“That’s sass, isn’t it? You’re full of sass this morning.” She shrugged, but her superior smile told him all he needed to know. “Yeah. Full of sass.”
“Truth?” she asked. “I am so happy to be out that I don’t even mind that you didn’t ask me if I wanted to go to Thunder Point.”
“Oh, you noticed that.”
“I always notice when someone tells me what I’m going to be doing. I just didn’t care.”
“Huh.”
She laughed. “Something to think about, isn’t it?”
“What I’m thinking about is that we need to stop talking.” When she didn’t reply, he looked over and realized the tight-lipped placement of her mouth meant she had already started. She spared him a look that was just long enough for him to see her green eyes sparkle and dance. She really was full of sass.
She was also beautiful. It crossed his mind to tell her, but he could imagine her animated features going perfectly still and the light in her eyes disappearing. She would thinkof Fiona, make comparisons that she did not like anyone else to make, and find herself wanting. How had that come to pass when in his mind she was so clearly wanting for nothing? Remington could only imagine the answer lay somewhere in her complicated relationship with Fiona.
When it came to verbal sparring, he knew firsthand that Phoebe could hold her own. She had driven him to the corner more than once and he had seen her do the same with Fiona, and yet he had also observed that the matches with Fiona left her bruised. She wouldn’t back down, but she did not walk away unscathed.
He judged Phoebe to have a fairly realistic grasp of Fiona’s character in that she acknowledged Fiona’s considerable talent but was not unaware of her flaws. It was in her nature to protect Fiona but not defend her.
Remington wondered if Phoebe was able to see herself as he did when she stood outside Fiona’s shadow. She was certainly outside it this morning. He had no doubt that Fiona would have taken one look at Phoebe’s manner of dress and pronounced it vulgar. Phoebe would not have changed her clothes, or left her hat behind, but she would not be as comfortable in her boots as she was now.
She wore the unfamiliar clothes, not as a costume, but as someone born to them, and perhaps she had been since he could detect some of the fine alterations she had done in private to make the fit her own. The trousers were not tight, but they hugged her slim hips and long legs when she saddled up, and the blue chambray shirt, a common enough garment for anyone at Twin Star, looked decidedly uncommon when it was taken in to suit her tapered figure. The brown leather vest fit her tolerably well when she buttoned it. Today she wore her hair in a single braid that fell halfway down her spine, and the pearl gray Stetson sat squarely on her head without slipping over her brow. Her trousers disappeared into her boots, and he had noticed earlier when he helped her mount that the tops and sides of the boots were gently scuffed and the soles showed signs of wear. It made him smile to think that she had been breaking them in from thefirst, probably hiding them under her skirts and petticoats while she walked around very pleased with her deception.
In many ways, Phoebe was a pared version of Fiona, and while Phoebe had come to accept the notion that it made her less, in Remington’s eyes, it was a case of less being more. Considerably more.
Phoebe and Fiona were of equal height, able to look most men in the eye, but it was Fiona who so often commanded the high ground and Phoebe who stepped to one side. Had Fiona ever recognized how gracefully Phoebe did it?
Phoebe’s splendid hair was a deep shade of cocoa brown, thick and lustrous, often with unruly strands framing her face in spite of the anchoring combs. In the sun, the wayward threads became a halo of light that paradoxically complemented her dangerous, devilish smile. The irony intrigued him.
Fiona knew nothing of irony. She coifed and groomed her auburn hair into twists and curls that never once danced in the wind or stepped out of line. The effect was as haughty as the cool and considered placement of her lips.
While the amethyst color of Fiona’s eyes was unusual and therefore likely to be remarked upon, it was Phoebe’s gold-flecked green gaze that settled levelly and calmly on her surroundings and invariably drew his attention. Fiona was watchful, but rarely curious, marking her territory with the same regard a predator has for prey. In contrast, Phoebe observed people, their activity, her surroundings, and all of it was grist for the mill. She asked more questions than any three people and listened with real interest to the answers. She wanted to engage conversation. It seemed to Remington that Fiona still preferred soliloquies.
Remington held out the mare’s reins for Phoebe to take. “You have to take them sometime. It’s not much of a riding lesson if you don’t.”
“Then we are talking again?” she asked, staring at the reins, undecided.
“We are.”
“Very well. But stay close.”
“Like butter on bread.”
She took the reins. The mare kept on walking. “She doesn’t seem to notice.”
“Give her time. She’ll come to know you’re in charge.”
“I don’t think I am.”
“Give yourself time. Relax. You don’t have to hold your hands up like a puppy begging for a treat.”
Phoebe lowered her hands but not before giving him a reproving look.
“Better. Find your balance.” He looked over the alignment of her body. Without any instruction from him, the willow-slim length of her was set perfectly: ear, shoulder, point of hip, and heel perpendicular to the horizon. “Unlock your lower back,” he told her. “You’re too stiff again.”
“Because you gave me the reins.”
He ignored that, showing her instead how to use her center of gravity to achieve balance and how to follow the movement of the horse’s back. “We’ll go through the gaits when we’re closer to the ranch. No trotting. No cantering. No galloping. For now it’s all walking.”
