surged skyward and landed in the saddle with a thump.
He laughed again, mounted Remington and reined in alongside Kendra. “Ready?” he asked.
Her face was on fire, and she refused to look at him on the ridiculous premise that if she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see her, either. “Ready,” she confirmed, stubborn to the end.
“Good,” he said, and he and Remington were off, leading the way, heading for the open range at a slow trot.
Kendra’s horse followed immediately, her rider bouncing hard in the saddle with every step. Kendra concentrated on syncing herself with Coco and, when they’d traveled a hundred yards or so, she found her stride.
Hutch’s gelding clearly wanted to run—please, God, no—but he held the horse in check with an ease that was both admirable and galling. Everything seemed to come easily to this man, and it wasn’t fair.
“Where to?” he asked, grinning over at her as Coco matched her pace to Remington’s.
“Anywhere but the high meadow,” Kendra answered and was immediately embarrassed all over again. Talk about your Freudian slip—Hutch hadn’t suggested riding to their secret, special place, now had he? She’d been the one to bring it up.
He chuckled at her miserable expression. “Tell me, Kendra,” he began easily, “who are you more afraid of—me or yourself?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she sputtered. “It’s just that I haven’t ridden in a long time and the meadow is halfway up the mountain and—”
“Easy,” Hutch admonished good-naturedly. Was he addressing her or his horse?
It had damned well better be the horse.
Alas it turned out to be her, instead. “Kendra,” he went on, “I’m not fixing to jump your bones the second we’re alone. We’re two old friends out for a horseback ride, and that’s all there is to it.”
Maybe for you, Kendra thought peevishly. The answer to his earlier question was thrumming in her head by now, all too obvious. She was afraid of herself, not him. Afraid of her own desires and the way her intelligence seemed to take a dive whenever he turned on the charm.
Not that he’d been obvious about it.
Still the damage was done.
Whether he knew it or not—and it would be naive to think he didn’t—Hutch had been in the process of seducing her almost from the moment she and Madison had arrived at the ranch. All he’d had to do to melt her resolve was to act like what Madison wanted most right now—a daddy.
They rode in silence for a while, the horses choosing their direction, or so it seemed to Kendra, the animals pausing alongside a stream to lower their huge heads and drink.
Hutch’s expression had turned solemn; he seemed far away, somehow, even though he was right beside her. Sunlight danced on the surface of the creek as the water whispered by.
“Why did you come here, Kendra?” he finally asked, narrowing his eyes against the brightness of the late-afternoon sun as he studied her face.
“To the ranch?”
“To Parable,” Hutch said.
She bristled. “Because it’s home,” she said tightly. “Because I want to raise Madison in a place where people know and care about each other.”
Hutch dismounted, stood beside Remington, looking up at her. “And you were so happy here as a child that you figured Madison would be, too?” he asked. It wasn’t a gibe, exactly, but he knew all about Kendra’s life with her grandmother, so the remark hadn’t been entirely innocent, either.
“Not always,” she admitted, her tone a little distant. She was tempted to get down off the horse and stand facing him, but that would mean getting back on again and her legs felt too unsteady to manage it. “Nobody’s happy all the time, are they?”
He gave a raspy chuckle, gazing out over the rippling water that gave his ranch its name—Whisper Creek. “That’s for sure,” he said.
She shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. No way around it, she was going to be sore after this ride, unaccustomed as she was.
Oh, well. Better achy body parts she could soak in a hot bathtub with Epsom salts, she figured, than an achy heart.
“I lied about the pony,” Hutch said out of the blue. He bent as he spoke, picked up a pebble and skipped it across the busy water with an expert motion of one hand.
Kendra frowned, confused. Everything about this man confused her, in fact. “What?” she asked.
“I didn’t borrow Ruffles,” he replied, meeting her gaze again. “I bought her. The kids she used to belong to grew up and went away, and she’s been lonely.”
Something softened inside Kendra. Finally