Once Tempted (33 page)

Jim watched her and the horse walk away and gave a short shake of his head.

He turned to Carrie. “You’re going to be riding Major. He’s a super nice horse.”

“I’m sure of it.” Carrie’s tone was effusive, making up for Erica’s rudeness. “Thanks for getting the horses ready for us, Jim. And I’m sorry about my stepsister. She is a pretty good rider.”

“As long as Ward’s okay with the switch, no harm done.”

W
ARD
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EID
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booted feet rang along with their horses’ hooves on the drive as they walked up to the horse corral.

“Cooney may have to insert a stent into that cut to drain it,” Reid said.

The vet would be coming after he’d finished operating on the dog. “Maybe, maybe not. The wound looked pretty clean by the time you finished sewing it up. You did a good job,” Ward said.

“Thanks. I hope Frank and Carlos can find whatever cut him. I don’t want to play tailor again any time soon.”

With Sirrus and Rio huffing and snorting behind them, they walked in companionable silence. “So, you feel like taking the lead on this ride?”

Reid laughed. “That’s a good one. You mean so I can have the pleasure of riding with Brian and the delightful Erica? After yesterday’s extravagant display, do you really think she’s going to let you get away with hanging back with Carrie and Tess?”

Embarrassment washed over Ward. At the winery they’d visited, Erica had given “obvious” a whole new meaning. It hadn’t taken long for Ward to begin hoping the tasting room’s manager would think that Erica simply
couldn’t hold her alcohol, ignoring the fact that they were sipping the vineyard’s cabernet rather than seriously imbibing.

“Okay, Romeo,” he drawled. “Time to quiz the expert on women. So what’s with Erica’s nonstop giggling and hair flicking?”

“You left out the lip licking and the finger trailing down the V of her dress. Those are dandy, too.”

“Don’t remind me.” Ward gave a heartfelt groan. “She never did this stuff when we were engaged.”

Reid shrugged. “Never had to. She had you right where she wanted you, ready to walk down the aisle to happily ever after. Then something shinier must have caught her attention and she decided to go for it.”

“That would be the Silicon Valley techie. Where the hell is he when I need him?”

“My guess is that he slicked away.”

Ward laughed at the term. His laughter faded at his brother’s next words.

“Or she came to her senses and realized that you were pretty and shiny after all. A worthy pursuit. That video of you did show you at your silent cowboy best. It’s amazing what women will project onto an appealing male form.”

“You going to night school in female psychology? I thought you were more focused on the female physique.”

“Both are fascinating,” Reid replied easily. “Whatever Erica’s motivation, you, brother mine, are most definitely in her sights.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“I imagine it would be. And I feel really sorry for you. But not sorry enough to forgo the pleasure of riding next to your other woman—and, oh yeah, given Erica’s competitive personality, I’d have to posit that Tess may be yet another reason why Erica’s determined to show
you the love.” He laughed and shook his head. “Damn, I’m glad I’m not in your boots.”

“Fuck you,” Ward said mildly. “Someday all that smooth loverboy charm’s going to come back to haunt you. And when it happens, I’m going to be the one laughing my ass off.”

They’d reached the corral. Brian, Carrie, and Erica were already mounted. Ward’s gaze sought out Tess, finding her by the corral’s railing, talking to Jim. At the sound of their approach, her head turned in his direction. Her expression was a mix of pleasure and worry.

“All set?” he asked, wishing he could wrap his arms about her and kiss away her nervousness. At the end of their ride on Thursday, he’d thought she was gaining more confidence in Brocco and in herself.

“Oh, yes, I was just about to get on Brocco. Is the steer all right? It looked and sounded like he was in a lot of pain.”

“The cut was nasty,” Ward conceded. “But most of that bellowing was probably to tell us how insulted he was by my sitting on his head and Reid jabbing him repeatedly with a needle. No self-respecting steer will tolerate a double insult like that.”

“Then I guess it’s safe to say that steer possesses a healthy dose of self-respect.”

He smiled. “Yeah. So, we’re good to go?” His gaze swept over the corral. Brian and the women had walked their horses over to the water trough. But instead of Nate’s buckskin haunches standing between Major and Chili, he saw Ziggy’s white coat and silver tail.

“Why’s Erica on Ziggy, Jim?”

“I’m really sorry, Ward. Nothing I said seemed to convince her.”

He sighed. Christ, he didn’t want to deal with any bullshit this morning.

His silence gave Jim the wrong impression. “I know I
shouldn’t have switched horses for her, but she insisted you’d be fine with it.”

Of course. Why should Erica stop being a pain in the butt just because they were about to go for a trail ride, the activity she’d lobbied for? Jim shouldn’t have given in, but chewing him out wouldn’t help matters.

“Don’t worry about it this time,” he said. “But next time you’re confronted by a mouthy guest, stand your ground. Be polite but firm.”

“Don’t look now, but here comes the mouthy guest in question,” Reid said.

After offering Ziggy a drink, she had steered him away from the trough. Spotting Ward and Reid, her smile widened and she nudged her mount toward them with her boot heels.

“Tell me what happened,” Ward asked Jim.

The younger man raised his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “No clue. She took a disliking to Nate. Decided he was a beginner horse.”

“Jim did his best to convince her that she should ride Nate, Ward.” Tess spoke in a quick rush since Erica was closing in on them.

“I know you’re not to blame, Jim,” he said.

Okay, he thought assessing the situation. So Erica would be riding Ziggy. He was a good horse, but it was spring and sometimes even the most seasoned horses succumbed to spring fever. They got just a little jumpier and friskier. His mother liked to use the term “fizzy.” Ward had chosen Nate for Erica because he’d been ridden a number of times during the week and had been rock solid on each outing.

Though he was tempted to haul Erica off Ziggy’s back and tell her it was Nate or nothing, he had a hunch she’d figure out a way to make that backfire just to score a point, such as listing every trail ride they’d ever been on together. He had no desire to listen to such a recitation.
Besides, a confrontation would only embarrass everyone. And if they didn’t head out soon, they’d be late for Carrie’s meeting with George Reich, which had been scheduled for before the lunch crowd descended.

Erica reined Ziggy to a halt in front of them. Her smile was all satisfaction.

He got right to the point. “We assign horses to riders here for a reason, Erica.”

“Don’t be silly, Ward. You’ve seen me ride. I know what I’m doing on a horse.”

Erica was an okay rider, but, like many others, her opinion of her abilities was inflated.

Stacy Westfall she was not.

It wasn’t the first time they’d dealt with guests who thought they were hot shit in the saddle when, in fact, they were dried turds. He would simply have to control the environment as much as possible by making their stints at a lope short and sweet. If Erica complained even once, he’d whip out his bandana and gag her.

Turning his back on Erica, he said to Tess, “Let’s get you into the saddle. Brocco was out on the trail yesterday so the stirrups may need to be adjusted. If you’ll hold Rio, Jim, I’ll help Tess mount.”

He gave Rio’s reins to Jim, and he and Tess walked over to where Brocco was standing.

Tess waited while he unfastened Brocco’s halter and checked the cinch.

“Ready?” he asked.

He couldn’t point to the moment when touching Tess or getting a smile from her had become a key means to lifting his spirits or beating back the lousiness of a day, but he accepted the power she now wielded. Even now, just catching the scent of her shampoo as he stepped closer made him happy. So happy that he felt a smile tug the corners of his mouth.

“I guess so.” She patted Brocco’s neck—the gesture
showed him he’d been right in thinking her confidence around horses was growing—and nodded. He grabbed her bent jeaned leg—his smile growing—and boosted her up. She’d gotten smoother about settling into the saddle. Yeah, he was damned proud of her. She found the stirrups, and he checked their length.

“They actually look good. How do they feel?” he asked.

“Okay—”

Whatever else Tess had planned to say was cut off. “Wow. I didn’t realize you offered the deluxe treatment, Ward. A leg up and stirrups checked? Isn’t the mounting block good enough for Tess?”

He glanced up from his position in front of Brocco’s large diamond-shaped head. Erica was smiling at him, but even from this distance he detected the tension behind the effort. If she forced the smile any more it might crack.

“Any complaints, take it up with the owners,” Ward replied. After making sure that Tess was holding the reins properly in her right hand, he walked back to Jim, who passed him Rio’s.

“Thanks, Jim. We’ll be back in a couple. You and Quinn taking the guests on the eleven-o’clock ride?”

“Yeah. It’s not a big group, just twelve riders. We’ll probably take the lake trail,” he said, referring to the lake that was fed by Silver Creek and formed part of the forest preserve.

Ward swung himself into the saddle. “Good day for it. Have fun. Reid and I will take care of the horses after we come back.”

Jim nodded and escaped to the sanity of the horse barn.

Reid was already astride Sirrus. “So, Erica and Brian, you’re going to ride with me. We’ll be taking some excursions on connecting trails to do some loping. When
we feel like walking we’ll rejoin Carrie, Tess, and my geriatric older brother.”

Ward looked at Reid to signal his thanks but his brother already had Sirrus heading out of the courtyard at a brisk walk.

The morning suddenly got a whole lot better from Ward’s point of view. “All right,” he said with a smile. “Let’s ride.”

He was going to have to think of a way to repay Reid when this ride was over, Ward decided. For all of Reid’s razzing over how determined Erica would be to remain in Ward’s company during the ride, his brother was doing an outstanding job blocking her every attempt, taking full advantage of the number of trails that crisscrossed one another over the ranch’s rolling hills. After having publicly boasted of how she longed to ride at a faster pace, Erica couldn’t exactly protest whenever he suggested they peel off on a side trail to trot or lope.

And when the five of them were together, it was easy for Ward to keep his attention primarily fixed on Carrie and Tess. The two of them were clearly enjoying themselves. Carrie had been extolling the beauty of the day—easy to do with the spring sunshine warming the air and scenting it with the fragrant notes of fresh green grass and pine. For the first time since their arrival, Carrie’s enthusiastic comments drowned out Erica’s, saving Ward from having to fend her off.

Still, he grinned in relief when once again Brian and Erica followed Reid down a trail that crossed Silver Creek, the distant sounds of their hooves on the wooden bridge music to his ears.

Carrie, chattering away with Tess, didn’t even notice. “I fell in love with this place the summer I came to visit
Brian. My sophomore year in college. Brian and you were juniors, right, Ward?”

“Yeah.”

“Adele and Daniel had been giving Brian gainful employment since high school. But just because they’d opened their hearts to Brian didn’t mean that they had to open their home to some girl from Greenwich, Connecticut.”

“I did vouch for how cute you were, Carrie.”

“I cannot thank you enough. Because who knows whether I’d have gone into astrophysics—I’d been thinking of majoring in math—if I hadn’t come out to Silver Creek and lain in the meadow with Brian. We spent hours staring up at all the stars glittering down on us. No houses anywhere, no lights, just those points of light. It got me to imagining what might lie beyond.”

“That’s what you were doing with Brian?” Ward teased. “Reid and I were always sure you two were exploring far more than the celestial heavens.”

Carrie giggled, blushing under the hat she’d borrowed from Quinn. “We weren’t always stargazing,” she conceded. “But this place is magical. I just don’t know anything like it back east. Do you, Tess?”

“Certainly not near Queens, New York, I don’t.”

“So do you feel this way, too—this incredible awe at being surrounded by so much nature? Has it made you fall in love?”

Unlike Carrie, Tess wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat. As soon as Ward understood where Carrie’s question was leading, he slowed Rio’s walk further to observe her reaction.

Her laughter sounded a bit forced, as colored with embarrassment as her cheeks. Her response betrayed an equal self-consciousness.

“In love?” Her gaze darted to the right, connecting with his, then ricocheted back to stare fixedly between
Brocco’s cocked ears. “I—uh, well, I’m a city girl through and through.”