“Rocky’s tied up at the gate,” Beau said. “I’ll meet you overthere.”
With that, he jogged away and left Daniel and Tara to walk alone. She didn’t know what to do with the silence that stretched between them. Her first impulse was to give her condolences about his wife, but she knew that was definitely out of the question. They didn’t socialize in the same circles in high school and the few times he had come into the dentist office weren’t enough to really know a person, much less earn the right to get overlypersonal.
Luckily, she wouldn’t have to start theconversation.
“Dixie told me you and Beau had a great time at the carnival lastnight.”
She nodded. “Oh, yeah. We had ablast.”
Daniel’s lips broke into another one of those half smiles. “Yeah, she wouldn’t stop talking about it while we were trying to put her to bed. You really made an impressiononher.”
Tara didn’t know if she should have been flattered. She looked to the ground ahead of her. “I’m glad she had fun. That’s the important part. Kids need a bit of fun every once and awhile.”
It sounded so lame and off-handed, like she didn’t really know the first thing about kids but made a half-hearted attempt at it. She tried not to wince at her ownblunder.
Daniel gave a short laugh. “Oh, she has a lot of fun around here. If she’s not tormenting the chickens, then she’s trying to dress up Sherlock in tutus, or sneaking away to ride her horse. Thankfully, Beau keeps the saddles out ofreachnow.”
Tara giggled and was surprised to see Dixie already astride Star and steering her away from the fence. She wondered how a little girl like her could even reach the stirrups, before she spotted the five-gallon bucket tipped upside down next to the fence railing. She certainly was resourceful. Beau might have to find another way to hide the saddlesfromher.
“Come on!” sheurged.
“Be patient, Dixie,” Daniel chided as he walked with Tara to Magpie. The two-tone horse gave her a lazy look, as if she didn’t care if the human rode her at all. “Let me help youwiththat.”
Tara gave a brief, wary look at Daniel before she struggled to get her left foot in the stirrup. Her pants were so tight that they barely allowed for any movement in her knees and calves. Looser jeans would have been a betterchoice.
Daniel took some liberties and elevated her foot for her, gently gripping her ankle to move her into place. With another boost on her other foot, Tara somehow managed to situate herself in the saddle. Magpie shifted her weight from one hoof to the other and Tara tried to balanceherself.
“Have you ridden before?” Daniel asked as he adjusted the stirrups to account for herlonglegs.
Tara swallowed hard and tried to decide how much she should tell him. “Well, it’s been alongtime.”
Daniel fastened the last buckle on her right stirrup and patted Magpie’s rump. “She’s gentle. You shouldn’t have any problemswithher.”
Tara leaned over a bit to cast Magpie a worried look. “I definitely don’t have a problem with her, but what if she has a problemwithme?”
He laughed, this time a little more heartily as he moved to the darker horse, Rex. “She actually belongs to a family up the road that’s on vacation right now. We’re boarding her and two other horses while they’re away. They offer beginner riding lessons, so it’s safe to say Magpie will take careofyou.”
Tara was thankful for their thoughtfulness in picking her horse. Not knowing her experience with riding, surely it was Beau’s idea to give her an easyhorse.
Some stuff came back to her pretty quickly. She understood that pulling back on the reins made Magpie stop, kicking her made her go faster, and the simple directions. Getting the fine tuning of everything else was a little harder and Tara found she was less than graceful trying to find the perfect balance as the saddle lilted side to side witheachstep.
Now was her chance to ask about what Daniel had said earlier. “When you were talking about how much Dixie loves the ranch, did I notice a little teasing between youandBeau?”
Daniel steered his horse closer and they stopped just before rounding the corner of the house where the others were waiting. By the way he took a breath and leaned against his saddle horn, Tara could tell that whatever he had to say might have been a little toopersonal.
“You don’t have to answer that,” she countered quickly. “I don’t wanttopry.”
Daniel shook his head, a kind of modesty in his countenance that she wasn’t used to seeing in him. “No, it’s fine. When we were growing up, Beau never really liked the ranch. Neither did I, but I didn’t argue with my parents about it nearly as much. It was something he and our dad fought about a lot. That’s why he moved away from Brooksdale and why he wasn’t included in the will when our parents died. The ranch was given solely to me and our dad made sure that Beau would never profit from itwhatsoever.”
Tara’s shoulders slumped. All this time, she suspected that they co-owned the ranch somehow. It would have made sense, but she never imagined that Beau was on bad terms with his parents. She thought perhaps he had moved away because of the job opportunity or some weird blue-collar career dream he had growing up. To think there was strife in the Bremor home shed a new light on her high school years. While Beau was the meek kid in the back of the class and Daniel was star of the football team, their home life was fraught with conflict over a family business that didn’t want to becontinued.
Knowing that, coupled with the fact that Beau actually did come back to help his brother and niece, added a whole new facet to his psychology that made Tara want himevenmore.
“If you don’t like it, why don’t you just sell it? I bet there are tons of people looking for landlikethis.”
Daniel shook his head vehemently like it was absolutely impossible to even conceive of such a plan. “Nope. This ranch has been passed down for generations. I’m already thinking that Dixie can have it when she grows up, if she still wants it. That was our parents’ wish, to keep it in the family. And I want to respect theirwishes.”
Just like Beau, Daniel seemed to be just as loyal and selfless. She smiled in admiration. “I suppose there’s nothing wrong withthat,then.”
