Bethany Campbell - Home To Texas

“Oh.” He left the door ajar. “I’m almost finished with his bedroom. What do you want me to do now?”

I want for you and me to get out of this narrow hallway, she thought. It’s too close for comfort. She could still feel the chill from outside radiating from his body.

Uneasily she moved to the living room. “I ordered a temporary paddock and stalls.” She pointed out the window. “The hardware store delivered them, up in that meadow. Can you set things up?”

“Sure. It’s only a two-wrench job. Where do you want it?”

She moved to the table and pointed at a map. It showed the original layout of Hole in the Wall. Grady stood right behind her and looked over her shoulder. “The dude ranch had the paddocks here.” She pointed out the spot on the map. “When you walk out there, you’ll see the outline of the foundation of the stables.”

“Yes.” His breath tingled her ear, and the back of her neck prickled. The vibrations from his body no longer seemed cold, but warm.

She tried to ignore it and pointed to a second map. “This is the way the property is now. I’ve thought and thought about it. They had it right. The stable should go there.”

“Why’s it gone?” he asked, still just as close, just as disturbing.

“It didn’t suit the man who bought the place. That Fabian person. He had almost everything torn down.”

“And it’s your job to put things back together?”

Yes. She thought of her life and Del’s shaken into pieces. It’s my job to put things back together.

She put her finger on a dotted line. “The fencing goes here for the time being. The stalls here. I have our horses coming in a few weeks. I want Del to know we’re ready for his pony.”

She moved sideways, out of the almost electric aura he radiated. “So the sooner it’s done the better,” she said with more authority than she felt.

“You want to step outside and show me, just to make sure?”

She welcomed the chance to shake off the closeness of the house. His presence was too powerful; the enclosed space seemed to sing with it.

“Yes. But we’ll have to be quick. I don’t like leaving Del alone.”

“I understand.”

They both looked out the window, saw the golden leaves falling swiftly from the oaks, the elms. The sky had turned gray. He turned to her, eyed her thin jacket. “Wind’s coming up. Will you be warm enough?”

She crossed her arms, a defensive gesture. Against the growing cold? Or against him? She didn’t know. “I’ll be fine.”

“Let me get my shirt.”

She didn’t want to wait. “I’ll meet you outside,” she said.

GRADY SHRUGGED INTO HIS SHIRT and buttoned it, standing again by the same big window. He watched her striding gracefully down the slope toward the site of the old stable.

He put on his hat and went after her, leaving the dog in the house to guard the sleeping boy.

He heaved the toolbox up from the ground near the faucet, grabbed the post-hole digger out of the truck and followed her to the big plateau where she waited. The wind had grown stiffer, and although it didn’t bother him, she huddled deeper in her denim jacket.

Her hair, so severely controlled, so perfectly in place before her hike, was growing still more tousled. More strands had slipped from the silver barrette and danced, multicolored, in the breeze.

Her oval face, left so carefully uncolored by any artifice, was burnished by the cold. Her cheeks were pink, making her unusual eyes seem more vivid. Her full mouth looked riper.

He thought, I wish I had a picture of you like that. Hair like autumn, eyes gray as the clouds. Like you came right out of the clouds, part of the sky itself…

His own fancy shook him. He was not given to poeticizing. Still he looked at her and thought, Some man left you? He was a fool.

He said, “Some guy pulled down a perfectly good stable? He was a fool.”

“He wanted something else,” she said, and he wondered if the words applied to her ex-husband as well.

“I hate to see good things abused,” he said. “I hate to see them wasted.”

He studied the play of her hair in the wind, wondered what it would feel like if he touched it, then cautioned himself, Slow down, boy.

The look in her eyes grew far off, her expression stoic. “What’s done is done,” she said. “We deal with it.”

She exhaled, burrowing her hands more deeply into her pockets. “So. Let’s pace the outline of the fence. Then I’ll let you get to your job, and I’ll get to mine.”

“Sure.” He fell into step beside her. “What kind of horses have you got coming?”

“An Appaloosa.” She kept her eyes on her boots as she paced. “And a Shetland pony.”

He found this interesting; he always found horses interesting. But there were other things he wanted to know. He jerked his head in the direction of the house. “The painting. You bought all the right stuff in town. You knew what you were doing.”

The unspoken question was you’ve done this before?

He didn’t know if she’d answer, but she did. “We grew up with our folks doing it. Buying one place after another. Fixing it up. Moving on.”

He tried another angle. “Cal? You know him well?”

She gave him the briefest of sideways glances. Her smoky eyes had the strange power to fascinate and shake him at the same time.

“Yes. Well.” She seemed lost in thought for a moment. Then she looked at the sky and said, “I’m sorry I was so unfriendly to you earlier.”

The remark threw him a bit off balance. “I didn’t notice,” he lied.

“Yes, you did. You took me by surprise.”

I could say the same for you. He stole a glance at her profile, the straight nose, the long lashes and the untrammeled hair.

She stared off at the far horizon. “People will ask you what’s going on over here. What’s becoming of this property. Each of the partners has a different vision. But they’re working together. My brother’s going to establish an equestrian community. It’s part of a bigger development. All of it committed to preserving the integrity of the land. I don’t know much more than that.”

He stopped, and she stopped, too. He pulled his hat farther down over his eyes. “An equestrian community? For people who own horses?”

“Own. Or lease. People who want enough space in the country to live and have a horse or two. Or who live in Austin but want to keep horses. To have a weekend getaway and place to ride.”

“And your brother’s put you in charge of start-up?” he asked. It was a big job for a woman, especially for one recovering from a bad marriage, but Tara was not an average woman. She nodded and started walking again. “He’s played with the idea for years. So that’s the story. I oversee reconstruction on the house and lodge. We’ve got to get the stable up and running. In Austin, architects and landscape architects are planning the rest of it.”

He kept pace with her. “Do you want me to keep quiet about it? I mean, folks are bound to be curious. But it’s your business and your brother’s.”

“No. There’s no need for secrecy. People will know soon enough.” She paused, her eyes sweeping the hills, then settling on the house. “I’ve got to go now.”

“Yeah. Well. I’ll move Del’s furniture back in before I head home.”

“Thanks.” She said it without smiling. She turned from him and walked away with long, sure steps. She did not look back.

IT WAS AFTER SIX O’CLOCK, and Del, full of energy after his nap, had decided to shadow Grady. He was an interesting man who did interesting things.

He had put up almost a whole fence where no fence had been before. He could take the light fixture out of the bedroom ceiling, then put it back. He’d turned the dirty walls a clean and comforting blue. He was strong enough to move even a big dresser, and that’s what he was doing now.