With the structure blocking out the wind, it almost felt warm inside. Cozy too. A spot of warmth bloomed in her heart.Thisis what she’d expected to see on that island as a child. What a satisfying thing it would be, to give children an experience so superior to her own. One she could be proud of.
“How many will be in the class?” she asked.
“Think we’ve got close to a dozen signed up for this round.” He headed over to the side of the barn, grabbed a bale of hay off a high stack, and dropped it on the dusty barn floor. He hurried back to the hay bales, snatched another one, and dropped that parallel to the first. “This is the time of year where things are just about to pick up. Come April, we’ll be running a few of these classes a day. All of them full.”
“That’s great.” The info awoke the business side of her. It was a good indication that the inn was doing well. “Can I help with anything?” she asked as the cowboy brought a third bale to the center of the floor.
“See those thick blankets over there on the hooks?”
Andie shot a glance at the wall he’d nodded at—the one adjacent to the saddles and tools—and spotted the blankets hanging there. “Yes.”
“Start grabbing those and throwing them over each bale of hay. We use these as seats while we do our presentation.”
“Okay.” Andie tugged one of the blankets off its hook, then snatched another and headed toward the bales. “Hey,” she said as she draped the first blanket over a nearby hay bale. “I’m sorry for acting the way I did back there. It was out of line.”
The cowboy, hunched to lower another hay bale, glanced up at her with wide eyes. The bale he held dropped from his grip.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, straightening up at once. “I should be the one apologizing. Betty says I can act like a real bear sometimes. I don’t like admitting it, but she’s right.”
She recalled her grizzly comment earlier and smiled inwardly. Perhaps she and Betty were more alike than she’d thought. “I was pretty scarred by some animal abuse I witnessed as a kid,” she said. “We were on vacation, and it should have been a magical thing. I’d dreamt about riding a pony for so long. Maybe this will be therapeutic in a way, you know?”
“I hope it is.” He held her gaze, spots of heat darting through her chest as he nodded. “And I guess that explains where you were coming from when you got here. I’m sorry that happened to you. A woman with a heart for horses is a woman after my own heart.”
Andie could feel parts of her insides melting at the comment.
Trenton spun away from her and tugged his arms from the sleeves of his open coat. “How did you know my grandfather?” He draped the coat over the railing behind him and started to roll up the sleeves of his button-up shirt. How someone managed to boast such a golden tan at the tail-end of winter was beyond her.
She forced her eyes back to his face. “Yourwho?”
“My grandfather, Milton McGrath. He’s the former owner. He passed less than a month ago, left half of the inn to me, and the other half to you guys.”
Andie furrowed her brow as her heart seemed to triple in speed. “Weboughtthe other half.”Crap.Was that the right thing to say? If she told him that his grandfather had a particular fondness for the relocation program, it would expose them.
“Right,” he said. “I saw your names on the real estate agreement. I just wondered how the transaction took place, since I can’t see that he listed the shares anywhere.”
“It wasn’t through an agent.” Andie was familiar enough with the market to know there were quiet ways to sell property shares too. Yet she was still registering something else he’d said.Names. Their names were on the real estate agreement. A burst of sweat cased her forehead as she sucked in a breath.
“Whichnames were on it, just out of curiosity?” Her cheeks were red; she could feel the heat of them, warm against the cool sweat on her skin.
Trenton raised a perplexed-looking brow. His head tipped to one side. “There were five of them with the last name Duran. Yours, Richard, a couple names that started with M, I think.”
Thank heavens. A small chuckle snuck up her throat as well. “Of course. Yes, that’s us. You met Richard and Emmitt, that’s the other one. As for Maverick and Memphis, they won’t be joining us.”
“You guys are all siblings then, huh?” he asked.
Andie nodded, then blurted her memorized answer before another line of questioning could knock her off the rails. “Yes. My siblings and I haven’t been close since our parents died, so we decided to purchase half of the inn as an effort to shut off the outside world and reconnect with each other.”
“I’m sorry about your parents,” he said.
“Helicopter accident,” she blurted.Crap.She was supposed to say car accident; those were more common. She spun away from him and headed toward the blankets on the wall, knowing quite well that each bale was already covered.
“Do your parents live close by?” she asked.
When Trenton didn’t stop her from grabbing another blanket, she tugged the one in her hand off the hook and draped it over her shoulders instead.
Trenton’s eyes were set on the action. “You’re cold,” he said. “Would you like my coat?” Already he was hurrying toward the spot where he’d left it.
A seed of warmth sprouted in her chest at his chivalry. “No, I’m fine. Thank you.” Even better now that they’d averted the topic of her parents, her siblings, and her past.
