A Cowboy's Pride. Pamela Britton

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СКАЧАТЬ a sec.” He grabbed his cowboy hat off the peg by the door. He turned back to the front door in time to spot her scooping up a basket, a breeze throwing back the smell of fried chicken and...pie? Was that what he smelled?

      His stomach grumbled.

      “What is that?”

      “Lunch.”

      He hadn’t eaten all morning. Frankly, he’d been too exhausted to do much more than sleep.

      “Can we eat here?”

      She glanced back at him. “Nope. Where we’re going isn’t far.”

      “Smells good,” he grumbled.

      His chair picked up speed as he rolled toward her. She wore a red shirt this morning, one that emphasized a natural bloom on her cheeks. Her black hair had been left loose, and Trent had observed her enough times to know that she preferred it that way. She liked to flick it out of her face when she was determined to make him do something, which was pretty often, he admitted, his eye catching sight of her rear end, or more specifically, the crystal beads on her pockets. They caught the light and beamed out rainbow-colored prisms. Pretty jeans for a pretty woman.

      Now, now. Just because she’s taking it easy on you today is no reason to have thoughts like that.

      A blind man would notice how gorgeous she was. The woman might be a termagant, but she was a good-looking termagant. And even though he might despise her militant attitude, she knew exactly what to say to motivate him into action. He respected that.

      “How many guests can you accommodate here?”

      The words caused her to slow down, Trent finally able to stare at her profile. That was good. The view from the rear was entirely too distracting for his peace of mind.

      “Eight families.” She glanced down at him and Trent found himself wondering if maybe he should have kept quiet. When she wasn’t giving him orders, he had a hard time focusing on her words because suddenly he was noticing how her eyes matched the color of the sky, and how the red shirt tucked into her jeans made her waist seem smaller.

      “Most of the cabins sleep four people,” she added when he kept quiet. “Although two of them, the ones on the end—” she pointed to the last two cabins “—they’re bigger and can comfortably sleep six.”

      He couldn’t care less, but if he were honest with himself, he could admit to feeling more relaxed. Between the light breeze on his face, the quiet gurgle of the river to his right and the pleasant tone of her voice, Trent found himself relaxing for the first time in ages.

      “How long has this place been a guest ranch?”

      “Since a year after Kimberly died.”

      The girl’s mother, he thought. Alana’s fiancé had died in the same wreck. Wait. She’d corrected him on that. She hadn’t been engaged to Braden, but they’d been close, despite her words to the contrary. He thought about the emotions on her face when he questioned her the first day. The pain he’d spotted. The lingering sadness. The emptiness. He’d felt like a heel the moment he’d closed the door behind her.

      “Is that how all this started? With Rana’s injuries from the wreck?”

      He saw her swallow and nod. “We almost lost her.”

      One of his wheels hooked on a rock. He straightened himself out before asking, “How long was she in the hospital?”

      “Months.” She shook her head, as if trying to shake off the memories. “She lost her mom and her uncle all in one fell swoop, and then had to fight for her life. It was almost too much for her to bear.”

      Was she speaking of Rana? Or herself?

      “When we brought her home, Cabe and I put our heads together. I’d always planned on being a therapist, had the majority of my schooling done. He was desperate to get Rana back. The extent of her injuries harmed her mind as well as her body and so we came up with a plan to distract her. Horses. Lots and lots of horses. We made sure she was out of doors every chance we could get. I finished my degree and went to work on her. I guess you could say she was my guinea pig.”

      She’d slowed down, stopping by a massive tree, one with roots jutting out all the way down to the riverbank. A frog croaked nearby. The breeze had kicked up, and it tossed her hair back. She seemed lost in her thoughts. He almost didn’t want to breathe for fear of distracting her. Then she blinked, met his gaze.

      “Everything happens for a reason.”

      She meant the ranch, of course, not what he’d gone through.

      “You didn’t stop with Rana, though,” he said.

      “No. When word got out that Rana was walking again, the phone started ringing. Cabe talked to me about opening a guest ranch specializing in people with disabilities. I thought it was a great idea. We started looking into grants. Before we knew it, we had the financing and a waiting list. We couldn’t build the cabins fast enough.”

      He could tell she loved what she did. Just talking about it set her whole face aglow, causing Trent to marvel at how pretty she was all over again. The sadness was gone and in its wake was the joy of her success.

      “It seems quiet here now.”

      She smiled ruefully. “The calm before the storm. School’s still in session. Come July we’ll be packed solid. Cabe will bring in some help, usually interns from nearby colleges. It’s crazy, but it’s so amazing to watch people with a disability get on a horse for the first time. When they feel a horse beneath them, when they realize they can walk again, well, not them, but the horse, their faces light up. And then when they learn to control the horse and suddenly they’re mobile in a way they never imagined...”

      He could watch the play of emotions on her face all day. The happiness. The excitement. The satisfaction. He couldn’t look away.

      “I can’t imagine ever leaving this place...or Rana. She’s like a daughter to me now.”

      Suddenly, he was unaccountably jealous of Rana, and that was just plain ridiculous. Why?

      Because she could walk again.

      “How long did it take?”

      She seemed to snap back to earth. “For what?”

      “To teach Rana to walk again?”

      She smiled. “Months, but Rana makes it sound like it took a decade. I’ve never seen anyone attack therapy like Rana did. She told me at one point that God might have taken her mother, but He wasn’t going to take her legs away, too. She was angry.” Alana stared at him pointedly. “We had to deal with that, too. I’ve learned it’s pretty common for people to latch on to their anger when they’ve been dealt a debilitating blow.”

      The way he had. He couldn’t miss her point.

      “By the way, this is where we’re having our picnic.” She pointed to a spot beneath a tree, one so big its branches hung out over the nearby river. “That rope there will be your therapy today.”

      She’d done that on purpose, СКАЧАТЬ