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On a rare morning when no guests were scheduled, Ingrid groomed Bella, murmuring soothing words into her ear, feeling guilty that she had neglected her own mount while trying to bring Boone and Goldie out of their post-Brady-accident slump. She ran the brush over Bella’s golden hair, and on a whim, stopped to braid part of the horse’s mane.
“Pretty.” Ryder vaulted over the fence, landing softly on his feet, and walked toward her. He reached out and caressed Bella’s braid. “Nice.” He smiled.
Ingrid tried to calm herself, tamp down the weirdly loud beating of her heart. “Oh, you surprised me.”
“Sorry,” he said.
Ingrid gathered her wits about her. “I plan on having the children braid the horses’ manes to get comfortable being close to a horse. Horses are big, kids are little.”
“That’s a great idea,” Ryder said.
“And,” Ingrid hurried on, knowing that she was talking too much and too fast but unable to rein herself in, “I found something called milk paint—paint that’s safe for animals and kids. I’ll have the kids paint the horses’ manes, too. All the horses will be beautiful by the time the children are done.” She scratched Bella behind the ear, but Bella looked skeptical, as if she had understood the entire conversation and wasn’t so sure she liked the idea of getting painted and braided.
Ryder laughed. “Well, that’ll be quite a sight. Won’t it, Bella?” He reached out and rubbed the horse on her nose. Bella leaned into him.
Traitor, Ingrid thought. “Camp starts on Monday, so you’ll be on your own with the horse rides.”
“Kathy’s made sure not to put too much on my schedule. It’ll be fine.” Ryder stood so close she could feel the heat from his body.
Sandwiched between him and Bella, Ingrid looked for a way to gracefully wiggle out of the awkward situation. On second thought, she decided to relax and enjoy. “You’re so good with horses.”
He gave a half-smile and took a step back. “People who don’t like animals, or who don’t think animals have feelings, have never had a relationship with one. I don’t care if it’s a dog, a cat, a turtle, or a horse.”
Ingrid relaxed even more. “So true. I have Pumpkin, my horse back home. Who was your childhood horse?”
Ryder took a horse treat out of his pocket and fed it to Bella, who gathered it in with her soft lips and sighed with contentment. Ryder looked from Bella to Ingrid. He seemed to consider something, and a long silence fell between them. At long last, he began to talk.
“My horse, Blue, was a gray thoroughbred gelding who lived to be thirty years old. We got him when I was three and he was ten. I lost him five years ago, but it feels like yesterday.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ingrid said, imagining his heartbreak.
Ryder walked to the corral fence and leaned back against it, facing her, elbows on the top rail, one cowboy boot on the bottom rail.
Ingrid hung back, running her hand down Bella’s strong back, keeping her hand on the horse’s rump to ground herself, to keep herself from simply floating up into the air over the corral, over the Ranch, and simply drifting away, so light was her heart this morning. Bella grounded her, as did Ryder’s soft voice.
“Blue was my buddy,” he continued. “My best friend. We hung out together all the time. Cleaning his stall and feeding him and brushing him made me feel like no matter what else was going on in my life—a bad day at school, a fight with one of my brothers, or my mom dying—everything was okay.”
Ingrid’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh,” she said weakly.
“I know it sounds silly,” Ryder said, “but Blue gave me purpose, and a measure of peace I guess you could say, that when everything else was falling apart, we were safe. Like one of those Zen things you read about. That rhythm that somehow centers your life.”
Ingrid tried not to look shocked, but the last thing she expected of the son of Brady Yates to be talking about was Zen and centering one’s life. And he wasn’t done talking yet.
“Blue had massive shoulders that swayed when he walked, like a lion, you know?”
Ingrid nodded.
“But he was a scaredy cat. He nearly had a heart attack when a squirrel made its way into his stall.” Ryder chuckled, gazing off into the sky, into his and Blue’s distant past. “One time we were riding in a field and a gigantic sunflower just about sent him into apoplectic shock. A freaking flower!” Ryder shook his head. “The last ten years, Blue’s mission in life was to worry—and he became a champion worrier. I fed him and groomed him and protected him from everyday objects. But when I asked him to do things, like go for a long ride where there might be scary sunflowers, he would do it, even though he was afraid. Because that’s what we all have to do sometimes, isn’t it? Go ahead and do things, even if we’re afraid.”
Ingrid gazed at him, her heart melting into a puddle at her feet.
“Blue’s last years were spent hanging out with a barn cat named Cynthia,” Ryder continued, oblivious to the effect his words were having on Ingrid. “The two were inseparable, and when Cynthia died one cold winter day, it nearly crushed Blue. And when Blue died a couple of years later, it nearly crushed me. When my mom died, I had Blue. But when Blue died...” His voice splintered.
Standing there in the corral, hand on a horse’s rump, air full of dust and the aroma of hay mixed with horse poop, on a warm summer afternoon, Ingrid realized she would marry Ryder Yates. She knew it would take convincing him, not to mention her parents, but he was the man who would become her husband.
She let go of Bella, walked straight to Ryder. “You’re not alone,” she said, searching his handsome face. “I’ll never let you be alone.” She reached up and took his face in her hands, pulled him down and kissed him full on the lips.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ryder grabbed Ingrid’s shoulders and gently pushed her away, her lips still seeking his.
Ingrid blinked, as if waking from a dream.
“There we go. It’s okay,” Ryder spoke to her in a soft voice, as if he were talking to a horse who had just come upon a killer squirrel or a scary sunflower.
“I... I...” Ingrid stammered, and glanced over her shoulder at Bella, who was staring at her wide-eyed—the whites showing—looking as if Ingrid had just gone stark raving mad.
“Bella,” Ingrid said softly, slowly realizing what had just happened. She had just fallen for Ryder. Hard. Like, in love. And Ryder hadn’t.
“I...” she began again.
“It’s okay, Ingrid. Really. Please don’t get me wrong. It’s just that you’re so young and we’re at work.” He glanced toward the trail that came across the field from the cookhouse as if Olivia might pop up any second and catch them in an illicit embrace and fire him on the spot. Or worse yet, charge him with sexual harassment. “You’re a lovely and wonderful young woman who just graduated high school and are headed off to college, to Stanford,” he said, sounding as if Stanford was a dirty word.
Bella nickered in agreement.
What was I thinking?
“I’m sorry,” she tried to regain what tiny shred of dignity might be left. “I just...” She wanted to scream, Love you! But she glanced at Bella again, who narrowed her gigantic horse eyes at Ingrid exactly the same way her mother’s eyes narrowed when she was about to give a lecture for some wrongdoing on Ingrid’s part.
Ingrid felt tears threatening to spill over, and that would never do, so she did the only thing that might save some small grain of self-respect. She opened the corral gate, let herself out, and took off running toward the lodge, away from Ryder.
Away from utter humiliation.
