A Love Like Ours (8 page)

On the other hand, Thoroughbreds ran at speeds of up to forty miles per hour. Just three months ago an exercise rider had been killed at Saratoga when he’d fallen and his foot had caught in a stirrup. The horse had dragged the rider, hitting him in the head and chest with his hooves. He couldn’t escape his fear that what had happened at Saratoga could happen to Lyndie.

Jake stopped at Silver Leaf’s stall. The horse had his head down, chewing hay. It took Jake a moment to spot Lyndie’s small form in the dim space. She sat to one side, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them. She must have heard him coming because she was already gazing up at him. Her lips tipped into a gentle smile.

For a long moment Jake stared at her. Foolish woman, sitting in a horse stall for hours every day. Even more frustrating, looking at him as if she liked him and trusted him. Looking at him as if she believed he was worthy of her friendship and trust. Raw pain gathered in his chest. “I saw your car,” he said.

“I’m still trying to get to know Silver Leaf. I’m learning a lot, but I don’t yet understand him.”

“I never said that I expected you to make him into a runner.” The words came out more harshly than he’d planned. “I don’t think anyone can.”

“I think that I can.” She spoke quietly but with confidence. “I hope that I can.”

“I hired you to exercise him and that’s it.”

“I know.”

“Go home, Lyndie. It’s too cold for you here.” A front had moved through late this morning. The rain had grown stronger since he’d let himself into the barn, drumming now against the roof.

“I’m all right.” She motioned to the light blue vest she had on over a long-sleeved shirt and her riding leggings.

Was she trying to point out that she’d dressed warmly enough? He wasn’t buying. Her hands looked pale and cold to him.

“I’m just going to stay with him a little longer, Jake.” She’d put her hair into some sort of bun on top of her head. “If that’s okay with you.”

He should order her to leave like he’d planned. To do so was certainly within his rights. But for reasons he didn’t understand, he found it hard to say no to her when she looked at him like that.

He went to the warm room and made her a cup of coffee using the Keurig. He hadn’t wanted to know things about Lyndie, but he’d nonetheless learned a great deal since they’d started working together.

He’d learned that she liked coffee. He knew that her cheeks turned pink when she rode. He’d memorized the exact shade of her pale brown eyes, like the color of Jack Daniels. It took physical strength to do the job she did, and he knew that she had that strength. He’d learned that short strands of her hair always came free of her ponytail. He knew that an angel charm dangled from her riding hat. He knew that she worked hard and didn’t complain.

From the cupboard, he pulled free a throw blanket stored there.
Meg’s doing. As he made his way back to her, Blackberry leaned out her doorway and Silver Leaf leaned out his. The neighboring horses touched noses in greeting.

Jake handed Lyndie the cup of steaming coffee.

Her expression softened with pleased surprise. “Thank you.”

Her profile created a perfect line, so sheer and sweet that hunger filled him.

Hunger?
No
. But it was hunger. The realization sent fear slicing into him. He wasn’t right or whole. Not good enough for her or anyone. Caring about Lyndie, wanting her, could only cause him misery.

Without grace, he opened the blanket and dropped it onto her knees. “I’m going to give you thirty more minutes.” He needed to get out of here and away from her. “That’s it.”

“Thirty more minutes,” she agreed.

His boots pounded the floor as he strode toward the exit. He’d made a mistake, hiring her. It would be better for them both if she went to work for one of the trainers at Lone Star.

“Thanks again,” she called after him.

He didn’t respond. He desperately needed to make it outside so the rain could wash over him and carry away the longing he’d begun to feel for her.

J
ake brought me coffee and a blanket today.” Lyndie steered Mollie’s chair along the gravel pathway that wound through the woods behind her parents’ house. “He brought it with a ferocious scowl, mind you. Really ferocious. I’m glad you didn’t see it, Mols, because it would have scared the pants off of you. Still. It was nice of him. And it might indicate that I’m making progress. Then again, it might not.”

A beginner would probably find it uncomfortable to speak to someone who never spoke back. Lyndie, though, had had a lifetime of practice.

She’d arrived at her parents’ house earlier with a trunk full of groceries. Mom was working at her counseling job today, which meant that no one had badgered Grandpa Harold into an outing. Lyndie had found him, Mollie’s day nurse, and Mollie sitting in the living room while the Golf Channel played.

As soon as the rain clouds had slipped eastward and the sun had fought free of the gloom, Lyndie had taken Mollie for a walk. Her sister couldn’t see the water-logged leaves and ground, but she could enjoy the sunshine and the breeze. Plus, Mollie had to be craving a break from golf.

“Jake’s a mystery to me.” Her memory replayed the moment
when he’d walked into the stall with a cup in one hand and a blanket in the other. He’d brought her coffee! He’d covered her with a blanket! Which had to mean he didn’t
entirely
dislike her. And yet he’d been as gruff as usual about it. So maybe he did entirely dislike her. “I don’t know what’s going on in his head. He’s closed off and guarded, so I’m not sure how much he still struggles with PTSD. I’d like for him to open up to me, but I have no idea how to convince him to do that.” The walkway took them around a long, graceful curve. “I wish I could bring him here because I know you could help him. I’ll work on it.”

Lyndie had first noticed Mollie’s healing magic when she’d been eight and Mollie five. Their dog had been so sick that he couldn’t eat, walk, or lift his head. The vets had done their best, but even they had begun to give up hope.

Lyndie had adored that dog. He’d been her first pet. Her parents had purchased him for her after a bout of pneumonia had forced Mollie and their mom to be life-flighted away from the vacation cabin they’d rented for a week one summer.

The situation had traumatized Lyndie. She’d been terrified that Mollie might die and dismayed to have her mother snatched from her. For the next six months, she hadn’t spoken. She’d trailed around after Jake wordlessly. At home and at school, she’d gone silently through the motions. A therapist had recommended that her parents give her a dog, and the dog had proven to be far better medicine than anything else they could have chosen. Gradually, her voice had come back to her.

Later, when her dog had been so ill, Lyndie had carried him to Mollie, crying brokenly the whole way, and laid the dog between them on Mollie’s bed. Lyndie could still remember praying over that dog, her fingers buried in his soft fur.

Not two hours later, her dog had padded to his dish and eaten his food. Two days after that, he’d been as good as new. Ever since, no one had been able to convince Lyndie that Mollie didn’t have a secret superpower.

A lot of
nevers
marked Mollie’s life. She’d never walk or speak.
She’d never experience a healthy body. She’d never see the faces of her family or the sun setting over an ocean or the cross. She’d never attain any worldly achievement. But Lyndie was certain that God had looked down, had compassion on Mollie, and blessed her with one special ability.

The path led them to a view of a tiny valley ripe with ferns. The trees above formed a ceiling of branches, and the earth below smelled dark and rich with the earlier rain. “Oh, this is pretty. Dad and Grandpa did a great job when they put down this pathway for you.” She described the scene to Mollie, all the while picturing how she might re-create it with watercolors.

She envisioned a whole family of tiny people living beneath the ferns. They could have a village made out of twigs. One of those cute, old-fashioned waterwheels. A mansion of stones. The little boy who’d inherited the mansion could ride around on his trained earthworm—ew. He could ride around on his trained bird, protecting the village from raccoons and humans and floods.

Lyndie typed her thoughts into her smartphone. She’d add it to the computer file that contained ideas for future books.

When they completed their walk, Lyndie steered Mollie’s chair in the direction of the ramp her dad had added to the house’s wraparound porch. She settled onto a step and pulled Mollie near so that their knees touched. Leaning forward, she tucked the blanket more snugly around Mollie’s shoulders and straightened her knit cap. “I love the hat on you, sweetheart. It’s purple. You look dashing.”

Mollie responded with her version of a smile. Though her eyes didn’t look in Lyndie’s direction, they were alert and bright today.

“Very dashing.” Lyndie kissed Mollie’s hand, a hand that smelled sweetly of the peach soap their mom used when she bathed Mollie.

Lyndie pulled back and saw that Mollie had puckered her lips.

Poignant love welled within Lyndie.

It had not been all hearts and rainbows between the sisters since the day Mollie had healed Lyndie’s dog. Nowadays, Lyndie wished that it had been, but in truth, growing up as Mollie’s older
sister had been rocky. In many ways, Lyndie had been an only child, except without the undivided attention. Mollie’s needs had always been more urgent than Lyndie’s and had required the bulk of her parents’ energy.

Lyndie remembered phases during her childhood and adolescence when she hadn’t wanted to give Mollie the token daily hug her mom required. Anxiety had eaten at Lyndie whenever Mollie had been admitted to the hospital. Resentment, too, because with every hospital stay, Mollie had taken their parents away. There had been days when Lyndie hadn’t wanted to tube feed Mollie or care for her during a seizure or babysit her while their mom did dishes.

From the start, Karen had taught Lyndie that God had chosen her to be the older sister of a sister with challenges. By the time she’d reached her latter teenage years, that lesson had finally sunk deep. She hadn’t been the best older sister that Mollie could have hoped for. But Mollie had been the best younger sister. For certain.

An hour later, Lyndie pulled up in front of her apartment, otherwise known as the Old Candy Shoppe. The front door had been painted dark chocolate and recessed directly in the middle of the rectangular facade of beige bricks. Big windows flanked the door on both sides and a mini metal awning divided the first floor from the second. Lyndie had lucked out because all of her upper-story windows were fabulously round-topped.

A stone path steered her around the side of the house, past climbing ivy. Instead of doing what she usually did, taking the exterior staircase to her door, she made her way into the backyard and knelt near the base of what had been a hollow stump. She and Jayden had made it into a miniature fairy house, with an upside-down red funnel for a roof, faux windows, and a door that swung outward, revealing the hole in the stump where his army figures and plastic dinosaurs could enter. Since calling it a fairy house had insulted Jayden’s masculinity, they’d ended up christening it a hero house.

Lyndie took the baggie of black-eyed peas she’d swiped from her mom and dad’s place and formed them into a curving walkway leading away from the door of the hero house. She lined both sides of the walkway with golf tees, also pilfered.

There. Now she needed to take her muse indoors and see if it would cooperate and transfer itself to art paper.

She climbed the sun-sprinkled stairway to the second story. The moment she opened her front door, Empress Felicity and Gentleman Tobias tumbled out, tails wagging.

Lyndie dropped to her haunches, grinning. “What good dogs! Aren’t you little sweeties? Aren’t you?” Overcome with joy, both tri-colored spaniels flopped onto their backs and presented their bellies for scratching. “Have you been behaving? You have? Why am I not surprised? If you were any more gorgeous you’d just disappear because God would take you straight to heaven.”

She fed them both a treat. Oh, why not live a little? She fed them both a second treat, then threw their tennis balls deep into the yard. They pounded down the stairs, high on the weather, treats, and tennis balls.

Leaving the door open so the dogs could return at will, Lyndie crossed to the windowsill where her rag doll cat lay snoozing. “How are you, Mrs. M?” She ran her palm down the length of the cat’s spine.

Mrs. Mapleton blinked her stunning blue eyes, then tucked her nose under her paw and went right back to sleep.

Lyndie bent to pick up a few throw pillows that the dogs must have kicked off the sofa. She’d left her apartment in good shape this morning, a blessing, since she didn’t have much energy in reserve for cleaning.

The dreamy palette of soft beige and cream accented with sea glass blue that she’d chosen for her open-concept living area soothed her. She liked for her apartment to function as a neutral canvas, perhaps because her paintings and her imagination were always drenched in color—

Her cell phone rang.

She freed it from the pocket of her vest. Unknown number. “Hello?”

A beat of quiet. “Lyndie?” A solemn masculine voice. A voice she recognized.

Her heart did a funny little dip and stutter. “Hi, Jake.” He was calling her? This was an unexpected first.

“I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t still sitting in Silver Leaf’s stall.”

The pirate had called to check on her. He must not entirely dislike her. “No. I’m at home. I only stayed thirty minutes after you left, just like,”
you ordered
, “we agreed. I’m super obedient by nature.”

A slight pause. “Obedient?”

“By nature.”

“I’ve known unbroken colts more obedient than you.”

She laughed. He was almost, sort of, bantering with her! “All right. So maybe obedience isn’t my strongest suit. In this case, though, I did exactly what you asked.”

His end remained silent.

“In fact,” she continued, “ever since I started working for you I’ve been following your instructions carefully.”

“Which hasn’t come naturally to you.”

“I’ve changed since we were kids.”

“Not that much,” he stated.

He wasn’t flattering her or flirting with her, yet warm pleasure seeped into her just the same. She could get used to this, to chatting with him on the phone.

More silence passed than was customary in normal phone conversations. She always kept a glass dish of fresh flowers on her antique farm table. Their scent drifted to her while she waited. Lilies and roses.

“Have you considered getting a job at Lone Star Park?” he asked abruptly.

All her enjoyment in the conversation rushed away.

“I think that you might be better suited to a position there, working for one of the other trainers,” he said.

He was trying to—to
fire her
? Even though she’d given him no reason? “I don’t want a job at the track, working for a different trainer.” He hadn’t called to check on her. He’d called to fire her. The realization pulsed through her like a painful electrical shock. “I want to stay on at Whispering Creek. I’ve only just gotten started.”

No reply.

“You’re the best trainer in the southwest.” It was true. The jerk! The blind, insensitive villain! “I don’t want to work for any of the trainers at Lone Star. I want to keep working for you.”

Still no reply. It was like talking to a piece of lumber. Her heart started to race, her emotions to swirl. With effort, Lyndie fought to keep her voice calm and as detached as his. “Has my job performance been lacking in any way?”

“No.”

“Then why would you want me to look for work elsewhere?”

“Like I said, I think another position might suit you better.”

“No position will suit me better than this one, I’m positive of that. I’m happy with my job. I’d like to keep it.” She gripped the phone hard and screwed her eyes shut, praying furiously while she waited.

“I’ll see you at Whispering Creek tomorrow morning,” he said, curt. Then
click
.

Lyndie pulled the phone in front of her face and growled at it. Disgusted, she threw it onto a chair and stormed toward the back of her apartment.

She’d counted on Bo to help her get her job at Whispering Creek. But ever since Jake had hired her, she’d counted on herself to keep her job. She’d done well for Jake. She’d exercised his horses as skillfully as they could be exercised. He himself had watched every second of it. He couldn’t find fault with her job performance, and
still
he’d rather she leave. Which, frankly, insulted her professionally and hurt her feelings personally. She’d been working with Thoroughbreds for fourteen years. He’d only been working with them for eight. What did he know about what position would suit her best?

Except . . . except her sense of fairness wouldn’t let her go quite that far. Even at twelve, Jake had been masterful with horses. He knew everything about Thoroughbreds.

He knew nothing about women.