“Ouch.” She hissed. “Seeing how close everyone is now, that must have been a blow.”
“I can’t lie, it hurt. But we carried on.”
“Reminds me of the Sherman brothers.”
“Who?” Now he was the one painted with confusion.
“They were musicians. Worked on the movie Mary Poppins, among other popular movies. One day, even though the brothers continued to work together from time to time, the families never saw each other. The cousins didn’t get to know each other until I forget what happened when they were adults that they all came together and the kids starting talking.”
“Well, the part about no one knowing certainly fits.”
“Well, it came out in a documentary. Apparently, one brother was haunted by things he saw in WWII, crashed and needed to get away for a few days. He called his brother with a reputation for being fun-loving and said he couldn’t go home so he sent his brother to go to the house and get a few things for him to wear. The wife of the brother with PTSD kept asking the fun-loving brother what was going on, when was her husband coming back, And a slew of other questions that the nice brother couldn’t answer. Seems that’s when the big brother’s wife pulled her family away and they never spoke again.”
“Wow, that does sound like our family. Dad isn’t the type to have pulled away, but I wonder if something happened between the siblings that left Mom feeling betrayed.”
Nicole shrugged. “Is there someone you can ask?”
Good question, considering none of his parents’ generation seemed to have a clue. Perhaps he should simply ask again. This time, a little more pointedly.
“Nicole, dear.” Aunt Eileen pulled a pair of oven mitts from the drawer. “Supper’s about to go on the table. Could you please run over to the barn and tell Ryan and Quinn that playtime is over?”
“Yes, ma’am.” As little as Nicole knew about running a ranch, she found it intriguing that Eileen Farraday called working in a barn playtime. Not wasting any time, she sprang up from her seat at the kitchen table and hurried out the back door. Even though it was getting dark earlier and earlier, there was still plenty of daylight left to find her way without worrying about stepping in a rut or tripping on a rock.
At the open barn door she could hear voices coming from deep inside. Following the sounds, she found Quinn and Ryan in one of the larger stalls with a massive—at least for her—horse. She still remembered the time her folks took her and her brother to the Texas State Fair to see the Budweiser Clydesdales. She’d been in high school at the time and she felt like a Lilliputian standing next to those big horses. This particular horse wasn’t a Clydesdale, but the animal looked almost as big nonetheless. “Excuse me.”
The two men stopped. Ryan stepped aside, his gaze landing on her with such an unexpected intensity that she wondered was it something she’d done, or was it merely a result of the conversation he and his brother had been having?
“Nicole, hey.” Ryan’s expression softened, the intensity easing into something more familiar.
Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she stepped a little closer, stopping just shy of the stall gate. Up close, the horse’scoat was the color of a midnight storm, and every time it shifted its weight, the wooden floorboards groaned in protest. “Aunt Eileen said to tell you that playtime is officially over.”
Quinn let out a short, dry laugh as he ran a brush down the horse’s flank. “Playtime. I’ll have to remember that next time I’m wrestling a twelve-hundred-pound animal that doesn’t want to cooperate.”
“Is he okay?” Nicole asked, stepping a few inches closer. The horse turned its head, one large, liquid-dark eye focusing on her.
“He’s fine.” Ryan’s voice dropped into that low, resonant register that Nicole was beginning to realize was meant to soothe a savage beast. “Just a bit of a stone bruise on his front left. Quinn was helping me check the hoof to make sure there wasn’t an infection starting.” He patted the horse’s neck. “This is Duke. He’s a Percheron mix.”
“He’s beautiful.” Nicole reached out, her fingers hovering just an inch away from Duke’s velvet-soft nose. The horse leaned into her touch, and she felt a sudden, surprising surge of connection to the massive creature. “And enormous.”
“He likes you.” Quinn stepped out of the stall and leaning against the gate. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
“How can you tell?” Looking up at the horse, she didn’t see anything that implied the horse liked anyone.
“He’s eyeing you like you’ve got a pocket full of carrots. If he didn’t like you, he’d be looking right past you as if you didn’t exist.”
Nicole’s gaze slid up along the powerful shoulder, the thick neck, the intelligent dark eyes watching her back. “And I thought he was deciding if I’m snack-sized.”
“He’s just curious.” Ryan stepped toward the gate, unhooking the latch. “He’s a sweetheart. We’re considering him for carriage duty. Definitely for parking out front of the livery for folks to admire. Want to meet him?”
She hesitated. The memory of those towering Clydesdales at the state fair flashed in her mind. “Does meeting him involve getting trampled?”
“Not if you stay on that side of the hooves.” Quinn gave Duke another stroke and slipped out of the stall. Closing the gate behind him, he held up a bucket with the brush in it. “Give me a minute to put this away.”
Ryan nodded and Quinn gave Nicole a quick grin as he passed. “He’s right. Duke’s a marshmallow. You’ll be fine.”
That, she thought, was a matter of opinion. One she wasn’t sure she agreed with.
Ryan rested a forearm on the stall gate. “Don’t let him scare you. Most horses like people.”
