little, he used to take things apart to see how they worked. Most of the time he even put them back together properly.”

Shelby smiled. “He sounds like a neat guy. I’d like to meet him.” Not the least because Gran had confided that her son had stuttered as a child, and had gone virtually silent for a time.

“They mentioned maybe heading this way for Christmas,” Krista said, “but I have a feeling they’ll wind up going south rather than trying to get through the weather.”

Shelby and her slowly thawing feet wouldn’t blame them. Summer in Wyoming was gorgeous, but she didn’t want to be here come winter. Pretty was one thing. Snowed in for six months with a limited number of people and spotty FedEx was another.

“Pastries, huh?” Gran muttered.

Krista nodded. “Yep. And they’re having a tacky contest.”

“A what?”

“Tacky contest. I guess parts of Niagara are wall-to-wall souvenir shops, so they decided to see which one of them could find the worst souvenir. Last I heard, the front runner was a ceramic tea set with a pair of breasts as the cream and sugar dishes, with nips on the lids to use as handles. I’m betting you can guess what the teapot is shaped like.”

“Krista Jane!” Gran said.

Shelby snicker-winced. “Ew. Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“That’s tacky.”

“Yep.”

“Well, look at it this way. It’ll make a heck of a regift for a Yankee swap somewhere down the line.”

“There’s that.”

They fell silent as Shelby pulled her toasting fork away from the heat and built her s’more. She tried to remember the last time she and her mom and her sister had hung out like this, chatting, and had to go way further back than she wanted to remember. And even then, there hadn’t been the same sort of amused affection, the kind that said family loved family, even when they made each other a little crazy. Maybe, as Foster had said, things were just different out here.

Sure enough, a moment later, Gran said, “So, what else made the tacky list?”

A
t
ten o’cloc
k the next morning, Shelby and Lizzie set out for the barn. The little purple boots slowed as they neared the barn, though, and Shelby could see her daughter’s anxiety notching up.

She hesitated, not sure what to do. Push it? Back off? Was this the battle she wanted to pick today?
Probably not
. So she stopped and knelt down in front of Lizzie so they were eye-to-eye. “Do you want to sit on the bench outside and read?”

That got an immediate nod.

Reminding herself that a few days ago that quick a response would’ve been cause for a major celebration, she stifled the spurt of disappointment. “Okay, but stay right there. Stace or I will come get you when it’s time to go to the arena.”

Lizzie headed for the bench without a backward glance.

Sighing, Shelby straightened and slapped some of the dust off her jeans, hoping she was doing the right thing this time and not just setting them both up for another fall.

The barn was cool and empty, save for a few horses in their stalls. Peering around, she called, “Stace?”

“She’s not here,” said a familiar deep voice, and Sassy’s door rolled open. A long, lean figure stepped out, wearing a black Stetson and making a silhouette that could’ve been labeled
cowboy
.

Shelby stopped dead in the middle of the aisle, hoping he couldn’t see her flush. “Oh. Hey, Foster.”

He studied her for a moment, then nodded. “Hey yourself. Change of plans.”

Her stomach shimmied. “No lesson?”

“Different trainer.”

“You?” The word headed for squeak territory.

“That okay?”

The short answer was “Heck, yeah.” The long one was . . . well, she didn’t know what it was. All she knew was that her palms were suddenly sweaty. “Sure. It’s fine. Um . . . thanks. I really appreciate it.”

He nodded and looked past her. “Where’s Lizzie?”

“Out front. She didn’t want to come in, and I didn’t push it.”

He nodded. “A good trainer learns to pick her battles.”

“She’s not a pet,” she said, her voice sharper than she’d intended. Blowing out a breath and forcing herself to level off, she added, “Sorry. I’m frustrated with her, which isn’t fair. And maybe I’m a little nervous about riding. It’s been a long time.”

“I haven’t lost a beginner yet, and I don’t intend to start with Gran’s new favorite assistant.” He gave her an up-and-down. “What are you, maybe a fourteen, fourteen and a half saddle?”

“I rode in a sixteen as a kid.”

“English and Western measure different.”

“Right. Then whatever you think is best.” She followed him into the tack room. “I want a helmet.”

“Good call, role model and all. Besides, it’s just smart riding.”

“You don’t wear one.”

“I do when I’m starting colts or riding hard and fast, but I’ll admit I get lazy when I’m on dude-herding duty.” He dug out one of the bicycle-type helmets and handed it over. “Adjusts in the back. See if that works.” He pulled a saddle off a wall rack, slung a thick saddle pad and another pad over the top of it, and then added a dark leather bridle that gleamed with silver accents and looked far more expensive than the rest. As he headed through the door, he glanced back to say, “Oh, and lose the belt.”

She followed him out. “Excuse me?”

He set the saddle down on its horn and patted one lean hip, indicating his empty belt loops. “A real backcountry cowboy stays away from anything that could get caught.”

“On what?”

“Branches. Saddles. Cow horns.”

She shuddered. “I thought I was just doing arena laps today.”

“The safer you start, the safer you stay. When you’re riding, it’s best not to wear anything that won’t break loose.” He plucked at his shirt. “Snap studs give. Buttons don’t.”

She suddenly found herself staring at the smooth, tanned skin at his throat, and the way it moved when he swallowed. Her flush had faded, but now it came back with a vengeance and settled in her lower belly, reminding her just how long it had been since she’d done any riding of the more intimate kind, or even seriously wanted to.

A really, really long time.

What were they talking about again? Oh, right. Safety. “What about Ty? He wears button shirts and a big, shiny belt.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You want to be a real cowboy or a TV rodeo wannabe?”

“Neither.” But she undid her belt and hung it on the wall, stifling a
boom-chicka-wa-wa
she didn’t think either of them could handle. Then she held out her hands and gave a showy twirl. “All set, boss?”

He didn’t even crack a smile. Just nodded. “All set. Let’s introduce you to your horse and get this show on the road.”

•   •   •

As Foster led the way to Loco’s stall, he knew he was in big trouble. Heck, he’d known it since this morning, when she was the first thing he thought of. Not Vader, who’d had his paws on the bed and a breakfast-hopeful look in his doggy eyes, or all the stuff he had piling up on his not-really-a-day-off list. Nope, he’d been thinking about a fancy piece of city woman who might be getting along okay at Mustang Ridge, but didn’t belong at a ranch long-term. No way, no how.

“Down here,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re going to be riding this guy.” He rolled open Loco’s door to reveal the chiseled bay gelding, whose coat had an extra bloom thanks to an early morning groom.

Her eyes widened. “He’s a rescue?”

He chuckled. “No. He’s Loco.”

“Really?”

“Nope. He’s lazy as a slug.” Actually, the gelding had plenty of get-up-and-go, but he knew how to take it down a few notches for a less experienced rider. Foster could’ve pulled almost any of the horses out of the dude string for the job, but there wasn’t another horse he trusted like he did this one, and he didn’t want anything to go wrong. Granted, you couldn’t guarantee anything when it came to horses, but Loco was as close to a guarantee as he could get. “Here.” He produced the butt end of a carrot and handed it to her. “Go ahead and make friends.”

“Thanks. Hey, Loco. Hi, Loco.” She held out the treat on her flattened palm, and the horse reached out, touched her with his nose, and whuffled for the carrot. When he took it, transferred it to his back molars, and started crunching away, she grinned up at Foster. “He’s a real gentleman, isn’t he?”

Something funny happened in the pit of his stomach. “Yeah. He’s a good guy.”
And so are you, so hold yourself together
.
You’re not going to make any moves on her.
She was there for her daughter, not to bag a cowboy, and didn’t need him panting after her. “You want to put him on the cross ties and get him tacked up?”

“Aye, Captain.”

He stood back and let her go through the motions, seeing how much she remembered, and not letting himself spend too much time dwelling on the
W
s stitched on the back pockets of her jeans. Loco enjoyed his second thorough grooming of the day, closing his eyes and practically snoozing in the aisle as she slicked off the dust he’d accumulated in a couple of hours in a fresh stall. Then she used a hoof pick to clean out his feet, handling herself with enough confidence to make Foster think she’d had more horse experience than she let on, or just had a real natural feel.

When she got to the tack, she made it through the saddle pads and saddle, but then faltered and looked over at him. “Um . . . help?”

“What’s wrong?”

She held out the rope girth. “Not enough buckles.”

“English is for sissies,” he said mildly, but took the girth and showed her how to feed the cinch straps through, around, and back through again, so they would tighten without binding. “Bridle?”

“That, I’ve got.” She fitted the fat snaffle bit into the gap behind the gelding’s front set of teeth, slipped the one-ear headstall in place, and buckled the throatlatch with plenty of room. She ran the reins through her hands. “This is nice leather.”

“It’s an oldie, but goodie.” He didn’t mention that he’d won it, along with his saddle, a truck, and a whole lot of other stuff. All part of a past he didn’t need to look back on.

When she had everything in place, she looked over at him. “Good to go?” At his nod, she held out the reins. “Will you hold him for me while I go get Lizzie?”

“I’ll get her. Meet us out in the arena.”

She looked startled, but after an almost imperceptible pause, nodded. “Okay, thanks.”

He was a little surprised, too. He didn’t have anything against kids—his nieces were cute little things, his nephews satisfyingly destructive, and some of the kids who came to the ranch turned out to be crack little riders—but for the most part, he kept his distance. Now, though, he headed out to the front of the barn with the sort of curiosity and low-grade anticipation that he usually felt when he was facing off opposite a new greenie—a combination of hoping that things wouldn’t get too rough and wondering how things were going to turn out.

Granted, Lizzie’s mom had a point; she wasn’t a greenie or a house pet. Still, he thought that maybe he could help. If nothing else, he was darn good at reading body language.

The little girl was sitting on the bench out front, kicking her legs and staring at her computer pad with what looked like total absorption. But when he came out of the barn, her shoulders hunched in a little, letting him know she’d seen him. Kind of like a mustang avoiding eye contact but flicking back an ear to say,
I know you’re watching me
.

“Lizzie?”

She hesitated, then looked up at him with the sort of semiinsulting blankness he associated with teenage greenhorns and was usually followed by “Yeah? What’s it to you?” or the ever-annoying “Whatever.” He didn’t think she meant it that way, though. Not when her shoulders hunched in even farther and her fingers tightened on the computer tablet.

“Your mom is taking Loco out to the arena. Come with me, and I’ll show you where you can sit and get the best view.” He made it an order, not a question.

She hesitated, then stood slowly, never taking her eyes off him. He didn’t stare back—that was predator behavior, and while she wasn’t prey, she sure acted like it.

Which got him thinking, and not in a good direction. Was she afraid of him? Afraid of men? Afraid of new things in general? More importantly, why? Her mother made it sound like it was just one of those things, a phase that some kids went through, especially ones who were shy to begin with. And the reading he’d done backed that up . . . but it also said that very rarely, cases of SM were brought on by trauma, and when they were, the cases were severe.

He glanced back to make sure she was following—she was, though from a distance—and led her through the barn instead of walking around. That didn’t seem to bother her, and she even glanced into Sassy’s stall on the way by.

Good sign,
he thought, and headed for the arena, where he put her in the covered judges’ stand they used for rodeoing and timed events. Then he turned his attention to her mother.

The city fancy—
Shelby
, he thought, not liking the nickname now that he’d gotten to know her a little, and gotten to respect what she was dealing with—stood near the mounting block talking softly to Loco, who had his head pressed flat against her chest while she stroked his face and fondled his ears.

For a second there, Foster seriously envied his horse.

Aware of Lizzie’s eyes suddenly locking on him, as if she had caught some of the vibe, he cleared his throat and said to Shelby, “You ready to ride?”

Shelby grinned. “I think I put him to sleep.”

“Looks like. Let’s wake him up and get some work out of him.”

He spent the next while coaching her through the process of checking her unfamiliar tack, then mounting up and guiding Loco through the series of exercises he usually used to evaluate the guests who claimed to already know how to ride. Unlike most of the guests he dealt with eight months of the year—where the beginners tended to grossly exaggerate their abilities and the experienced riders tended to underplay theirs for fear of being stuck with a bronc—Shelby was right about where he would’ve expected for someone who was getting back into the saddle after a couple of years of good lessons as a kid. And yeah, as he’d thought, she had a pretty good natural feel.

Hopefully that wouldn’t backfire, making Lizzie jealous rather than giving her courage. They’d have to play it by ear.

Once Shelby got a little accustomed to the idea of neck reining and stopped trying to sit like an English rider on the more chair-seated Western saddle, she did a fair job of guiding Loco through a simple pattern of walk, jog, and lope, with some halts that Foster threw in to show her how good the gelding’s emergency brakes could be. Not that she needed them, as Loco was being an angel—which was why, once upon a time, he’d made the big bucks.

Foster didn’t let himself admire her natural posture or soft seat except as a means to an end—
hello,
keep it professional
—and kept an equal eye on Lizzie, too, because that was the point of the whole exercise. Sitting up in the judges’ box, she seemed intent on her e-reader, lips pursed, fingers working to change pages at regular intervals. But her body was angled toward the arena, and once or twice he caught her looking over at Loco, following her mom’s ride.