“HELEN, WAKE UP, HONEY.”
Helen snuggled deeper under the covers. “Just five more minutes.” Sleep was precious for single, working moms.
The smell of coffee wafted through the darkness.
“Time to get up.” A hand touched her shoulder and gave it a gentle shake.
Still lost in a dream about sitting on Santa’s lap and Santa being Nash, Helen mumbled, “Go away. Mommy is about to kiss Santa Claus.”
Masculine laughter filled the air. “I shouldn’t laugh.”
Her eyes flew open. “Nash?” She sat up, squinting even though light was coming from the hall. Outside the window, it was dark. “What’s wrong? Is Luke okay?”
“Luke is fine.” Nash handed her a hot mug of what smelled like coffee. “We need to train today, remember?”
Reality came crashing back, more effective than caffeine at prying her eyes wide open. “We’re training before the sun comes up? Won’t it be freezing?”
“It’s in the forties. Come on. I have a feeling you’ll do great today...” Nash cleared his throat, looking away. His hair was still in need of a cut. His whiskers in need of a shave. And his eyes conveyed that he was in need of some tender loving care. “Power of positive thinking, remember?”
Helen dutifully said, “I’m the greatest rider in the world. Go, me.” The words were without feeling because inside she was feeling too much, yearning too much. And it had nothing to do with riding.
“You can do it, Helen.” Nash turned on the bedroom light, revealing circles under his eyes.
She wanted to hug him. If not for her sake, then for his.
“Picture yourself sitting on Rose, the way you did yesterday.” He gazed upon her tenderly. “Picture yourself riding tall in the saddle.”
She drank the coffee he’d brought, trying to hide the fact that the visual of her in the saddle bothered her, so much so that his tender glance lost its meaning. “I can do hard things.”
“That’s the spirit.” Nash sat on the bed next to her. “Imagine the look on Phil’s face when you win.”
She couldn’t argue with that. She rather liked that image.
Helen grinned.
“I’ll do you one better.” She leaned forward. “I’ll imagine the big kiss I’ll earn from you when I don’t eat dirt in the competition.” She wasn’t foolish enough to think she could be in the top three, but she could manage that.
Trust all my positive thoughts.
Nash sat back. “Wow, you said you were reclaiming your spunk, but—”
“And while I’m at it,” she said in a louder, stronger voice, “I’ll imagine us growing old together, sitting in front of a festive tree and enjoying its beautiful lights while our grandchildren enjoy their Christmas stockings.”
Nash opened his mouth, probably to argue.
But Helen wasn’t done. “And I’ll imagine the huskiness of your voice as you tell me you love me every night.” She sighed dreamily. It was a really good image. “And do you know why I can visualize all those things? Because they are all more likely to happen than me winning a ribbon in the Holiday Showcase.”
“Hold up. No negative thoughts, remember?”
“When I think of riding, I think of my mother. And those memories don’t make me happy.” Or optimistic.
“Not all your riding memories are bad. You and I have ridden double.”
She nodded. Those were pleasant, kiss-filled memories.
His gaze drifted over her face. He smoothed a lock of her hair away from her forehead. “Helen, have you ever wondered why you didn’t get back in the saddle as a child? I think it’s because a part of you doesn’t want to please your mother. She forced you to take on all kinds of challenges a little girl shouldn’t.”
“My dad didn’t have horses.” Helen sipped her coffee, forcing herself to remember days she’d rather forget. “Mom would tell me I had to be tough to survive in this world. She’d challenge me to be brave.” Except it wasn’t that simple. She’d couch her requests with endearments, like I was roping stray bulls when I was your age, dove, or I never complain about work that gets me paid, dove. And then when she was drunk her words would turn harsher. Life crushes the weak ones like you, dove.
Helen shook her head, trying to shake off the feeling that she’d never be good enough for her mother or Nash. “She was quick to point out my flaws.” Which, in turn, made Helen feel vulnerable.
He took her free hand, holding it gently. “You picked up that gauntlet she threw down, but you resented her for it. And maybe you resented the things she had you do, too. Like riding.”
“I was a disappointment to her. She and Denny were cut from the same cloth. They just weren’t both watered at the same trough.” Her mother ran on hostility and resentment, while Denny ran on love and responsibility. “And my refusal to get back in the saddle was a mark in Mom’s book that I couldn’t erase. She went on the road and never looked back.” Later, after two weekends and no calls from her mother, Helen had panicked.
Dad, can you come get me?
She’d been so frightened to place that call to her father because Mom had told her that Dad wanted nothing to do with her. That had been a lie. “I should have known Dad loved me. I should have seen through her lies.” If only things had been different for the three of them or at least for her mother. Perhaps then Helen would have family other than the Blackwells.
“You’re not doing this for her,” Nash said with certainty, and she loved him for it. “Of all the people you mentioned last night, you didn’t mention her.”
Helen gripped Nash’s hand, trying to banish all thoughts of her mother. “I can see what Summer was saying about the power of positive thinking. And I can understand the motivation behind rewards for lessons where I try really hard.”
“But...”
“You should kiss me.” She smiled her most sultry of smiles.
“Why?” Nash’s eyes widened.
“I want a comparison.” Her smile transitioned into a pout.
“To Phil?” Nash scooted back, scowling.
“No. Your kiss a few weeks back was an impulsive drive-by. It’s been years since you kissed me sober.” Oh, she was pushing, and she knew it. “I need an incentive for the hard day ahead, Nash.”
Instead of rising to the challenge, he left, high-tailing it all the way to the front door and exiting the premises.
“I scared him off.” Helen set her coffee on the bedside table and sank down under the covers, pulling them up over her head. “I should have bought mistletoe last night.”
To sprinkle around the ranch, giving her the opportunity to dole out quick kisses.
But Nash was right. She’d never been one to shy away from the hard things. It was just this one thing—riding—that was her Achilles’ heel. It was wrapped up tight with her memories of her mother and the insecurities she brought out in her.
“This dove can do hard things, Mom.”
Like conquer her fears and win back the man of her dreams.
“LET’S DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.” Nash had been standing at Rose’s head for over ten minutes while Helen sat in the saddle gritting her teeth and gasping every time Rose shifted her weight. He didn’t think they were making progress.
“Hallelujah. Break time.” Helen flung herself out of the saddle and stumbled in the dirt. She would have fallen if Nash hadn’t steadied her. “Thanks. Darn crash vest and helmet throw me off balance.”
“Standing still seems to be throwing you into a panic.” It was daunting. Helen wouldn’t allow Nash to take one step forward. He led Rose across the arena and toward the barn. “A change might do you good. I need an extra set of eyes on a project.” And he needed to occupy Helen’s mind with something else, the way he had yesterday when they’d walked Beanie around the arena.
“My eyes are good.” Helen walked next to him, regaining some of her confidence with each step. She wore scuffed brown cowboy boots, blue jeans, and her stained green work jacket. She appeared the part of a working ranch hand. “What are we looking at?”
“Not at. For. Why don’t you go check on Luke?” The sun had been up for an hour and their son was under strict instructions to get himself dressed when he woke up and start over to the main house. Hopefully, Luke was watching television with Olivia or helping Mason bake, but Nash wanted to be sure. “Meet me back here in twenty minutes. And if they’re baking, don’t eat too many cookies.”
Gran had decided last night that a plate of cookies might help her cause with Eagle Springs’ residents who had yet to sell. She’d enlisted Mason and Corliss to canvass this morning.
“Okay.” Helen didn’t hesitate to escape.
It wasn’t until she’d gone that Nash realized he was disappointed she hadn’t bussed his cheek before leaving. He squashed the sentiment.
No kisses. That was his mantra for the next two weeks.
But he smiled thinking about how Helen had tried to wheedle one from him this morning.
“No one ever said saving the ranch was easy, Rose,” he told the filly as he led her toward her stall.
Twenty minutes later, he had Beanie saddled and was leading the older gelding out to the ranch yard.
“Are we introducing a change of scenery into my training?” Helen marched up to greet them. She’d ditched her padded vest but still had on her riding helmet.
“Kind of.” Nash swung into the saddle and then extended a hand toward her. “Come ride with me.”
Helen froze.
“Come on.” He curled his fingers in invitation. “The very first time I brought you out here, you rode with me.” And they’d taken other rides like this on Jet in the early years of their marriage.
“Yeah, well.” Helen fidgeted, coming back to life, which he took for a good sign. “Back then, I didn’t want you to think I was a wimp.”
“I’ve never thought you were a wimp.” He guided Beanie closer to her. “Do you remember what happened during those rides?” Kisses. Lots of them.
Careful, Blackwell.
“So, this is my carrot.” Helen’s eyes bounced around Beanie—his head, his legs, his twitching tail. “We’re riding to the springs, and then you’ll kiss me.”
He shouldn’t, but if he did, it would be one kiss. One brief kiss. One fabulously brief kiss.
He nodded.
“Sweet!” Helen grinned.
Nash settled his hat more firmly on his head, reminding himself to stay the course and in his predetermined lane. “Just one kiss. You named the reward system, not me.” Nash tried to hide the longing he suspected was spilling from his heart into his eyes. “If you’re really intent upon returning to your spunky old self, now’s your chance to prove it.”
“Were you this bossy when we were married?” She extended her left hand.
“Nope.” He slipped his left foot out of the stirrup and took her wrist.
She slid her boot into the stirrup. In one smooth move, she was up and sitting behind him.
Her arms came around his waist and she rested her chin on his shoulder, keeping her helmeted head below his hat brim. “I should have asked for kisses and chocolate.”
With her arms wrapped around him, she could have asked for the moon, and he’d have given it to her. His heart beat faster, and he began to question his commitment to his goals.
Helen shifted behind him. “Who owns Beanie? He’s such a good horse.” Her words brought him out of his reverie. “His plaque says Sylvie.”
“A couple in Carson bought him for their teenage daughter Sylvie as a surprise Christmas gift. While he’s here, I’m just making sure he doesn’t have any bad habits. But if he has any, I’ve yet to find one.” He guided the gelding toward the south pasture. “They’ll be picking him up on Christmas Eve. Now, if anyone asks, we went to look for the white horse Gran claims she saw in the woods.”
“Is that doubt I hear in your voice?” Helen’s breath was warm on his neck. “Those wildlings do come down from the mountains during winter, along with elk and deer. I’ve seen them occasionally when I drive to my more remote clients. As I recall, Denny has the sharpest eyes of all you Blackwells.”
“That was before she got sick.” Nash guided Beanie to the south pasture gate, taking his time opening, moving through and closing it to see how the horse would react before picking up the conversation where they left off. “Gran called me Cal the other night. I didn’t make a big deal out of it but there were tears in her eyes when she realized what she’d done.”
“Poor Denny.” Helen sounded teary herself. “The stress of being sick and trying to save Eagle Springs must be taxing.”
They rode into the trees at Beanie’s leisurely pace. With the sun out and little wind, it was warm for winter by high country standards. Beanie’s hooves sank in a few inches of soft snow.
“You okay back there?” Nash asked after a bit.
“I’m fine.” Helen’s arms tightened around his waist. She added in a whisper, “I’m fine because I’m with you.”
He laid his right arm over hers, wishing things between them could be different. Knowing that couldn’t be. He wasn’t the steady, predictable man Helen needed, the bet with Phil proved it. He forced himself to remove his arm over hers.
Helen sighed, her warm breath caressing his neck. “We need to take Luke to chop down a Christmas tree.”
“To set up at the ranch, right?” Not her duplex?
Man, he was pathetic, obsessing over being with her.
“Yes, at the ranch. Happy memories of a person or a place can carry you far.” There was doom and gloom in her tone.
“Okay, but Helen...”
Before he could chastise her to think positively, a twig snapped deeper in the woods ahead. He brought Beanie to a halt.
And there, staring at them without any sign of fear, was a white horse that looked to be about two years old.
“Gran wasn’t seeing things,” Nash whispered.
“What a beauty,” Helen said just as quietly. “A filly?”
“Yes.” Nash searched the tree line for any other horses, but there were none.
“What are you going to do?” Helen shifted behind him. “We don’t have any rope.”
“Nothing.” Nash urged Beanie forward, focusing on the trail and their mount, not wanting Beanie to get spooked and make Helen anxious again. “I’m curious to see what that horse does. Knowing her behavior might help us catch her later.”
They drew even with the filly and then proceeded deeper into the woods.
“She’s watching us.” Helen twisted, half turning to look back.
And if that wasn’t progress for Helen on horseback, Nash didn’t know what was. Not that he planned on pointing it out to her.
“She’s following us,” Helen added.
“Ignore her.”
Helen faced forward. “We should have brought a rope.”
“I’m not chasing any animal through the snowy woods on horseback. It’s dangerous enough when you can see the ground. And besides, Beanie isn’t my horse to gamble with.”
“Ah, that’s sweet.”
“And we can tell a lot about a horse by what they do around people.”
“If she follows us...”
“She might not be a true wild horse. Gran says people used to dump horses in the wild when they couldn’t afford to keep them or if they had behavior problems so bad they couldn’t find a buyer.”
“That’s sad. That filly looks so young.”
“Horses are like anything else, Helen. Their lives can get ruined, young or old, sometimes even by people with the best intentions.”
She fell quiet. Was she thinking about their situation? Or her childhood with a negligent mother?
Beanie’s ears swiveled actively, an indication that the filly was still in the vicinity.
They continued through the trees on the trail made by countless Blackwell rides to the springs. It was one of many natural springs in the area that had given the town its name, fed by the underground aquifer that provided the ranch with water.
When they reached the springs, Nash helped Helen down first and then dismounted, spotting the filly about fifty feet back. He grinned, pleased. “I’m curious about her and she’s curious about us.”
“She can join the Nash and Helen Blackwell Curiosity Club,” Helen quipped, brushing snow from a huge rock that was the perfect height for sitting and enjoying the view of the springs. The water bubbled gently in a small pond and trickled into a creek that would meet with several other trickling waterways, eventually becoming part of the popular fishing spot Blue Mist Run.
Nash fastened Beanie’s reins to a branch and joined Helen, bumping her gently over with his hip. “Make room.”
“So bossy.” She turned to face him, green eyes sparkling.
“Why do I think you’ve got kissing on your mind?” Perhaps because he did, too.
“I rode all this way without panicking. What do you think I’d have on my mind?” She arched her brows. “Wild horses?”
Responsibility warred with longing. Was it too late to walk away? “Helen...”
“You owe me a kiss, cowboy.” She reached for him, hands coming around his neck.
And much as Nash wanted to renege on that deal, his arms circled her waist. He drew her closer, and he gave her exactly what she wanted—a kiss that said she’d done well, that she was his woman and he was her man.
If only while they kissed.
HELEN’S TOES WERE cold in her boots.
But her heart was warm.
Because Nash was holding her. Because Nash was kissing her. Because Nash had suggested they come to the springs where they’d shared their first kiss. Because he’d agreed they take Luke out to find a Christmas tree, one they’d set up at their house.
Their house.
Helen sighed, leaning into Nash.
He still loves me.
He wouldn’t kiss her so fervently if he didn’t.
Helen drew back and stared into his rich brown eyes.
“I thought you’d kiss me a bit longer.” Nash smoothed her hair to one side.
“I like you, Nash,” Helen said, recalling the words she’d said to him six years ago when he’d kissed her here. “But I’m an independent woman and I’m not easy to be with.”
He laughed. His laughter filled the clearing around the springs and startled the filly.
Except for the sound of retreating hooves, it was déjà vu.
Or it would have been if Helen had the same things to offer him that she’d had all those years ago. Her hand drifted to her abdomen. “Do you want to have more kids?”
Please say no.
He drew back, frowning slightly. “Helen...”
She’d forgotten about his opinion that she deserved a perfect prince of a man rather than him. “Assuming a twist of fate of some sort happened, and you got married again to me or...or someone else.” Her voice felt hard as rock, the words grinding out of her. “Would you want to have another child?”
“It’s a moot point.” All trace of humor was gone from his demeanor. “I’m unreliable. I’m not marrying you or anyone else.”
“Will you forget marriage and hypotheticals and your opinion of yourself and...and just answer the question,” she said sharply, losing her composure over the need to know his answer. “In a perfect world, would you want to have more kids?”
Nash’s eyes widened. “Yes. Okay. Yes. I have four siblings. I like big families. I always assumed I’d have one of my own.”
Helen’s heart sank.
Nash shoved his hands in his jacket pockets.
And it was good. It was good that he didn’t reach for her intent upon another kiss. It was good that he didn’t draw lines in the sand about kissing incentives. It was good because she had an answer, one she’d been afraid to hear.
Nash wants more kids.
And despite his noble words about not intending to get married again, to her or anyone else, she knew the truth. Someday, the right woman would come along and make him believe in himself and love again. That woman just wouldn’t be Helen. The stallion who’d kicked her a year ago had made sure of that.
“Good to know, cowboy.” Helen stood, putting space between them. “We should head back.”
Nash didn’t move. “You asked me once how I was so sure we were meant to be together.” He studied her expression, obviously clued in that something was wrong. “You were right to have doubts.”
She scoffed. “I was right to leave you. But I’ve been wrong about everything since.” Including thinking they could salvage what they’d had and live happily-ever-after.