“Oh, wow,” Ted said. “Harsh.” He chuckled, glad when Emma smiled. She was just as made up this morning as she’d been at lunch yesterday, but Ted felt like he could see her more clearly.
She moved down the row and looked at the next horse, a brown and white animal that Ted felt an instant connection with.
That surprised him, because while he’d always liked dogs, he’d never thought of himself as a horse person.
“This one’s name is Patches,” she said. “He just didn’t take to his mother. So we still put them out together every day, but he has to be hand-fed.”
“Gotcha.”
“And this is Ruby,” she said, smiling down at the red-coated filly in the next pen. “She’s just hungry all the time, and her momma didn’t have enough milk for her.” She reached over the fence and stroked the horse’s nose. “She’s almost weaned though.”
“And you take care of them?”
“I only do this little bit for the babies,” she said, looking up at him. “Yes. Twice a day. Jess’ll have someone else take them out with their moms and teach them how to ride and all of that.”
“What if there are no babies on the ranch?” he asked. “Then what do you do?”
“I’m the ranch manager,” she said. “I do all the behind-the-scenes stuff that keeps the ranch going.”
“Wow,” Ted said. “How long have you been doing that?”
“Ten years.” Emma tucked the bottle under her arm as Ruby started sticking her tongue through the holes in the fence to lick it. “You’ve had yours,” she told the horse.
Ted looked down as the blue heeler passed him. “And what about the dogs? How many of those live on the ranch?”
“Oh, five or six,” she said. “They roam with the horses and help herd the boars in when we have our boar hunt.”
Ted had no idea what planet he’d landed on. “Boar hunt?”
Emma smiled at him, and everything in the world got a little brighter. “It’s a long story, and I think your meeting starts soon.”
“Right,” he said. “Okay, well, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I know,” she said, and she seemed ten times softer now than she had even a few minutes ago.
He reached up and tipped his hat, something he’d done yesterday as he’d left too. He hadn’t even known how to do it, but the motion had been natural then, as it was now. “All right, well, I’ll see you later, Emma.” He looked down at the dog. “And….” He looked up at her, expecting her to fill in a name.
“Oh, we don’t name the dogs,” she said.
“What?” he asked. “You name the horses, but not the dogs?”
She shrugged with another perfect smile on those lips. “Ginger loves horses.”
Ted crouched down and scratched the blue heeler, feeling the dirt in his hair. “Well, he deserves a name too. I’m gonna call him…” Nothing came to mind, and he looked up at Emma for help.
“Don’t ask me,” she said, giggling again. “I’m not having any part of this.”
“I’ve never named a dog before,” Ted said, and he couldn’t believe how hard it was. He looked at the heeler again, and blurted, “Simon.”
“Simon?” Emma asked, and she burst out laughing.
Ted straightened, and he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “You think that’s funny, huh?”
“Why Simon?”
Ted shrugged, not wanting to say that one of the shows he knew about from his mother was American Idol. She loved Simon Cowell, and maybe Ted wouldn’t feel so lonely if he had a dog here named Simon. Maybe then, it would be like his mother was close by.
“Seems like it fits,” he told Emma, because he didn’t need to get into all of his emotional issues with the woman. “I better go. See you later.”
“Yeah,” she said, backing up a couple of steps so he could move in front of her. “See you later, Ted.”
He wanted to stay near her too and ask her all kinds of things about herself. He’d tell her anything she wanted to know too—including how he’d gotten six years in prison—but he forced himself to keep walking.
Just because Nate had fallen in love at Hope Eternal Ranch didn’t mean Ted was going to. In fact, he was fairly certain Emma’s scream was really how she felt about him, and he didn’t need to put himself through anything unnecessary.
He needed to be here for three and a half months, and then he could return to Clydesdale with his head held high.
Chapter Four
Emma watched Ted round the corner, his stride straight and sure. How he possessed so much confidence, Emma didn’t know. When she’d looked up and seen the tall, broad-shouldered, shadowy figure….
The scream had been instant. So had the bottle throw.
Ted had some good reflexes too, and Emma was very lucky that bottle was made of plastic and not glass.
Embarrassment squirreled through her, getting into the really tight corners and making her mood turn sour. How did she keep running into him? She couldn’t get up any earlier to come feed the foals, and she shouldn’t have to.
“Maybe you should start later,” she mumbled to herself as she walked over to the industrial sink in the corner. She washed out the bottles and set them to dry for later. “All right, guys,” she said to her babies. “I’ll see you tonight.”
She left the stables, and the pink and yellow in the sky made everything sweeter. The last time she’d seen the sky like this, she’d been sitting with Missy out at the Frio bat caves. The sky was getting darker and darker then, not coming to life, but the feeling was the same.
There was a time between dawn and sunrise, and dusk and sunset, where the earth held its breath. Everything was calm and peaceful, and Emma had no worries, no doubts, and no insecurities.
She’d placed a kiss on Missy’s temple, and not ten minutes later, thousands and thousands and thousands of bats had come pouring out of the caves. Emma had never seen anything like it, and she’d stood there with her daughter in complete awe.
It had been a great experience for both of them, and when Emma had driven away last Sunday night, it was one of those times that she cried a lot on the winding roads back to Sweet Water Falls.
Thankfully, Ginger had been out on a walk with Nate, and Emma had managed to sneak through the house while Jess and Michelle shared a bowl of popcorn in the living room. By morning, her tears were dried up, the redness in her eyes gone.
A week and a day later, Ted had shown up, asking questions he had no right to ask.
She couldn’t believe that had just happened yesterday afternoon. It felt like he’d been on the ranch for a lot longer than that.
Emma returned to the homestead and poured herself a cup of coffee while the house cat, Frisco, wound between her ankles. She got out the sugar-free chocolate syrup and squirted in a healthy amount. With added cream, her cup no longer steamed, and it was more like a mug of hot chocolate with some slight coffee flavoring. Just the way she liked it.
The hot chococoffee was all she had in the morning, and since she wasn’t spiking her blood sugar, she counted it as if she’d eaten nothing.