A Love Like Ours Page 9

  “The short answer is yes.”

  “I’ve never heard of a horse like that.”

  “Me either. But you and I both know that each horse is unique.” Many of the great Thoroughbreds possessed one-of-a-kind foibles. “I suspect that Silver Leaf prefers the ladies.”

  The sound of a whinny carried past them on a rush of wind that smelled like cut grass and possibilities. Heavy awareness pulled between them, almost tangibly.

  “You really haven’t changed much,” he stated.

  He was referencing all the crazy schemes she’d chased as a girl and repeating one of the things he’d said during their ill-fated phone conversation. “And?” She placed her hands on her hips and purposely kept her tone and expression light. “Are you going to try to foist me off on another trainer again today?”

  “Foist? Is that a word?”

  “It’s a word. Are you? Going to try to foist me off?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Not yet, anyway. It’s only ten thirty in the morning. I still have time.”

  Had he just made a little . . . joke?

  He started off in the direction of the barn.

  Lyndie fell into step beside him. She could clearly sense the mass of his body next to hers—the weight of him, his size, the solidity and power in his muscles.

  It came back to her forcefully, how many times they’d walked just like this as children, next to each other. Day after day. Year after year. She’d always hurried along beside him, chattering about their next adventure. She’d convinced him once that it was up to the two of them to find the Dunham family’s lost cat. Another time, she’d insisted that they ride their bikes to the tire swing hanging from the old pecan tree to make sure that trolls hadn’t taken up residence.

  Jake had always listened to her respectfully, had always done his best to support her strange plans. The simple pleasure of walking next to him again the way she once had caused a lump of tenderness to form in her throat.

  “What’s the long answer?” he asked, staring straight ahead. “You’ve told me the short answer. I want to know the long.”

  She drew in a big breath, trying to think where to start. “Silver Leaf strikes me as a regal horse. There are horses who work their way up and take on a regal air once they’ve won a lot of races. In Silver Leaf’s case, it seems that he was born regal. If he’s treated that way first, he may respond by winning races.”

  His chiseled features hardened with skepticism.

  “He’s dignified,” she said. “He treats everyone politely.”

  “He’s well behaved.”

  “But I’ve only seen him display what I’d classify as true affection to Blackberry and to Zoe. Zoe told me she’s been his groom ever since he came into training.”

  “Yes.”

  “He loves her.” Love was love, rare and wonderful in all its forms. “What about Blackberry? How long has she been stabled beside Silver Leaf?”

  “More than two years. But Blackberry’s not running the way she used to. She’s had a solid career. I’m about to send her to the brood mare barn.”

  “Is there any chance she can come with us when we move the horses to Lone Star Park? We can give her the stall next to Silver’s, and she can be his lead pony.” As lead pony, Blackberry would escort Silver to the starting gate before his races.

  He frowned.

  “We move Silver and some of the other horses to the track next week, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll need to bring Blackberry and Zoe when we go.”

  “Is that all?” he asked dryly.

  “No. We’ll need to bring the rest of Silver Leaf’s home comforts. His favorite kind of hay, his blankets, et cetera.”

  “Lyndie. You’d be better off with a different—”

  “I will not be better off with a different trainer. I’m staying.”

  He stopped and turned toward her. They’d neared the entrance of the barn.

  “I don’t think Silver Leaf gives away his loyalty easily.” She drew herself up and strove to sound rational in an effort to temper her outlandish suggestions. “With Silver, it has to be earned.”

  “He’s given me his loyalty.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s merely polite to you the way he is to everyone.”

  He pulled back his head, insulted. “I was there the night he was born.”

  “No offense, but to Silver Leaf you’re the guy that stands at the rail. You’re not the one that bathes him and feeds him and talks to him constantly the way Zoe does. Also, you’re male. You can’t motivate him to run.”

  His hazel eyes blazed with such ferocity that she couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t feel bad, Jake. He’s not loyal to me yet, either, and I’ve spent days with him in his stall. I’m hoping to get there with him, but I’m not there yet.”

  He crossed his arms over his muscular chest, the lunge line dangling from one hand.

  “Your horse thrives on familiarity and routine,” she continued. “I’m guessing that he’ll never be a good traveler, so we’re going to have to compensate by keeping all the things he cares about around him when we move him to the track. And we’re going to have to surround him with females.”

  “Which jockey am I supposed to use?”

  Me, she wanted to say. The fledgling hope had just begun to take shape in her mind. She wanted to jockey Silver. If she told Jake about that now, however, on top of all her other odd requests, she knew she’d push him over the edge. “A female jockey.”

  “I use Hank Stephens.”

  “Hank’s an excellent jockey. And he can keep on riding all your other runners. But he’s no good for Silver Leaf.”

  The door to the barn bolted open. At the sudden noise, Jake threw an arm in front of her instinctively, as if to protect her.

  One of the grooms exited, nodding to them with a slightly confused expression.

  Lyndie looked up at Jake. Their eyes met for a brief, scorching instant before his face went blank. He stepped quickly away from her. At his side, his free hand curled, then flexed.

  She wished she could ask him about Iraq. But the trauma that had changed him was also the trauma that separated them. She could all but see him wrapping his isolation around himself like a cloak.

  “Your ideas about Silver Leaf?” he asked.

  “Yes?”

  He presented her with his back and stalked away. “I’ll think about them.”

  “Will?”

  Will McGrath looked up from where he sat at his usual table at Cream or Sugar. Celia Porter, the bakery’s owner, stood nearby alongside a pretty brunette.

  He rose to his feet.

  “I’d like you to meet Amber Richardson,” Celia said. “Amber, this is Will McGrath.”

  He extended his hand and Amber shook it. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too.” Amber’s big blue eyes were surrounded by the longest, darkest lashes he’d ever seen.

  The link of their hands broke, and they straightened apart.

  “Amber lives in the Old Candy Shoppe building,” Celia told him. “She mentioned to me the other day that she might like to have a deck put in at some point. I was just telling her that you build decks on the days when you’re not working for the fire department.”

  “Right.” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and handed Amber one of his cards. “I’d be happy to come by and give you an estimate any time.”

  “Great. Thank you.”

  “More coffee, Will?” Celia asked.

  “I’d like that.”

  “Sit, sit,” Celia waved Amber to the table next to his. “I’ll bring coffee to you both.” They settled into chairs. Their side-by-side tables kept them in easy speaking distance. Since Will had already given her his card, he wasn’t sure what else to talk to her about. It was eight thirty on a Monday morning, and while Amber was attractive and seemed nice enough, he’d been enjoying the peace and quiet of sitti
ng by himself. Small talk had never been his strong suit.

  “I want one of these, Mom.” A young boy turned in Amber’s direction, his finger pushed against the glass display case, pointing at the chocolate glazed donuts.

  “When Mrs. Porter comes back,” Amber answered, “ask her nicely if you may have a chocolate glazed.”

  “With sprinkles.”

  “Fine.”

  “Is this your son?” Will asked. She looked too young to have a child this kid’s age.

  “Yes, this is Jayden. He’s five and a half. Jayden, this is Mr. McGrath.”

  “Hello, sir.”

  “Hi.”

  Celia hurried over with a coffee pot, then made a return trip with a chocolate glazed donut with sprinkles for Jayden and a slice of banana nut bread for Amber. Jayden took a seat beside his mom, swinging his legs and drinking milk through a straw from a little carton.

  Amber caught Will’s eye, her expression friendly. “So tell me about some of the decks you’ve been working on lately.”

  He did so. And before he knew it she steered the conversation to his work with the fire department and mutual Holley friends.

  She was surprisingly easy to talk to. Outgoing. With a smile that lit up the whole room.

  “What kind of work do you do?” he asked.

  He found it hard to look away from her as she told him about her job as a nurse for Dr. Dean. There was something very interesting about her, something warm and genuine. And that smile . . . I mean, it really lit up the room. On the other hand, he didn’t want to look at her too long because she might think he was a creepy old man and get the wrong idea.

  Good grief. Self-conscious, he stared at the watch his daughters had given him for a few seconds before looking back up. Next to Amber, he felt every one of his forty years.

  Amber had to be at least a decade younger than he was, and he’d guess that she’d had Jayden in her very early twenties. His ex-wife, Michelle, had been twenty-one when their oldest daughter, Madison, had been born. He’d been twenty-four at the time. Michelle had split at age twenty-five to go and experience all that life has to offer twenty-five-year-old women who aren’t wives and mothers. She’d left him with a four-year-old and a two-year-old.

  Had the early baby plan worked out better for Amber than it had for him? He wondered whether Jayden’s father had stuck around, whether Amber was still in love with him and happy. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but she might be married. Not all married women wore rings every minute of every day.

  Jayden pushed to his feet, clearly bored out of his skull by the adult conversation. “Mom?” he broke in. “Is it time to go?”

  “Don’t interrupt me, Jayden,” she said patiently. “If you have something to say put your arm here”—she laid his hand on her forearm—“and I’ll know you want to tell me something.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So anyway,” she said to Will, “I—”

  “I want to tell you that I’m ready to go,” Jayden said urgently.

  “—I really enjoy working at the doctor’s office,” Amber continued as she stood and pushed in her chair. “Maybe one day soon I’ll be able to afford a deck.”

  Will stood, too.

  “I have to head out so that I can get Jayden to daycare and make it to work on time.”

  “Sure.”

  Jayden began to tug on Amber’s forearm.

  “It was nice meeting you, Will.”

  “Likewise.”

  “Have a good day.” She tossed their trash before Jayden pulled her through the door and they disappeared.

  Will stood there, staring at the place where she’d been. He regretted his grumpy reaction when he’d first realized that he needed to make conversation with her. He’d forgotten how nice it could be to visit with someone, without any goal to it other than that—to visit. Maybe he wasn’t totally lousy at small talk, after all. Or maybe Amber was just really good at it.

  The guys at the station teased him about his sorry dating life, with good reason. He pulled his keys free as he made his way outdoors to his aging Chevy Tahoe.

  Since Michelle left, it had pretty much taken all he had in the way of time, attention, and money to raise his girls. Whenever he’d made an effort to go out with someone, he’d been aware the whole time of how dull he was. He was a father whose faith was important to him. He didn’t want to party, go to clubs, get drunk, or sleep with people just for the heck of it. The non-Christian women he’d taken out had wanted at least one of those things; the Christian ones had wanted to marry him immediately, which had scared him twice as much.

  He was rusty at relationships. Even so, if Amber had been older and unmarried, he’d have been tempted to ask her out.

  He rubbed the side of his forehead, trying to understand what had just happened to him. He’d come to Cream or Sugar for coffee. But those blue eyes and that smile of Amber’s had dazed him a little, had made him think about things—like dating—that he hadn’t thought about in years.

  “Will’s handsome, Lyndie. He has dark blond hair and gray-blue eyes, the kind that tip down at the outside corners. You know? Bedroom eyes?”

  “I sincerely like bedroom eyes,” Lyndie put forward.

  “Me too. Will’s eyes make him look a little bit sad or vulnerable or something.”

  Amber had texted Lyndie earlier in the day, requesting a coffee meeting, despite that it was Monday and their usually scheduled coffee meetings occurred on Wednesdays. Lovely warm breezes stirred the late afternoon air, so they’d taken Amber’s kitchen chairs onto the small flagstone back patio of the Old Candy Shoppe. Jayden had his buddy Bryce over for a playdate. The two were sprawled on their stomachs in front of the hero house, playing with plastic army men.

  “I’m guessing that Will’s age didn’t bother you?” Lyndie asked.

  “No. I mean, if he’s forty, he’s like Ewan McGregor at forty.” Amber went on to compliment Will’s manners, his fitness, his height, and his professions of fire department captain and deck builder.

  Lyndie sipped from her mug. The whipped cream registered first, followed by a decadent slide of hot, milky coffee flavored with chocolate.

  A tiny dollop of cream stuck to the corner of Amber’s lip when she lowered her own mug.

  “You have a little whipped cream . . .” Lyndie indicated the spot.

  Amber used one of the leftover Valentine’s Day napkins she’d brought out to wipe away the cream. “Thank you. We’ve officially become good friends, Lyndie, if you’re willing to tell me I have food on my face.”

  “Officially. You can count on me to be extra quick about telling you should you ever have food on your face in front of Will.”

  “I’m not sure if I’ll see him again.” Amber sighed. “I’m cautiously interested, but I’m not sure if he feels the same. And even if he does, I don’t know when we’ll cross paths.”

  “Well, let’s think about this practically.” Lyndie watched Empress Felicity and Gentleman Tobias plop onto the grass next to Jayden and his friend. The dogs’ mouths hung open in identical doggie grins. “First things first: Does Will know that you’re single? Before this can go anywhere, he’ll need to know that about you.”

  “I don’t wear a wedding ring.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re single. Plus, you had Jayden with you.”

  “Which makes me look like a married mom.”

  “Right.”

  “But”—Amber shifted to face Lyndie more fully, her shiny dark hair swishing around her shoulders—“I think I was giving off available signals. I can’t be sure. It’s been a long time since I’ve put myself out there. I may have lost my touch.”

  “I don’t think you’ve lost your touch. But let me just say that men don’t always respond to subtle signals. My mom will stand in front of the TV sometimes with her hands on her hips and my dad and grandfather will go right on watching their show as if she wasn’t even there.”

  A muted oof came fr
om the backyard. Then a few grunts.

  Amber and Lyndie looked to the boys, who’d kicked off an impromptu wrestling session. “Is that . . . okay?” Lyndie asked.

  Amber waved a hand. “It’s fine. Jayden and Bryce spend half their playdates wrestling. So. What do you think my next step should be?”

  The situation seemed upside-down. The person clearly more skilled at dating was asking the novice for advice on men. Lyndie did not have good credentials in this area. The man she was attracted to seemed eager to shove her into the arms of another employer. “Could you ask Celia to mention to Will that you’re single? I bet she could drop it into conversation without being obvious.”

  “I bet she could.”

  “And I’m sure she’d be happy to continue sending you texts when he visits Cream or Sugar. If you show up at the bakery again when he’s there, it will seem to him like a coincidence.”

  “True.”

  “What about inviting him over to give you an estimate on a deck?”

  “I don’t have the funds for a deck, but I suppose I could tell him that the deck is in my long-term plan and keep to myself the fact that my long-term plan is to marry him.” Amber shot Lyndie a glance full of humor.

  “I have no idea why I’m helping you. I’ll be very sad if you go on all three of your dates with this fireman while I’m stuck having to eat dinner with guys that are into anime or World of Warcraft and haven’t seen sunlight in months.”

  Amber laughed. “Remember that we’re going to the Christian singles meet-up at Fellowship Church Saturday night. You have it on your calendar, right?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “That’ll count as one date for each of us.”

  Maybe Amber would forget about the meet-up or lose enthusiasm for it between now and Saturday. Saturday was five days away. Amber might still forget. It really was possible Amber would lose enthusiasm.

  But even as Lyndie told herself these feeble lies, weight settled upon her. There would be no escaping the meet-up. She’d given up all chance of that the moment she’d caved at the promise of dog-sitting and vowed to attempt three dates in three months. There would be no escape.

  Across town, Jake and Bo were meeting, as they often did, in the warm room of the yearling barn to discuss their horses. “So.” Bo leaned back slightly in his chair. “Have you decided what you’re going to do about Silver Leaf? Are you going to give Lyndie’s theory a try?”