Authors: Cerian Hebert
Chapter 2
“Ignore him,” Rio whispered to herself as she clipped the lead onto Fleur’s halter and led the tall mare out into the aisle. She’d have to pass him again as he stood in the door to the barn talking to Sadie.
Something about the man made her nervous, gave her the same undeniable feeling from last night at the cabin, when she thought someone watched her.
She certainly wouldn’t have been surprised if this man had been the one lying in wait. He’d been giving her a hard stare since they met. Staying cool under his scrutiny would be a challenge.
With her luck he’d be around more to check up on her. He’d studied her with nothing but pure distrust. She had seen that expression plenty of times before and no doubt she’d see it again. Living on the road, she’d become accustomed to it.
He stood aside and let her pass as she led the mare outside. Although he and Sadie were deep in conversation, his attention remained glued on her.
He stayed until all the horses were in their paddocks and she began mucking the stalls in the barn. Only then did he and Sadie return to the house. To talk more? Was he privately warning his aunt he’d discovered her new employee had broken in and been squatting in his cabin? Was he telling Sadie to call the cops or get rid of her?
“I’ll leave after the next paycheck,” she muttered and hauled a bale of wood shavings from the storage room next to the tack room. She still had plenty of time to head down to Texas or Arizona. If she paid more than usual, she could ride all the way down in relative comfort and start over again.
This time she’d be more careful. No more breaking into buildings and settling down like some young, dreamy-eyed girl playing house. What on earth had possessed her to become more comfortable here when she never had before?
Because she liked it here.
A lot.
She liked Sadie; she liked working with the horses. She’d let herself become comfortable because she wanted to settle. Every other time she stayed one step ahead of herself, always thinking of her next destination, anticipating the road with antsy feet.
A roamer by nature, this urge to finally grow roots scared the hell out of her. The best way to stop these ridiculous ideas was to leave.
For the rest of the morning she kept her mind focused on her next move. Texas, definitely. Maybe, now she had a little experience under her belt, she could find another horse farm to work at. There were plenty of those down in Texas. Not only would she be warm, she’d be more careful not to become attached the way she had here.
“Rio,” Sadie called from the barn door.
Propping the pitchfork against the wall, Rio walked out of the stall, preparing for the worst. Her heart thumped in her chest. So, the time had come.
Firing time
. For some reason the thought crushed her. She loved it here, but she’d screwed up for sure, thinking she’d be able to stay this long in the cabin without being caught.
“I’m here,” she replied, struggling to keep her voice steady.
A smile brightened Sadie’s face. The same smile she always had for Rio. She didn’t appear to have heard disturbing news.
“I’m getting you some help,” Sadie announced. “And I have a proposition for you.”
Rio narrowed her eyes and frowned. So, she could keep her job. Still, she didn’t want any propositions to hold her here. She wanted to leave New Hampshire as soon as possible, without any hassles. But she couldn’t very well explain to Sadie why she wanted to, needed to leave. That would invite too many questions. The fewer the questions she had to answer the better. Silently she damned herself for becoming comfortable here, allowing herself to enjoy working for Sadie.
“Oh yeah?” She forced her voice to remain casual, against her better judgement curious about what Sadie had in mind.
“Travis’s daughter Jessa will be working here on weekends and two days a week. As a child she spent every moment she could here, had a lot of interest in horses. The past half dozen or so years have been really tough on her.” Sadie’s brows knit with concern. “Her dad is worried about her. Maybe this will keep her focused on something more constructive.”
“How old is she?”
Sadie tapped her chin with her finger, her gaze swinging upward. “Oh let’s see, I think she’s nearly sixteen.”
“Wow, Travis doesn’t seem old enough to have a teenage daughter.”
Sadie frowned thoughtfully. “He was still in high school when Jessa was born. Kids don’t think about their actions. I have to say he really stepped up to the plate right away and accepted his responsibilities as a father.”
“What about her mother?”
Sadie grimaced. “That one. She took off on them when Jessa was about eight. Never said goodbye, has never been in touch with them. Married some man before the ink dried on the divorce papers. Into real estate out in Vegas. She calls her folks on occasion, mostly when she’s asking for money.”
Rio wrapped her arms around herself, pressing her lips together tightly to keep from saying anything.
Lucky kid.
Better to have the mother desert them than have her make her child’s life a living hell. At least Jessa had a father who loved her. Took care of her. More than Rio ever had.
Quickly she shrugged away the bitterness. She couldn’t let herself think that way. Not fair to the kid and not fair to Travis. Rio hated when she let her bitterness swell inside her. There were times when she felt like it would explode and kill her with its toxicity. She could only stuff it away, not let it rule her.
Finally, she replied, “Wow, poor kid. Must be a tough thing to live with.” Rio had no plans on giving up any information on her own past, but she could certainly sympathize with this girl.
“And then her dad went to war. She lived with her aunt and uncle for over a year while he was deployed. In fact, he arrived in the States not two weeks ago and in to town last week. I pray things will settle down for both of them. They have to get to know each other again, and there’s lots of healing to be done.”
“I can imagine,” Rio said. “Well, I hope things work out for them both. Now what about your proposition?”
Sadie clapped her hands, her face transforming from a scowl to a bright smile. “That’s right. Well, at least there’s the good news to follow the bad. Here it is. My doctor told me my riding days are over. This danged hip won’t have any more of it. It kills me to have to stop, since I’ve been riding for as long as I can remember. Those are the breaks. Growing old stinks. I’ve been fighting it for long enough. I want you to ride Dante for me. Show him next year.”
Rio’s heart leapt in her chest. “What?” She couldn’t possibly have heard the words correctly.
“Don’t look so surprised. You have a knack with horses. I’ve seen you with him, he’s as fond of you as he is with me, and he doesn’t take a shine to too many people. Even my last girl couldn’t lead him, much less anything else. I’ve seen you on Fleur and Barnaby. I know you haven’t had much experience. There’s something in you more valuable. Raw talent.”
Before she could help it, Rio felt a wash of excitement run through, starting in her heart and heading for each limb before she could attempt to rein it in. She’d refused to let herself become too attached to this kind of emotion. She’d loved the opportunities to exercise Sadie’s horses. Wanting more would mean wanting to stay longer, though. That had never been in the cards.
“Dante deserves someone with experience. Sadie, you’d be wasting him on me.”
“Nonsense. Everyone has to start somewhere. I may not be able to ride but I still know how to train. This big ole arena will let you ride all winter long, prepare you for the spring show season.”
Sadie’s suggestion pushed Rio’s panic button. “Sadie, I don’t know if I’ll be here much longer,” she blurted out before she had a chance to think about it, or the consequences of giving away her plans to her boss.
“What are you talking about? Aren’t you happy here?”
As quickly as she’d announced her thoughts on leaving, the answer came into Rio’s head before she had a chance to think it through.
Yes. I’m happy here.
She’d been happier here this summer than any place she’d been. Ever.
That wasn’t the point. And now Sadie stared at her with hurt written all over her face. Rio blamed herself for it.
“I love it here, I really do. It’s been a fabulous summer and I couldn’t be more grateful to you for letting me have this chance. But I have to move on. Soon. I’ll wait until you find a replacement. I always go south in the winter.”
Sadie’s jaw tensed and her eyes narrowed, and there was a glint there. A fighting glint Rio recognized.
“You’re staying right where you are, young lady.”
“Where are you, Jessa?”
Travis paced the living room, keeping his attention out the windows at the view of the driveway. He’d called her friend’s house an hour ago and had been assured Jessa had left already. A while ago. Tina only lived a quarter mile up the road. Jessa had made the walk a thousand times or more. It shouldn’t have taken her more than fifteen minutes, tops.
This was becoming more and more typical of her behavior and Travis found it harder to stave off the bitterness he felt toward Laura for being the catalyst to Jessa’s conduct. Jessa had been like the sun when the family had been together, a bright, happy child who loved to dance and sing and play.
Then Laura took off, leaving only a note to say she couldn’t deal with being a wife and a mother when no one was around to help her. She didn’t even bother saying goodbye, not to him, not to Jessa. She left it to him to try to explain why her mother wasn’t a part of their lives anymore, and to pick up the pieces of their broken family, while his wife found another man who could give her the life she really wanted.
In all the years since Laura’s abandonment, the only contact they’d had was through his ex-mother-in-law, Daphne Montague, and the lawyer who handled the divorce proceedings. After Laura walked out she let others handle her business with Travis. Last he’d heard, she and husband number two lived somewhere in Nevada. Doing what, he didn’t know. He wouldn’t care, except for what Jessa had been dealing with.
His deployment to Afghanistan hadn’t helped. No matter how he explained it, no matter how much his sister and brother-in-law tried to comfort her and make her a part of their family, to Jessa it had been one more parent abandoning her. And Travis paid the price. Winning his way back into his daughter’s life, repairing the hurt she’d suffered, was his first priority.
Right now she didn’t want to be helped, yet she didn’t have a choice. Nighttime began to creep in, and as darkness fell, worry gnawed at his head and heart. No matter how much independence Jessa wanted, he couldn’t let her put herself in harm’s way.
Travis grabbed his jacket and car keys and headed out to his truck.
He loved their rural and quiet neighborhood. On the stretch between his house and where Jessa’s friend Tina lived, there were only two other houses, well separated by expanses of woods and fields. If she wasn’t still walking, then she had to have stopped at one of the neighbor’s houses.
First he drove the length between his house and her friend’s. She was nowhere in sight. Beyond Tina’s house there wouldn’t be anything of interest until their road came out at an intersection of a main road, with a convenience store and gas station there. Jessa wouldn’t hike the nearly two miles.
Travis swung the car around and headed to his place. He’d slowed when he passed the first driveway. The house belonged to an elderly couple. No lights were on. Which left the other neighbor.
Travis gritted his teeth. In the past Jessa hadn’t shown any interest in them, much to his relief, but the more rebellious she became the bigger chance the Bartlett kids might attract her attention, and appeal to any craving to walk on the wild side.
He turned the truck into the drive and pulled up in front of the sprawling ranch style home. Before he got out, he studied the building. Mustard yellow with black trim and bare cement stairs. No lawn to speak of. That wouldn’t have mattered, because the yard resembled more of a junkyard, filled with several dirt bikes and four wheelers. Bicycles where discarded across the yard and two cars parked next to the house, all their tires flat, like they’d been sitting there for several years.
If the five kids were racing around the yard and through the woods, raising hell, the chaotic scene would be complete.
The yard was empty of all the Bartletts, which meant he’d have to go knock on the door. For a long moment he sat in his truck and stared, wondering if Jessa could really be hanging out there. The old Jessa wouldn’t be. The new Jessa might. He didn’t know if he should be angry or just plain sad.
Afraid of what he might find, yet determined to get it over with, Travis climbed out of his truck and strode to the house. From the front steps he could hear the chaos inside. Three boys and two girls, ranging in age from nineteen down to seven lived within these walls, each one wilder than the next. As far as he knew both parents were home at night. They did precious little to rein their children in. He knocked on the door, then again before anyone answered. The boy who yanked the door open appeared anywhere between Jessa’s age and late teens, tall and lanky, hair too long, one brow cocked arrogantly.
“Yeah?”
“I was wondering if my daughter, Jessa Lithgow, was here.”
“Yeah, she’s with my sister. Hold on.”
Instead of going up to find her, the boy yelled at the top of his lungs. “Brandy!”
He had to yell two more times before he received a response, a door opening somewhere and someone shouting a reply.
“What?”
“Jessa’s dad is here for her.” Without another word, the boy shot past him, jumping off the porch and onto the bare ground below. He headed for one of the dirt bikes, leaving Travis to stand by himself in the doorway. In another few minutes a girl walked from the hallway and leaned over the wrought iron railing from the landing above the foyer. She could’ve been Jessa’s age, but because of her heavy makeup and teased hair, Travis couldn’t be sure. Her low-cut sweater showed off more than it hid.