Pamela Britton - His Rodeo Sweetheart

“He said to bring him over.” His smile could have lit up the inside of a room.

“Adam—”

“He said he thinks it’d be cool to have a dog doctor living on the property.”

Claire’s mouth opened and closed again. He could tell she wanted to say something, to dash the boy’s hopes with words, but she wasn’t proof against the excitement in her son’s eyes.

“I take it he lives at Misfit Farms?” Ethan asked, having passed a sign along her driveway that pointed to a different road, one labeled with that name.

She nodded.

“I don’t mind going over there.” He tried to tell her without words that he wasn’t about to take advantage of her brother’s kindness. He knew she didn’t want him to and he would respect that wish. “You can show me around the place.”

She must have received the message because some of the concern faded from her eyes. She still searched for something to say, though, something that she could use to finagle her way around her son’s high-handedness.

Something wet touched his hand.

He looked down. Thor peered up at him, curiosity in his brown eyes. Ethan glanced at Claire. Her eyes had gone wide.

“He likes you.”

No. He probably reminded Thor of his handler, the man who’d been killed in action...like Trevor.

“See.” Adam’s eyes were as wide as his mom’s. He pointed. “Thor wants you to stay, too.”

Claire stared up at him, then down at the dog, then back at him again.

She looked troubled, and resigned. “Maybe you should go meet my brother.”

Thor’s nose nudged his palm again.

Maybe he should.

* * *

THEY DROVE TO her brother’s place in less than two minutes. Claire tried to ignore the presence of the man in the seat next to her, but it was nearly impossible.

Thor liked him.

For the first time since the dog had arrived she’d seen life in the canine’s eyes. What did it mean? Would Ethan be able to get through to the dog, something nobody else had been able to do? She could tell Ethan didn’t plan to accept the invitation to stay with her brother, and she appreciated his tactfulness, yet suddenly she wondered...

His hands had shaken.

There had been that look in his eyes, too, the one she’d recognized. She seen the same look in her husband’s eyes when he’d come home from the war, and then later, as he’d been admitted to the hospital. The same look in her son’s eyes.

Fear.

He fought demons, this man who had suffered through war. It made her want to help him. Marcus had called it her greatest gift—her desire to help. Claire thought of it more as a weakness because she often stretched herself too thin thanks to her inability to say no. It was why she’d gotten into the dog rescue business. Why she’d insisted on nursing her husband herself even though the military had offered hospice care. Why she’d stayed by her father’s side, too, even though she had owed the man nothing.

Her tires hummed as she drove over the newly paved road. She couldn’t get used to the smoothness, but Natalie, her brother’s new wife, had insisted her clients would expect pavement. Still, as she turned left toward Colt’s place, she wondered what the cows that still ranged the pastures thought about the strange black strip.

“Wait until you see my uncle’s place.” Adam leaned forward, as if they would have a hard time hearing him when his voice was just one level above a yell over the sound of the truck’s diesel engine. “It’s awesome.”

Awesome was one word. Expensive another. Amazing was applicable, too. Her sister-in-law had won a huge jumping event last year, one with an equally huge purse. Natalie must have spent nearly all of it building her new riding facility.

“Wow,” Ethan said when they drove between two low-lying hills, and her brother’s place came into view.

Wow was right. The big red barn still stood in the same spot as it had in their youth, as did the house directly ahead, but the two-story farmhouse had been given a new coat of white paint. The original barn—the one she and her brothers had hidden from their father in when they were younger—had been converted back to a hayloft. Directly opposite it now, to their left, sat a gorgeous twenty-stall barn that seemed to match the old-fashioned farmhouse somehow. It was two stories, four windows with wooden frames directly above the opening—the apartment her brother Chance would live in one day soon.

That wasn’t the only big change.

A covered arena sat behind the barn. A white fence surrounded the whole complex. They had to pass between the pristine posts, her truck’s wheels catching the newly installed cattle guard and vibrating the interior.

“That always makes my insides jiggle,” Adam said with a giggle.

Hers, too, she admitted, marveling at how green it all was now. Sprinklers. They sprayed every surface that wasn’t covered by asphalt, including the square turnout pastures by her brother’s old arena to her right. The “outdoor arena” they called it now. There were a few jumps in the middle of it, but the bulk of her sister-in-law’s practice fences were in the covered arena. That was because her brother still managed Rodeo Misfits, his specialty act that involved trick riding. They needed the arena for practice. Still, the whole place was like an emerald gem set in the middle of a golden field.

“Does your family compete in riding competitions?”

“You could say that.”

“My uncle is a rodeo performer. My aunt jumps horses.”

All of which should be self-evident to some degree, Claire thought. Though it was the middle of the week, no less than four people rode in the covered arena, one of them her brother, looking out of place in his Western saddle among all the English riders. His truck and trailer still sat in the same spot, though, the words RODEO MISFITS still emblazoned on the sides. At least that hadn’t changed.

“This is some place.”

“That’s the apartment.” Adam pointed to the windows above the opening of the barn.

“Adam, we don’t even know if Dr. McCall wants to stay with us yet.”

Adam all but poked his head between the two front seats. “You do, don’t you, Major McCall?”

“It’s Dr. McCall,” he corrected. “I’m out of the Army now. And I’d love to stay here, but I think we need to talk to your uncle first.”

Points in the man’s favor for being diplomatic. She had to focus on keeping her gaze straight ahead, though. The urge to look at him, to smile, to reach out to this man in a way that was personal, was nearly overwhelming.

“Uncle Colt said he’d get off his horse when we got here.”

He must have called her brother on his cell. Determination, thy name is Adam.

They parked in front of the new barn and it still felt strange to slip out of her truck and hit pavement. Natalie had explained that her wealthy clients didn’t like dirt and mud, something that seemed stupid considering they rode horses, but she didn’t doubt her sister-in-law for a minute. People who jumped horses tended to be wealthy and drive cars that cost six figures. Prissy people, her brother called them, though he’d become friends with most of them in the past year.

Adam was already on his way through the middle of the barn and the arena on the other side. Prissy people didn’t like to get wet, either, which was why they’d erected the covered arena less than twenty yards from the back entrance of the barn.

“This place is amazing,” Ethan repeated.

Claire nodded. “I’ve been afraid to ask how much it all cost.”

It even smelled new. New paint. New shavings. New leather. Shiny leather halters straddled brass hooks. She couldn’t see any of the horses inside, not at first—the metal grates along the front stopped them from poking their heads out—but as she walked down the center aisle, one sleek animal after another was revealed. Some ate. Some stood. Some peered at her curiously as she walked by.