of which,” she said, peering over Sammy’s shoulder at the ultrasound image on the iPad, “your girl could use a ride. I wasn’t able to get her out yesterday.”
Sammy blew out a breath through her teeth and hit send on the images. “I planned to today,” she admitted, “but we’re tight on time.”
Ryan felt a sting of guilt. If there was one thing he understood, it was responsibility. And the fact that he was keeping Sammy from one of hers irked him. Should some poor horse suffer just because he was in a hurry to go get paper cuts while digging through a disorganized mound of paperwork?
“I have time,” he announced.
Sammy looked at him with a “you’re sweet but” expression. “I’d need at least forty-five minutes. I know you have things to do.”
“I can wait,” he insisted.
“Why wait?” Joey piped up. “You ever been on a horse before?”
“Me?” Ryan looked over his shoulder to see if Joey was addressing someone else. “Hell no. I don’t like sitting on animals. It feels too Napoleonic.”
17
“I still don’t understand how it happened,” Ryan complained. “I very distinctly remember saying no.”
Sammy turned in her saddle and grinned back at him as he plodded along on Shakira, a dappled gray horse with a bristly mane. She was a school mount for beginners. Ryan looked both uncomfortably out of his element and just a little delighted about it. It was adorable.
“Joey is very determined. It’s always safer to just go with whatever she wants you to do.”
“I seem to recall you were also rather convincing,” he said dryly.
“I did no such convincing,” she argued, swinging away from the fence line to cut down the middle of the field.
“You underestimate the power of those big, blue eyes, Sparkle.”
She shifted and looked at him again. His ear flaps were down, the reins clenched in a death grip in one hand—a stickler for the rules. He looked both ridiculous and yet still unsettlingly attractive. “Are you flirting with me?”
“I don’t flirt. I’m simply stating a truth.”
“Well, it sounds like flirting,” she pointed out.
“It’s not my fault if you take it that way.”
Sammy shook her head and returned her focus to the ride. She reached down and patted the neck of sweet Magnolia. Maggie was a blue roan Tennessee Walking Horse. Sweet and dainty, she had an enviable stride. She also was a skittish mount. With a little more time, a little more love, she’d find her confidence again.
Sammy loved a snowy ride. The thick quiet broken only by the crisp crunch of hooves. The trail of prints the only imperfection in the otherwise intact blanket still covering the ground. The creak of the saddle. The rock of the gentle horse beneath her. The way the sun and sky and snow built a picture so vibrant she couldn’t stare directly at it.
“How do I catch up to you?” Ryan called from behind.
“Give her a little kick with your heels and click your mouth.”
It took him three times, and his mouth click was more like a kiss, but he managed to bring his mount next to hers and looked pretty pleased about it.
“Nice job, cowboy.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
A young boy in a snowsuit and bright orange hat burst out of the back door of the barn, a scruffy gray-and-white dog in a sweater on his heels.
“That’s Caleb and Waffles,” Sammy explained, returning the wave the boy sent her as he ran for what looked like the beginning of an army of snow people lining up against the pasture fence. “Both adopted by Jax and Joey. Reva too. They’re good people. They built their own family.” She respected that about them.
“Are all your friends married?” he asked.
“Married or in committed relationships. Layla and I are the lone holdouts in our little circle,” she said. “You?”
“Mostly married. The ones who haven’t divorced already are struggling their way through the early years of kids,” he said with a shake of his head. “People just don’t get it. Marriage isn’t some romantic thing that happens to you—it’s a decision you make based on your current and predicted compatibility.”
“Be careful, your accountant is showing,” she teased. “You’re a very practical man.”
Ryan shrugged his broad shoulders then had to steady his balance. “Why waste each other’s time with grandiose ideas of mortgages and minivans and basketball practice if all those goals are built on the idea that one of you has to change to make it happen?”
She pressed her lips together and thought about it. “You’re not wrong,”