can ride anything that has a mane and a tail,” he said.
“That’s what the boss told me.”
“Why Rudolph?” he asked as he sprung into the saddle, unhampered by the lack of his left arm.
“If you aren’t careful, he’ll toss you into a tree and you’ll have a red nose,” the cowboy replied, tongue in cheek.
Butch burst out laughing. “Enough said.” He looked back at Esther, sitting comfortably in the Western saddle. “Ready?” he asked.
She grinned. “Ready!”
They went off on the bridle path that led around the ranch. And if the cowboy thought it was an odd way to celebrate a wedding, he didn’t voice his thoughts.
* * *
“It’s so peaceful here,” Esther said on a sigh as they rode, with only the creak of saddle leather and birdsong around them to break the silence of the woods.
“I like peaceful,” he teased.
“Me, too. We had a house in Los Angeles when my dad was alive.” They still had it, she just wasn’t ready to share that with her new husband. Not yet. “It was noisy and polluted. I hated every minute we spent there, although I loved my dad.”
“Did he look like you?” he asked, curious.
She shook her head. “He had dark hair and gray eyes. I look like my mother.”
“She must have been beautiful,” he remarked, his eyes warm on Esther’s face.
She smiled. “She was. But it was all she thought about.” She frowned, staring down at the pommel of the saddle. “She was terrified of wrinkles and even one gray hair.” She looked up at him. “It’s not a bad thing, getting older.”
“We, the aged population of Benton, applaud your consideration.”
She chuckled. “Stop that. You’re not old.”
“Older than you, cupcake,” he said softly. “Maybe too old.”
“You are not, and stop talking like that or I’ll get off this sweet rocking horse and throw something at you.”
He felt lighter than air. “Okay.”
“Age has nothing to do with how people feel about each other,” she continued.
“You’re very young, even for your age,” he mused. She met his eyes. “I’ll grow three gray hairs and soak my face in water so it wrinkles, just for you,” she said with a twinkle in her blue eyes.
He made a face. She made one back.
“As long as you’re happy, honey girl,” he said gently. “That’s all that matters.”
“I’ve never been so happy in my life, Butch,” she replied, and it was the truth. “I love being with you.”
“I love being with you, too.”
They came to a crossroads. “Right is back to the ranch, left is off to J. L.’s lake, where he likes to fish,” Butch told her.
“I’d love to see the lake,” she said.
“Okay, then.” He hesitated, frowning. “It’s starting to snow.”
She knew already how quickly snow could turn to ice. “You want to go back, don’t you?”
“I think we’d better,” he said reluctantly. “Neither of us needs to take a toss on our wedding day, and it gets icy here when the temperature drops and snow hits the ground.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
He shook his head as they turned back. “And that’s what I like most about you.”
“What?”
“You never complain. You never fuss. Life with you is . . . easy,” he said after a minute. “But that’s not the word I want, either. You make everything seem simple, even when it’s not. You’re the best companion I’ve ever had.”
She smiled. “I’m glad. Because you’re my best friend, Butch.”
“Best friend.” He said the words as if they bothered him.
She realized belatedly that they did, and why. She reined in her horse gently, and Butch paused beside her.
“I don’t mean that the way you’re probably thinking,” she said, flushing a little. “I mean, you don’t get excited just being with a friend, do you?”
His eyebrows arched and his eyes, so sad a moment before, were now twinkling. “You get excited with me?” he asked softly.
She cleared her throat. “We, um, we should move along, don’t you think? Snow’s coming down faster.”
CHAPTER SIX
The snow was deep by the time they got back to Butch’s cabin. Esther’s ankle-high boots were going to get full of snow on the way to the front door.
Butch solved that problem very easily by hefting her over his broad shoulder, catching her behind the knees with his good arm.
He chuckled at her surprise as he bumped the truck’s door shut with his hip. “We learn coping skills when we lose limbs,” he teased.
She laughed, too. “Yes, we do. Thanks! My feet would have frozen. The snow’s halfway to my knees already.”
“We’re most likely