* * *
THE NEXT MORNING the routine began. Jace and Ari were up at dawn and riding the fences. Ari sat in front of Jace and pretended to have control. He was too short and the horse too big for him, but Kelly remembered this was the way she’d started. She remembered her dad holding her as they rode, keeping her safe. She knew exactly what Ari was feeling.
And she envied him.
Even though Jace added his daily rides with his son to his schedule, he didn’t shirk his duties. He and Ari repaired, replaced and made new the items on Kelly’s list. He even added tasks that needed attention without her asking him to.
Kelly often heard the horses whinnying from the barn. The sound was like a siren’s draw. She wanted to go out riding. She wanted to feel the horse under her, the gentle rhythm of its cadence. She wanted to guide it over the grounds and look at all the Kendall had and what it could be—would be.
Taking her mind off the horses, Kelly turned to go back to the books.
“Wanna go for a ride?” Jace was standing in the doorway. “How about it?”
“I’m very busy here,” she said. She looked around the office. Surprisingly the room was clear of clutter and didn’t seem like anyone needed to be working there.
“I saw you,” he said.
“Saw me? Where?”
“In the window.” He indicated the one that looked out on the back lawn.
Kelly glanced at the sunny pane.
“I saw you standing there watching us. You wanted to go for a ride. I could see it. So don’t act like you’re indifferent to the horses.”
The color rose in her face. The word indifferent had been used before and from his mouth. After he’d had it on hers. Jace extended his hand. “Come on, ride with me.”
“Where’s Ari?”
“I’ve hired a baker to be on-site to prepare cookies and cakes, and other sweets for sale when the guests are here. She’s showing Ari how to make cookies.”
Jace offered his hand. Kelly stared at it for a long time before she covered the distance between them and put her hand in his. Within minutes they were cantering across the lawn. After a while, both of them stepped up the pace until they were galloping along the white fence where she used to sit and watch.
This was exactly as Kelly knew it would be. She felt the wind pulling her hair loose. It blew her blouse against her breasts and it billowed out the back like a sail. She raced the wind and Jace. In all these years, she hadn’t forgotten how to handle a horse. She loved this feeling, the freedom of riding, of not having to worry about anything except the exhilaration of connecting with such an amazing animal.
They’d ridden a long distance from the house. The lawn had turned into a rolling landscape of lush trees. Kelly pulled the horse to a stop and got down. She tied the reins to a low branch. The animals needed to rest.
Walking to the fence, she climbed up to sit on the top rung. Jace tied his horse to the same branch and came over. He didn’t climb up, but stood next to her, facing the road. Kelly would pay for this ride tomorrow. Already she could feel the unaccustomed muscles tightening. But she wouldn’t mind. It was worth it just to be on a horse again.
“Is this your spot?” Jace repeated.
“My spot?” she asked.
“Your place? The one that you go to when you’re alone and afraid. The place you use to think things over.”
She nodded. How did he know? “I used to come here often when I lived in Short Hills.”
“Why?”
“After my mother died, my father changed. He drank. A lot. I felt lost, like no one wanted me.”
“How old were you when your mother died?”
Kelly let her breath out slowly. A surge of emotion gathered in her chest and cut off her ability to speak, at first. “I was fourteen.” She glanced in the direction from which they had come. “If it wasn’t for the horses, I don’t think I’d be here today.”
“How did they help?”
It would be hard for her to explain. “They were there,” she said simply.
“Did you whisper to them?”
She shook her head. “I just watched them.” Kelly stared in the direction of the spot where she used to get off the school bus. She was really looking into the past. “They were huge, gorgeous, proud animals. I loved watching them. I could get lost in their movements. After a while I thought they’d miss me if I wasn’t on the fence. I knew I’d miss them. So I watched them every day.”
“And you found peace.”
“Some measure of it.” That had been so long ago. Kelly thought it could have happened to a different person. No one she knew had lost their mother. Some kids had divorced parents, but they were alive and they either knew where they were or they visited them. She felt so alone. And what was even worse was that her father went from the loving man who’d held her safe in his lap to a stranger who could only be consoled by a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon.