Like everything else she undertook, Josie made certain that she did a good job taking care of Marigold. That meant going beyond just removing the mare’s saddle with supervision from the boy who’d introduced himself as Steve.
She carefully uncinched the horse’s saddle, took off the blanket beneath it and then removed the reins, bit and bridle, slipping the whole thing off.
“Well, you’re free, girl, but I’m afraid that you still need to get cleaned up,” she told Marigold, talking to the mare as if they were having a conversation. She ran her hand over the horse’s rump. “I didn’t ride you hard, but you still got pretty sweaty.”
The mare turned her head, as if she were listening to every word Josie was saying and understood what she was being told. She even seemed to nod when Steve talked Josie through which brushes to use.
At least, she’d like to think so, Josie thought with a smile. But then, she had always felt like she could communicate with animals, whether they were big or small. That was one of the reasons she had also volunteered to spend her free time—if her time could actually be thought of as free—working with the dogs at Furever Paws, the local animal rescue.
Until recently, the shelter had been owned and operated by her aunts, affectionately known as “Bunny” and “Birdie,” until the two sisters decided that, after all these years, they were ready to pass over management to someone else. Bunny had actually left town to tour the country in an RV with her secret beau, keeping in touch via phone calls. Birdie was still around but had taken a less active role once Rebekah had been hired to serve as the shelter’s director.
Of course, things went a little topsy-turvy when Rebekah went on maternity leave, especially after the shelter’s numbers shot through the roof after a whole slew of animals was rescued from a backyard breeder. Shelter operations had only just started calming down, thanks to the newly hired director—Bethany Robeson.
It only seemed logical to Josie that, since she was already in town to lend a hand to Rebekah and Grant with the twins, that hand should also be extended to include helping out at the animal shelter.
This was what Josie told the mare as she carefully groomed and brushed Marigold.
She continued talking because she noted that the sound of her voice seemed to soothe the animal. And, as for her...well, it just felt good to Josie to say all these things out loud. In a way, it actually helped to put her life in proper order.
“Well, we’re done,” she finally told the mare, with a quick glance over to Steve to confirm. Josie retired the brushes she had employed grooming the horse’s coat. Finished, Josie stepped back to admire her work. “I don’t mind telling you that you look exceptionally fetching, Marigold. You’re probably going to have to fight off the other horses.” She dropped her voice to a whisper and added, “Like that sexy stallion, Midnight.”
Marigold whinnied as if she actually understood. It made Josie laugh.
“Yes, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you, girl? Well, remember you can hold out if you want. Just because he’s so big and powerful doesn’t mean you have to fall at his feet at the first sign that he’s interested in you.” Josie grinned to herself as she wiped her hands off on the back of her jeans. Thankfully, Steve had moved on to other tasks so no one was listening. If they were, they would probably think she was talking about Declan. “Well, nice talking to you, Marigold. See you soon—I hope,” she added.
She had no idea just how many lessons her brother and Rebekah had paid for. She doubted if it could be more than a couple. However, now that she had actually ridden a horse, making her lifelong dream come true, she was eager to do it again. This was despite the very sharp ache threatening to take over her back as well as her butt.
The latter was radiating pain with every step she took.
Making sure she had put away everything exactly where it belonged, Josie finally got into her car and drove the short distance over to the farmhouse.
She parked the vehicle close by, feeling it would be viewed as presumptuous of her if she parked it right in front of the house.
Not bothering to lock the car, Josie made her way over to the house and hurried up the front steps.
Josie knocked on the door then waited. And then knocked again.
At that point, she normally would have just left, but her unsmiling instructor had told her to let him know when she was leaving so he could tell her the time and date of their next riding. Josie was about to knock for a third time when the front door suddenly swung open.
Instead of looking up at the tall, muscular instructor the way she had expected, Josie found herself staring into the hostile green eyes of a rather gangly-looking redheaded fourteen-year-old girl. The teenager was scowling as she slowly took full measure of the woman standing on her doorstep.
“Yeah?” the girl finally asked.
There was no mistaking the challenge in the single word.
Rather than take offense at the teenager’s attitude, Josie smiled at her. It wasn’t hard to make the connection. “You must be Shannon.”
A look of surprise crossed the girl’s face. That was immediately followed by an even deeper scowl. “What of it?” the teen wanted to know. She gave every indication that she was spoiling for a fight.
In less than an instant, Josie was thrown back to Hannah’s teen years. Her daughter had been really difficult to deal with back then, angry at her parents for their divorce, angry over her own feelings of abandonment, as well as having a whole host of other teenage angst-ridden issues that came wrapped up in their own packages.
No wonder Declan didn’t smile, Josie thought. This was definitely a lot for the man to deal with, especially since, from what she had gathered, he had only recently taken temporary custody of the girl.
Josie did her best to make friends with the less than sunny teenager. “Your uncle told me a lot about you.”
Shannon’s frown only deepened. Her green eyes went dark. “I just bet he did,” she answered sullenly. Shannon deliberately looked the woman on her doorstep up and down. “You his girlfriend?” she asked, her tone even less friendly than a moment ago.
The question caught Josie completely by surprise. But she managed to recover without expressing any sentiments that would give the teen any further ammunition. There wasn’t even any sort of indication that the point-blank inquiry had managed to rattle her.
In a totally calm, friendly voice, Josie answered, “No, I’m his student.”
The furrow between Shannon’s brows deepened. “He’s a teacher?” the teen questioned skeptically.
“Not the way you’re probably thinking,” Josie answered. “Your uncle is teaching me how to ride.”
Shannon rolled her eyes then laughed shortly under her breath. The sound was far from friendly or even passably nice.
“He probably enjoys that,” the girl told her. “Uncle Declan really likes bossing people around. It’s kinda like his hobby.”
Josie felt she needed to defend her instructor. It was easy to see that the man was in over his head. A lot of teenagers were really difficult to deal with at this stage of their lives.
“Maybe he just likes helping people and you’re misunderstanding what he’s telling you,” Josie told the teenager.
A contemptuous look entered the girl’s expressive green eyes. It was obvious that Shannon didn’t think she was misunderstanding anything.
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” the teenager challenged.
Josie’s response had clearly caught Shannon off guard. “Actually, yes, I do,” she told the teenager. Indicating the inside of the house beyond Shannon’s shoulder, she asked, “May I come in?”
Shannon looked undecided for a second then shrugged her shoulders carelessly.
“You can do whatever you want,” she told the woman. After a beat, she opened the door further. “Doesn’t matter to me what you do.”
Letting the woman in, the teenager turned around for one parting shot. After that, she intended to hole up in what she thought of as a cubbyhole—the laughably small area that her grandmother had referred to as her room. But when Shannon looked, she saw her uncle’s riding student smiling at her.
Shannon’s back instantly went up. “What are you grinning about?” she queried.
“You,” Josie answered easily.
That only made Shannon angrier. “Something funny about me?” Her tone was almost nasty as well as defensive.
“Oh no, there’s nothing funny about you,” Josie assured her. “You just remind me of someone.”
The teenager made no secret that she was spoiling for a fight. “Who?” Shannon demanded, prepared to be on the receiving end of a derogatory remark.
“My daughter when she was your age,” Josie told her easily. “No matter what I said, she always tried to turn it into a fight.”
Shannon nodded knowingly. “So what did you do? Tell her to get her act together or you’d throw her out of the house?” Her mother had told her that more than once—when she had even acknowledged the fact that Shannon was around.
Shannon’s guess told her a lot more than she was probably aware of, Josie thought.
The teen’s bitter words wounded her heart. The girl had obviously been hurt and hurt badly. The first thing Josie thought of was that if Shannon was ever going to emerge out of this situation in one piece, the teen needed to be shown that her family cared about her and was there for her.
“No.” Josie contradicted what Shannon had guessed. “I’d hug her—when she’d let me,” she qualified. “And I’d tell her that no matter what she did or said, I would always love her.”
The girl didn’t look as if she believed her. “Did she laugh?” Shannon asked nastily.
“Well,” Josie answered honestly, “it took her a while to come around and believe what I was telling her, but no, she didn’t laugh.”
Just at that moment, Champ, Declan’s Australian shepherd came lumbering into the room. Josie noticed that her gangly adversary’s eyes lit up for just a moment.
But the animal completely ignored both of them as it continued walking through the room, obviously looking for something or someone else.
The next moment, coming to and collecting herself, Shannon answered the question she assumed the woman had to be wondering.
“Champ’s looking for my uncle. The dog follows him around like a shadow whenever he can. Champ’s completely devoted to him.” It wasn’t hard to hear the wistfulness in the teenager’s voice.
Josie nodded knowingly. An idea was forming in her head. “It’s rough when a dog does that for someone else, especially when all you want is a little companionship,” she acknowledged.
“I don’t want anything,” Shannon snapped. It was as if she refused to have a single warm emotion attributed to her.
“I was just speaking figuratively,” Josie explained to the teen. Watching Shannon’s face, she told the girl, “You know, I help out at an animal rescue a few times a week.” She could see that she had caught the teenager’s attention, at least for a moment. “They could always use some help if you’re interested.”
“I’m not,” Shannon informed her, trying to make it sound as if she were an island unto herself. But then the façade cracked just a little as she asked, “What kind of animals?”
“All kinds,” Josie answered easily. “Dogs and cats, mostly. They could all use a little love to help ease the way, until they find new homes.”
Shannon shrugged, vainly doing her best to appear disinterested. But she failed. Her eyes gave her away, as did her tone of voice.
“I might be able to come to the shelter and help out sometime—if I’m not busy doing anything else.”
Josie nodded. “That sounds great. If you decide you want to, I’ll come by and pick you up,” she told the teen. “That is, as long as it’s all right with your uncle.”
Shannon raised her chin defiantly. “Uncle Declan isn’t the boss of me.”
“I’m afraid that right now, he kind of is,” Josie told her. She could see that her words weren’t exactly warming the girl’s heart. But she wasn’t through trying to get through to Shannon. “You know, your uncle really does care about you.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” Shannon answered sarcastically. “Like I believe that.”
But Josie refused to give up and back down. “You should, you know.” The defiant look on the teen’s face only intensified. Josie decided to approach this from another angle, talking to the teenager as if she were sharing a confidence. “You should know that men have difficulty showing what they’re really feeling. They think it makes them look weak,” she told the girl. “But that doesn’t change the fact that they really do feel things. And that they care,” Josie emphasized. And then she leaned in to share a “secret.”
“I do know that sometimes they can drive you up the wall. There are times when you’ll be so annoyed, you’ll want to scream. Trust me, we’ve all been there.”
Josie saw Shannon’s eyes light up again. She had obviously struck pay dirt, she thought. For a moment, the girl seemed to forget all about playing the bored, disinterested teenager.
“For real?” she asked.
“For real,” Josie answered solemnly.
The grin she saw on the teenager’s face was wide and looked genuine.
Finally, Josie thought, silently celebrating that they had had a breakthrough of sorts. The rest of the journey should be easier.
Declan picked this moment to walk in on the temporary truce. Surprised to see his student, there was no mistaking the annoyed look that he sent in his niece’s direction.
“Nobody told me you were here,” he said to Josie. His accusation was obvious.
“I just walked in,” Josie said, trying to placate the cowboy and cover for Shannon. “And I was just in the process of explaining to your niece who I was. She was leery of letting in a stranger,” she added, hoping that gave the girl points in his eyes. “Marigold’s all cleaned up and put away,” Josie concluded, turning the conversation away from his niece.
Declan cast a glance in Shannon’s direction. “At least someone does what I ask them to,” he commented, referring to his student, not his niece.
Josie could see the teenager begin to rise to the bait. The scowl was back. That meant an explosion couldn’t be that far behind. She couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Mr. Hoyt, could I speak to you for a moment?” Josie requested.
Declan saw no need for privacy, but he had no desire to have a conversation around Shannon right now either. The girl took everything he said and somehow found a way to irritate him beyond belief.
“Sure,” he answered. “You can follow me to the kitchen.”
In the kitchen, he turned around so abruptly, he almost succeeded in bumping into Josie. “Okay, what is it you want to say?”
“I have a proposition for you,” she told him.
“Oh?” At this point, he had no idea what to expect, only that he probably wouldn’t like it.
Once again the conversation didn’t turn out the way he’d expected.
“You obviously could use a little help dealing with Shannon. How about if I offer to supply that help to you?” Josie asked.
Nothing was free, Declan thought. He braced himself. “In exchange for what?” he wanted to know.
“A few more riding lessons,” Josie answered. “I’m sure my brother and sister-in-law only paid for a few.”
“Two lessons actually,” he confirmed.
“All right. Let’s up the ante to five lessons in all. Five lessons and I’ll come by three, four times a week—maybe more—to take your niece to the Furever Paws animal shelter to help out there. She expressed a keen interest in working with the animals and—”
He didn’t need to hear any more. Shannon needed something to keep her occupied, and this sounded like it could be a perfect fit. Declan put his hand out to her. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Miss Whitaker,” he told her.
“Josie,” she corrected.
He nodded. “Josie,” he echoed.
This had been easier than she had thought it would be. The man was obviously desperate.
She smiled as they shook on it.