*Chance had been so startled by her comment that he was still speechless as they walked toward the gate in the enclosure fence. And when she paused to pat the horse’s outstretched head—without the familiarity of someone used to horses, but also without fear—it gave him the strangest feeling.
You’re kind of pretty yourself…
He’d been called many things in his life, but he didn’t think pretty had ever been one of them.
Because he couldn’t think of anything else to say as he watched her stroke the genial palomino’s nose, he asked, “Do you ride?”
“No.” She didn’t look at him, and he wondered if she was sorry she’d said what she’d said. Even though it had to have been a joke. “I’ve always thought horses beautiful, but never had the chance to learn.” She did look then, but her expression was neutral. “I half expected you to come riding up to the house this morning.”
“Couldn’t have brought Tri,” he explained, gesturing at the dog who was sitting near her feet, looking up at her expectantly. “Can’t trust yet that he wouldn’t take off. And besides, then I’d have to borrow a vehicle. Or a horse, and you’d have had to ride out here.”
“Well, that would probably provide your laugh for the day,” she said dryly.
“I can’t imagine laughing at you,” he said, and instantly wished he hadn’t. “With you, yes, but not at you,” he amended, and it sounded lame to his ears.
“You Texas boys really are gentlemen, aren’t you?”
He gave her a sideways glance. “You say that like you can’t decide if it’s good or bad.”
“How about good but unfamiliar?”
“Sorry to hear that.” But not surprised.
She didn’t answer, just watched as he reached to unlatch the gate. Then she said, “That’s a big space.”
“Thanks to Sydney,” he said.
She blinked. “Sydney?”
“Her company made the donation that let me finish the fence.”
“Oh. Wow.” She looked at the long line of fence. “That must have been a heck of a donation.”
“It was.” Credit where it was due; Sydney had seen the need and acted. “She did it anonymously at the time, since she and Keller were…at odds then.”
“Obviously resolved since,” she said.
He nodded. Then said, “Let’s give this a shot.”
He swung the gate open. Tri leapt to his feet. “He looks excited,” she said.
“He knows he gets to run. His gait’s been hampered, but once he healed his energy level got back to normal.”
“It’s amazing how well he gets around.”
“He never stops trying. Which is why Lucas picked his name.”
“Your brother and Sydney are a good match, her with big donations and him taking in a foster child.” They stepped through the gate before he looked at her.
“Lucas is also her cousin.” Her eyes widened, and he shrugged. “A long story.”
Once the gate was closed behind them, he bent to unfasten Tri’s leash. And watched as the dog, as usual, fairly trembled waiting to be cut loose. The moment the leash was off, the dog dashed, with his characteristic off-center, hopping run. And then, abruptly, he stopped, wobbling a little as he spun back on his hind legs. He looked back at them both, then focused on Ariel.
“Move forward a few feet, then stop,” Chance said, his gaze fixed on Tri.
She didn’t question him, just did it. The dog turned back, and moved forward almost the exact same distance, then paused to look back at her. They repeated the pattern, three more times.
“This is…different?” she finally asked.
“Yes. It’s harder for him to go slow, actually, so he usually just takes off, and I have to watch the time and reel him in. The missing leg puts all the pressure on the remaining one, and it would be easy for him to strain a muscle or develop arthritis down the road.”
“It must have messed up his balance horribly.”
“It took him a while to adapt. Me, too. I’d never handled a tripod before. We both had a lot to learn.”
She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. Which seemed to happen a lot with her. Or maybe he was just out of practice, given how much he avoided people. At least, according to his mother he did.
“He seems to be doing well now,” she finally said, back to watching the dog.
“He generally does okay outdoors, as long as he has traction. It’s indoors that’s the problem. With only the one front leg, if he slips, he can’t catch himself.”
She turned her gaze from the dog back to him. “All the rugs in your house,” she said in a tone of realization. “I wondered, but they’re for him, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “The wood floor is too slick for him, if he moves too fast.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and he had no idea what she was thinking. Then Tri gave a little yip, drawing their attention back to the matter at hand. They started to walk, and this time kept going. And the dog maintained that same distance, ahead, investigating what caught his nose’s interest, but never more than those few feet away, as if he were still on a leash, albeit a longer one.
Chance knew that leash was the woman beside him.
*
They let Tri lead the way, as he investigated everything around him, but always looking back and seemingly gauging the distance between them. Another glance at Chance told Ariel he still had that slight smile on his face as he watched the dog. He was…happy about this, it seemed. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it?
She’d wondered if he was the kind of person who would take offense if the dog kept responding to her as he didn’t to him. The more she’d seen of what he was doing here, how much he cared, the more she’d doubted he could be that sort. And now she was sure.
The man had put down throw rugs practically wall to wall in his house, in a ridiculous patchwork, all for the sake of this dog.
They walked on in silence, watching the dog. Blessed silence. Which she then broke. “You know what I like best about being here?” He gave her a look that seemed to say he was afraid to ask. “No Christmas music,” she said.
His smile dawned slowly but sweetly, and he let out a chuckle. “I know the feeling.”
“I love the inn I’m at, but between the music and the decorations…”
“I wondered where you were staying.”
“I found a place that’s out on a nice stream, southwest of town.”
“The Hickory Creek Inn.”
“Yes. It’s run by a former Texas Ranger and his wife, I gather.”
“Frank and Karina Buckley. They’re good people.”
“And good innkeepers. There was a lovely welcome basket in the room, with some amazing cookies,” she said, turning her attention back to Tri, who seemed to be maintaining that distance between them with a rather surprising exactitude.
“He’s pretty precise about how far he gets ahead,” Chance said, surprising her as he spoke her own thought.
“Yes. It’s fascinating.”
It made it…almost comfortable, to have that to concentrate on. At least her mind wasn’t racing off in crazy directions as long as she was focused on the reason she was here at all. Which was the dog in front of her, not the man beside her.
The man beside her.
That sounded so wrong, even in her head, when it wasn’t Dean.
That triggered another memory, one she’d managed to keep buried for a long time.
“You all right? Do you need to stop?”
The concern in his voice was both warming and irritating; did he really think she couldn’t manage a fifteen-minute walk? Then she realized when that memory had hit her expression must have changed noticeably.
“I’m fine. I’d be better if I could quit remembering people I’m better off without.”
“Lot of those out there,” he said neutrally, and for a moment she wondered if he’d thought she’d meant him. On the off chance, she decided she’d better explain.
“I just thought of one of them. My…friend, Alexandra.”
“As in former, I gather?”
“Very.” She drew in a breath, then went on. “Three months after Dean was killed, she came to see me. To give me a lecture and tell me it was time to get over it, and start going out again, start dating.”
He stopped in his tracks. “Three months? What did you tell her?”
She stopped as well and looked into those blue-gray eyes. “I told her,” she said flatly, “to come back when her husband was dead, and then we’d talk. Needless to say, I haven’t seen her since.”
He gave an approving nod and said, “Good for you.” Of course he understood. She’d known he would. “Get over it,” he muttered, in a tone of disgust. “As if you could.”
“They don’t understand,” she said, nodding toward Tri, who had again stopped when they had, “what it’s like. As if a crucial part of you has been torn away, and your life will never, ever be the same.”
“They don’t know how lucky they are,” he said, sounding a little hoarse now. “No wonder you were mad.”
“I wasn’t, really. Just sad. Hurt.” She grimaced. “I seem to have lost the capacity to get mad.”
He started to speak, stopped, then started again, and this time got it out. “Dean said once that he loved arguing with you. Even when he lost.”
Startled, she stopped in her tracks again. And being that gentleman she’d referred to before, so did he. As did Tri, although the dog looked more puzzled than anything at why they kept stopping.
“We had some good fights.” And God, the making up… “But now…it’s like my temper died when he did,” she ended in a whisper. “I don’t care about anything enough to get mad anymore.”
She felt the old, familiar moisture begin to pool in her eyes. She tried to fight it, blinking rapidly. She wanted to run away, to hide somewhere until she got past this. She didn’t want to break down into a blubbering fool in front of this man who held in his hands the future of the only bit of her husband she had left, this wounded animal he had loved and who had tried to save him. The dog who even now had come back to her, sitting at her feet as he looked up at her almost anxiously.
But she had nowhere to go, not out here in the wild Texas hills, where even his small house was now out of sight behind a rise. It was true it happened less often now than the hourly occurrence it had once been, and she could even fight it off sometimes, at least postponing the breakdown, but she had no more control over it once it started than she ever had. And she never, ever felt more alone than in those moments.
But suddenly a warm, strong pair of arms came around her, and she was pulled gently against a broad chest. Her first thought was to pull away, this wasn’t Dean…but it was someone who’d been his friend, who just wanted to comfort, and right now that was a luxury she couldn’t turn away from. And so she let Chance Rafferty hold her, if for no other reason than it stopped her shaking and eased the horrible tightness in her chest.
So for that moment, she allowed herself the refuge of human contact.