I mount with more confidence than my first attempt, finding the stirrup on the second try and swinging up easily. Pearl shifts beneath me and settles, and the height still sends a shock through me.
Charlie mounts Colby, and we ride out through the back gate at a walk, side by side. The afternoon sun falls across the pastures in long, golden slants, and the air is mild, carrying the scent of honeysuckle. My hips find Pearl's rhythm faster today, and the tension in my thighs releases as my body remembers what Charlie taught me last time.
"You're sitting better," he says, watching my posture. "You're moving with her instead of fighting her."
"Pearl makes it easy."
Charlie chuckles softly. "She makes it look easy. You're the one doing the work." He steers Colby down a gentle slope toward a row of thick live oaks bordering a small pond, tucked into a hollow between two low hills.
I pull Pearl to a stop beside the water, and the view takes my breath. The pond is still, edged with flowers and shaded by the oaks, and the light filtering through the canopy turns everything to amber. A pair of dragonflies skim the surface, their wings flashing blue.
"Charlie, this is beautiful."
"I found it my second week here. The property map calls it the south stock pond, but that doesn't do it justice." He dismounts and loops Colby's reins loosely around a low branch, then reaches up to help me down. His hands span my waist as he lifts me from the saddle, and I slide against him on the way down, my palms catching on his shoulders.
His fingers dig into the curve of my hips, and for a moment we stand like that, my hands on his shoulders and his bodyblocking the light. I'm suddenly very aware of how secluded this spot is, how the only witnesses are the horses and the dragonflies. If this were a scene in one of the steamy romance novels Tabitha raves about, this would be the part where the heroine loses all common sense.
I let go first, because one of us has to, and settle into the grass. Charlie drops down beside me, stretching his legs out and leaning back on his palms.
"That first time I drove under that archway, I wasn't sure I'd made the right call moving here." He picks a blade of grass and twists it between his fingers. "Kentucky was all I'd ever known. I grew up knowing I'd run that farm until I was old and gray, the same way my grandfather did, and his father before him."
"What changed?"
"Rachel." He smiles at the memory. "She left home at eighteen and eventually landed not far from here at the Lazy Fork. After Mason and I started our venture, Gran started talking about Hill Country, how the land here had room to grow." He stares out over the pond. "Selling the farm in Kentucky was the hardest decision I've ever made. I stood in our old barn on that last morning and said goodbye to the stalls I'd mucked since I was a kid."
My throat tightens, caught off guard at the vulnerability in his voice.
"But then I drove through these hills for the first time as a resident and not a visitor, past the rolling pastures and seeing the way everything turns gold at sunset, all of it hit me." He turns to face me, and the look in his eyes is certain. "I'm home, Sunny. I've never been more positive of anything. I'll always carry Kentucky with me, but Texas is where I'm supposed to be."
I take his hand and his fingers close around mine, the grip sure. The contact says what my voice can't quite manage right now. I understand what he means, because I felt the same waythe first time I walked into Willow Sage. I knew it was where I belonged.
Charlie checks his watch and pulls me to my feet. "We need to get moving. Rachel and her crew should be arriving soon. Gran's gonna send a search party if we're not back."
The ride to the main house passes in comfortable silence, and when we canter into the barn, I spot a big diesel truck parked next to mine. Charlie helps me dismount and two ranch hands take the reins.
As soon as we walk out, I spot figures moving on the front porch. A child's voice, high and commanding, cuts through the afternoon air.
"Uncle Charlie, we're here!"
A tiny girl in pink boots charges down the porch steps with a velocity that defies her size. Charlie barely has time to brace himself before Evie Freeman launches herself at him, utterly certain her uncle will catch her.
He scoops her up with one arm and settles her on his hip. "Hey there, Button. How are you today?"
"I have a new kitty." Evie pats his face with both hands and then twists in his arms to look at me with wide chocolate-brown eyes. "Who's that?"
"This is Sunny. She's my friend."
Charlie shifts Evie to his other hip and heads toward the porch, and I fall into step beside him. Rachel, Mason, and Cody are waiting at the top of the steps, and Rachel is already beaming at us.
"Hello, Evie." I smile up at her.
Evie studies me from the safety of Charlie's arms. "Do you like ducks?" she finally asks.
"I do. I got to meet your ducks. They're very cute."
Evie's entire face transforms, and she leans toward me so suddenly that Charlie has to adjust his grip. "Uncle Charlie is taking care of them for me. Kevin is cranky but he's my favorite."
"Kevin is a sweetheart. He just needs some love."
