Summer at Mustang Ridge (5 page)

Flushing, she stepped away. “I should go.”

“Good idea,” he said, so levelly that she couldn’t tell whether he meant she should get out ahead of the singles, or she should get away from him while the getting was good. Either way, she turned tail and slipped out the back, clutching her basket of muffins and feeling like she’d made a narrow escape. Because whether he was a sweetie or a grump didn’t change the fact that she was at Mustang Ridge for a very specific purpose, and it wasn’t to hook up.
Okay, let’s institute Rule Number Twelve,
she thought.
No summer fling, not even with a hot cowboy.

Hopefully, she would do a better job of following Rule Twelve than Lizzie had done with Rule Eleven.

B
y
Thursday afternoon, Shelby had more or less settled into the routine—up at four to help with the day’s baking and breakfast, a few hours with Lizzie, back to the kitchen for lunch, and then a couple of hours free before the dinner rush. Gran had been right about it being a full day, but it still worked out to fewer hours than her regular job plus commuting and cooking, and gave her more time with Lizzie. Add in the scenery and the ranch atmosphere, and it felt like a vacation more than a job.

So when Gran told her to take off midday on Thursday, she hesitated. “Are you sure? We can go on Saturday, instead.” Most of the staffers had changeover day to themselves.

“And miss having Lizzie all prepared for tomorrow? Shame on you.”

“But you said yourself that the riders are going to be starving when they get back.” The wranglers and dudes had carried picnic lunches with them for the daylong ride up to the high pasture. Shelby and Lizzie had waved them off just after breakfast, wearing raincoats against a chilly drizzle that had turned everything gray and misty. Krista and the wranglers had worked the crowd until thirty-six horse and rider pairs and three rangy farm dogs were strung out along the trail leading up to the ridgeline, disappearing into the mist. Shelby had “oohed” and “aahed” and taken pictures, but the little images on her phone hadn’t come close to capturing the moment, which had instantly won a place on her internal top-twenty list.

Learning to appreciate the Wild West thing didn’t mean she was ready to give up Starbucks and manicures permanently, though, which was part of why she was feeling guilty about playing hooky to drive into town. Rumor had it there was a coffee shop that made a half-decent latte.

“We’ll be fine,” Gran assured her. “Herman and I will hold down the fort until you get back. We can always holler for the Terrible Ts if we fall behind.”

Shelby grinned. Tipper and Topper weren’t exactly terrible, but they were pretty low in the initiative department and tended to hang out and gossip with anyone in earshot unless given direct orders. And those orders needed to be simple and explicit, as she’d found out the hard way after asking Tipper to watch a white sauce, only to have her closely scrutinize it as it boiled over onto the stove.

“We’ve got dinner handled,” Gran said firmly. “Go do Mom stuff.”

Shelby went, but all during the half-hour drive into town, she kept second-guessing herself, feeling guilty about taking the time off when Krista and Gran were giving them so much already. Until, that is, she pulled into Bootsie’s Saddlery, and Lizzie’s eyes lit. All week, she’d been practically a ghost, either hanging out in the cabin or sitting in a corner of the kitchen, jacked into her gadgets, playing or reading in silence. Now, though, she sat up straight and reached for the door handle before they were even parked.

Seven days driving cross-country: hundreds of dollars. One summer sabbatical: thousands. Your child’s expression when she sees a two-story-tall plastic boot out in front of a log cabin? Priceless
. Shelby didn’t care, though. She would totally take what she could get.

“Okay, kiddo. You ready to get some riding gear so you’re all ready for your lesson tomorrow?” Shelby waited a ten-count, trying to balance the awkwardness of the pause—and the anxiety it would provoke in Lizzie—against the hope that the tack store might be enough incentive to get her the “yes” nod that was one of the last real ways that her daughter communicated, and then only rarely these days.

Some SM kids chattered away using notes and texts, while others developed a vocabulary of gestures and body language. Ninety-nine point nine-nine-something percent of them interacted nonverbally with their family members and even outsiders. Lizzie, though, was one of the tiny fraction that didn’t. She wasn’t autistic, wasn’t learning disabled. She was just . . . silent. And the treatments that usually worked with SM kids hadn’t made a dent.

Refusing to let her grin falter when her daughter just kept staring out the window, Shelby undid her seat belt and opened the door. “Come on, then. I bet they’ve got a pair of boots and a helmet with your name on them!”

The interior was just as wonderfully kitschy as the outside, with spinning racks of silver-accented belts, glass cases of huge, blinged-out buckles, rows of gleaming leather boots, and a paint-chip wall of hats at the back. Racks held peacock-hued shirts with snap studs, matching his and hers, and four-sided shelves offered every version of Wrangler jean known to mankind. Short staircases on either side led to rooms full of tooled saddles, horse blankets, and grooming accessories, and the air smelled of leather and new clothes.

Shelby stopped just inside the door and took a deep breath. It wasn’t exactly her normal territory, but shopping was shopping, and she knew how to do that with some serious style. And with a latte buzzing through her system, she was good to go. “So, kiddo, where do you want to start?”

Lizzie stood frozen in the doorway, overwhelmed.

A dark-haired twenty-something came toward them, wearing crisp blue Wranglers, a snap-studded blue shirt, and the same kind of “I know what I’m doing” swagger worn by the wranglers up at Mustang Ridge. She dimpled at them. “Can I help you ladies?”

“Did the deer-in-headlights paralysis give us away as newbies?”

The dimples got deeper. “That, and Stace asked me to keep an eye out for you. Shelby and Lizzie, right?”

“Yep,” Shelby said.
And we’re a long way from home.
Back in Boston she barely knew the people in the apartments on either side of her and rarely saw the same employee twice at the big stores they frequented. Telling herself it was sweet, not creepy, that Lizzie’s new instructor-to-be had called ahead, she added, “Lizzie here is starting her riding lessons tomorrow, and Stace gave me a list of basics she’d like us to get—helmet, heeled boots, a few grooming supplies, that sort of thing.”

Shelby had met briefly with the ranch’s only full-time female wrangler—who called herself a cowboy, claiming that the word “cowgirl” was only for sissies these days—and had liked her immediately. Plump and pretty, with dark hair and an easy smile, Stace had offered some good theories about a lesson plan for Lizzie, and ways to tie it into the more traditional SM therapies. For starters, she had suggested getting Lizzie some of her own equipment so she’d have a sense of ownership and something specific to take care of in the barn. That had made good sense to Shelby . . . and she was forced to admit that she needed some new clothes for herself as well. Three pairs of stretchy black pants and city boots weren’t going to cut it at Mustang Ridge for much longer. She had brought other clothes, but they were even fussier. And as the days got pretty hot—even hotter in the kitchen—not appropriate for day-to-day life at the ranch.

“Right this way.” The clerk turned and headed deeper into the store, gesturing for them to follow. Over her shoulder, she said, “I’m Torie, by the way. How about we start with a brain bucket?”

“A . . . right. Helmet. Lead on.”

Torie brought them to a side room that had crash helmets displayed on the walls, with boxes stacked beneath. They ranged from the velvet-covered kind Shelby remembered from her childhood, all the way to shiny composite versions that looked more like mountain biking gear. “So helmets aren’t uncool out here in the Wild West? I haven’t seen anybody wearing them at the ranch.”

The younger woman started pulling boxes off the stacks. “Then there must not be any other kids there this week.”

“No. It’s singles week.”

“Oy.”

“You’re telling me.” Though to be fair, aside from the public decompression of a hot-and-heavy, forty-eight-hour-old “relationship” late Monday and a hair-pulling squabble over who had won a romantic private dinner for two on Wednesday, things had been relatively quiet on the guest front. Shelby had ducked a couple of invitations, soothed some hurt feelings, and mostly stayed out of the way.

“Well,” Torie said, “helmets are required at Mustang Ridge if you’re under eighteen or riding in a speed event, which is more than a lot of ranches do. But if you ask me, anybody who throws a leg over a horse’s back should wear an approved helmet like this one, one hundred percent of the time.” She pulled one of the bike-type helmets out of a box, brushed Lizzie’s hair back from her face, and settled it gently in place. “Hm. That’s not the right shape for you, is it, Lizzie? Looks like you’re not really an oval kind of gal. We’ll try a manufacturer who swings round.”

She didn’t seem curious about Lizzie’s lack of response, suggesting that Stace had filled her in. For a change, Shelby was grateful. Back home, the gossip got them sidelong looks, pity, and people who talked slow and loud. Here, it got Lizzie the space and lack of pressure she needed.

“How about this one?” Torie asked, pulling out another contender and tucking Lizzie into it. The helmet was a big, round shell in a blah beige color, like an overturned salad bowl. There was no visor or anything, just an adjustable nylon harness that fastened under her chin and a wheel at the back that snugged it onto her head.

Torie fiddled with the adjustments and the webbed harness, buckled Lizzie securely into the contraption, and turned her to face Shelby. “What does Mom think?”

Mom thinks it makes her look like a roll-on deodorant
. “Is it super safe?”

“Crash-tested and approved with all the alphabet soup agencies.” The younger woman winked, apparently reading her mind, or close to it. “Don’t worry, finding the perfect helmet cover is the fun part. We’re just getting the fit right first. Once you’ve got a shell, you can put everything from a Western hat to a jockey’s polka dots on it. Better yet, you can switch out different styles when you get bored.”

“Oh, well, in that case, I love it.” Kneeling down in front of Lizzie and getting nice and close to her, so she’d be blocking out the overwhelming peripherals, Shelby said, “How does it feel, kiddo? Is it comfortable?”

Because it was important, she made herself wait out the response this time, zipping the urge to fill the silence with background babble. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Lizzie gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Relief washed through Shelby, and she felt giddier than the moment deserved, maybe, but still. “Do you want to pick out a cover for it?”

And, wonder of wonders, she got another nod, this one faster and more definite. And for a second, she saw a hint of the old Lizzie in those big brown eyes.

Forcing herself not to overreact and scare her kid back into hiding, she kissed her cheek. “Good job. Let’s see what Miss Torie has for us.”

A fun fifteen minutes later, they settled on two helmet covers: a straw hat like the ones the wranglers wore, and a stretchy pink nylon cover that made the helmet look like a horse’s head, with pricked ears, a yarn mane, big cartoon eyes, and nostrils painted on the visor. The whole effect was one of a slightly startled
My Pretty Pony
, or maybe
Puff the Magic Dragon
. Which was still way better than a roll-on.

“Boots next,” Torie declared, “then grooming supplies. And then how about something for you, Mom?”

“Jeans and a few shirts, definitely, then maybe a pair of boots.”

“Style or comfort first?”

“Both?”

“Ariat,” Torie decided. “Justin or Abilene might work for you, too, but let’s start with the Ariats, as they have killer arch support.”

“Got anything on sale?”

“Ah, a woman after my own heart. We’ll get you hooked up.”

Torie was as good as her word, supplying them both with cowboy clothes and all the trimmings, to the point that it was getting on to dinner by the time Shelby and Lizzie emerged from Bootsie’s, hauling bags and feeling all Westerny.

Lizzie would’ve done the Easter Bunny proud in a sparkly pink belt, purple kid-size boots that Torie assured them would be great for riding, and a straw hat with a bright pink band. Shelby, on the other hand, had kept it pretty subdued on the theory that she was already a poser for wearing cowboy clothes, and adding bling would make it worse. But although she was outside her comfort zone, she had to admit it . . . her new boots felt
good
. Pointy toes aside, there was something about walking along with her heels doing a little
click-thud
, and the way they made her wiggle more than she normally would. Or maybe that was the jeans. Torie had stuffed her into a pair of stretchy Wranglers that were seemingly imbued with five percent spandex and five percent magic, because that was the only way her butt could possibly look like that.

“When in Wyoming,” she said, and grinned down at Lizzie.

Her daughter stopped dead and grabbed her hand so suddenly that she looked around, wondering what had scared her. It took a moment for her to realize that she was tugging for her mom to lean down.

Shelby squatted. “What is it, baby?”

Lizzie leaned in and kissed her cheek.

•   •   •

Friday morning dawned gray and drizzly, getting some grumbles from the guests and making Shelby worry that Lizzie’s evening lesson would wind up canceled. By lunchtime, though, the sun broke through in a glorious double rainbow that had to be a sign of good things to come.

At six thirty that evening, with the end-of-the-week barbecue well under way and Tipper and Topper minding the picnic tables down by the lakeshore, Gran pointed at Shelby, who was washing pots. “You’re done for the week. No arguments. It’s lesson time. Stace is waiting for you and Lizzie.”