More Than Neighbors (12 page)

“Good.” Gabe reinforced his message with words and tone. Easy does it, he worked to convey. “Loosen the reins just a little...”

“I remember.”

“Are you sure he’s ready for this?” Ciara asked, voice as taut as her posture.

“He trotted the other day and did fine.” Nonetheless, Gabe didn’t take his eyes off the boy and horse.

“What if he falls off?”

Gabe shrugged. “Sooner or later, he will. And then he’ll get right back on and try again. That’s how you learn.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

He found himself grinning and hoped she couldn’t see.

They both watched as Mark gently tightened his legs. Aurora started forward, her walk lengthening into a trot. He kept her moving in a wide circle, just as Gabe had earlier instructed him. He was bouncing high enough from the saddle to raise bruises on that skinny butt and make Gabe wince, but the horse seemed to be taking it in stride.

“She’s trotting,” Mark called as they passed close to Gabe. “Look, Mom! I’m trotting.”

“I see,” she said, waving, then lowered her voice. “He’s not very athletic, you know.”

“I’ve seen that,” Gabe agreed, “but he’s good with his hands when he focuses, and riding is a different skill set than playing soccer or baseball. Balance is important. Centering yourself. The ability to control your movements.”

Her laugh broke. “Mark?”

He took his eyes off the horse and rider long enough to see the genuine terror on her face. Funny, until these two came along, he hadn’t bothered trying to reassure anyone in a long time. Now he did a lot of it.

“This is good for him,” he explained. “I was clumsy at his age, too. Riding, you learn to make small movements. If he sticks to it, I’m betting you see him doing better on his feet, too.”

She gave a small, tight nod.

He raised his voice to reach the boy’s ears. “All right, Mark.
Gently
steer her into a figure eight.”

The boy’s face showed the same intense concentration Gabe saw on it when Mark used tools in the workshop. He was still flopping around some in the saddle, but less so.

Aurora obediently turned more tightly, crossing the circle of the invisible arena, turning again, all signaled by her rider. The fact that she changed leads the way she should had to do with her training, not her rider, but reminded Gabe that was something they’d have to talk about during a future lesson.

“Back into the wider circle,” Gabe called.

A look of intense concentration on his face, Mark did as commanded.

“Now tighten your legs just a little. She’ll canter.”

Mark nodded, gripping the saddle horn with one hand. A moment later, Aurora broke into a canter, a smoother gait than the trot.

Ciara moaned. “I can’t bear it.”

“He’s doing fine. Watch him. His body is starting to move with the horse.”

Gabe let them canter for a good ten minutes before calling for a trot then a walk. “All right,” he said, “walk her around the pasture for a few minutes to cool her off, but don’t let her take a bite of grass.”

Gabe removed his booted foot from the rail and turned to face Ciara, resting his forearms atop the fence. “You know, maybe we should put you up next. Best way for you to get over being scared to death every time he gets up on horseback.”

“Me?” She tore her gaze from her son to stare at him in shock. “You’re kidding.”

The blue of her eyes had never been as rich as it was now, outside on a sunny day. It wasn’t quite warm, but the mercury had climbed into the high fifties in a nod to spring. Ciara wore a nubby sweater over jeans, her hair loosely captured in some kind of knot at her nape. Fine moment to discover he liked long hair, something he’d never thought about one way or another before. Ginny had kept her fine blond hair in a kind of pixie do that suited her, but left nothing for him to run his fingers through or spread over the pillow. Ciara’s hair caught fire in the sunlight, too. He imagined sifting through it in search of all the myriad colors that made up that distinctive shade of reddish-brown.

He waited to be hit with guilt because the comparison hadn’t been in favor of his pretty wife, but all he felt was a faint echo. Ginny was long gone. If she’d been here, he wouldn’t have even noticed this new neighbor as a woman. That wasn’t the kind of man he was.

Disconcerted, he thought,
There’s nothing for me to feel guilty about
.

It was the first time he’d ever admitted as much to himself.

“I don’t know,” Ciara said, and he had to struggle to remember what she was expressing doubt about.

Oh, yeah. Getting up on a horse.

“If Mark can do it, you can, too,” he said.

“Well... It might be fun.” She didn’t sound so sure, but he smiled.

“As soon as Mark brings Aurora back, you can have a turn. Just a walk,” he said, before she could protest.

Her gaze fastened on his. “Will you stay close? Until I say otherwise?”

“You have my word.”

Mark had reached the far fence, turned Aurora and started back.

“I’m going to a local cutting-horse competition Saturday,” Gabe heard himself say. “I thought you and Mark might like to come. He’d enjoy watching it. I didn’t want to say anything to him without your okay, though.”

“Are you riding in it?”

“Not to compete,” he said. “I’ll be one of the riders in the arena helping control the herd of cattle while the competition is going on. So I can’t be with you all the time, but you might like meeting some people.” He worked to keep his voice neutral, a little surprised at how much he wanted her to say yes, even though he was suggesting the outing for Mark’s sake, not his. “There’ll be a junior division, so it’ll give him a chance to meet kids his own age, too,” he added.

“That sounds like fun,” she said without hesitation. “And you know he’ll be thrilled.”

He nodded. “Good.” Mark reined Aurora to a stop in front of them, already begging to keep going, but when Gabe said it was his mother’s turn, he dismounted readily. “It’s really fun, Mom,” he enthused.

She didn’t seem eager to move. “Do I climb on from the fence?” she asked.

Gabe took hold of the reins right below Aurora’s chin as Mark dismounted. “Nope,” he told her, “come on in here.”

After a minute, she bent and slipped between the rails but kept her back pressed to them. “She’s so big.”

Gabe had to coax Ciara into taking the two steps to the horse’s side. Once she’d gotten that brave, he bent, hands cupped, and waited until she placed a foot on his hands. Lifting her, he instructed, “Leg over her back.”

With her arms raised, her sweater rode up to expose a strip of creamy skin.
Damn,
he thought, relieved when she settled into the saddle and seized the saddle horn in a death grip, the sweater regaining full coverage.

Seeing the way she was holding on, Gabe tried to hide his amusement, but from her glare, wasn’t sure he’d succeeded. She turned it briefly on her son, too.

“Not a word out of you. And if you laugh, I swear I won’t make manicotti again until you turn sixteen.”

Mark pretended to zip his lips.

Gabe cleared his throat to disguise his chuckle as he shortened the stirrups and adjusted Ciara’s sneaker-clad feet in them. “Heels down.” Gripping her ankles, he positioned her feet. “You’ll need boots, too,” he said. Just yesterday, after the first lesson, she’d bought Mark a pair of cowboy boots at the general store in town. His walk had held some extra swagger when he’d arrived in them today.

Gabe pried one of her hands off the horn and showed her how to hold the reins.

Her entire time in the saddle passed with Aurora ambling slowly, her eyes sleepy. Gabe walked right beside her with a hand resting casually on her shoulder.

“You’re doing fine,” he said a couple of times, just as he did to Mark, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ciara gradually relax until her body began to sway with the movement, and her knuckles didn’t show white.

They circled in the pasture for a good ten minutes before he had her ease back on the reins and bring Aurora to a stop by the gate where Mark waited.

“Put your weight on this stirrup and swing your leg over,” he instructed Ciara. “That’s it. Now ease your foot out of the stirrup and let yourself slide down. I’ve got you.”

He wrapped his hands around her waist and lowered her until she was on her own two feet. They stood so close, Ciara pinned between him and the horse, that he could have bent his head and rubbed his cheek on her head. Neither of them moved for a moment that stretched longer than it should have. Sitting atop the fence, Mark was chattering away, but Gabe couldn’t parse a word. Over the familiar horsey scents, he smelled something tantalizing that had to be uniquely this woman’s. His nostrils flared, and his fingers flexed slightly, finding bare, silky skin beneath the sweater. Sensations seemed heightened. He felt the warmth and give of her flesh and then her quick breath.

God. If they’d been alone—

But they weren’t. It took everything he had to release her and step back. She turned slowly, her eyes meeting his, and he saw awareness to match his as well as wariness and curiosity in them.

His heart gave some hard beats that made him momentarily lightheaded.
Think about
this later,
he ordered himself. It was lucky they
weren’t
alone. He’d have done something stupid. He knew he would have.

Gabe made a conscious effort to behave normally.

“Mark, you can unsaddle her.”

“Cool!” He launched himself from the fence, and Aurora flung her head up and danced in place.

“Easy,” Gabe reminded him. It was becoming one of his most commonly spoken words, along with
slowly
and
gently
.

“Oh. Yeah.” As he unbuckled, his mother ducked between the rails again, putting the fence between her and Gabe.

Just as well, he tried to convince himself.

Nothing happened. Keep it that way.

Ciara started talking, her tone extra bright as she told Mark about the cutting-horse competition. He was as excited as she’d predicted.

“How come you aren’t riding in it?” he asked Gabe, who shrugged.

“We all take turns. I only do it for fun.”

“Do you think someday I’ll ride good enough to be in one?”

“Maybe,” Gabe temporized. “What you’ll see Saturday is how important the horse’s training is. A good cutting horse is smart. It all comes down to how well he and his rider work together.”

Mark was tall enough to handle the saddle without help. He slung it and the blanket over the fence then applied curry comb and brush to Aurora’s sleek brown coat. Her skin shivered in pleasure, making the boy laugh.

Once Mark unbuckled and slipped off the bridle, releasing Aurora, Ciara seemed anxious for them to get home. After they left, Gabe went into the barn and opened Hoodoo’s stall door, giving him an affectionate slap on his rump as he trotted by.

Hoodoo was a hell of a cutting horse, possessing both the smarts and the razor-sharp reactions to have gone far if Gabe had been interested enough to compete at a regional or even national level. He’d turned down a number of offers for the young gelding from more serious competitors. He couldn’t imagine selling either of his horses.

Leaning on the fence, he watched Hoodoo tear around the pasture once just for fun, bucking and kicking as if Watson was nipping at his heels—as he sometimes still did. Gabe had concluded that the dog was only having fun, too, and that Hoodoo didn’t mind the company. Aurora seemed more irritated in her matronly way.

Reluctantly, he let his mind circle back to his intense physical reaction to Ciara Malloy, and to the discovery that his invitation to the competition hadn’t been the casual thing he’d imagined it to be.

If he brought a pretty woman and her son along with him, there’d be talk, thanks to his notoriety as a loner. That was one of the many things he hadn’t thought through in advance.

He grunted. When had he ever paid attention to gossip? Hell, if he was lucky, friends would conclude he’d moved past his grief, and they’d ditch the pity.

Good plan—if that had been the plan. If there’d been a plan at all.

No, Ciara and Mark Malloy had just
happened
, and he still didn’t quite know how and why.

* * *

W
HEN
C
IARA OPENED
the door to Gabe, the first words out of his mouth were, “Where’s Mark?”

It was Friday night, a couple of days later. Mark had been at his place that morning for his usual woodworking/math lesson. He had conveyed his mother’s invitation to dinner, and, once home, reported that Gabe said, “Tell your mother thank you. That sounds good.”

It was starting to feel less like a big deal to ask him, although Ciara wasn’t letting herself analyze the relationship or number of times a week she, and not just Mark, now saw Gabe.

Another thing she tried not to think about was the impact his presence had on her, every single time she saw him. She prayed he had no way of guessing that the sight of him was enough to make her feel like a teenager in the throes of her first mad crush. Right this minute, heat tinged her cheeks, and she felt breathless.

“Hi, Gabe,” she said, and congratulated herself at her blithe unconcern. “I think Mark and Watson went down to the creek. Why?”

His gaze steady on her, he stepped across the doorjamb, his height and broad shoulders dominating the entry. “First time I’ve been here he hasn’t raced out to meet me.”

“Well, he did see you this morning. Here, let me take your coat.”

He shrugged out of it and handed it to her. The sheepskin lining at the neck was warm from his body. She was embarrassed to realize she’d have buried her face in the soft fleece to inhale his scent if he wouldn’t have seen. Her fingers momentarily tightened on the coat before she hung it on the rack she’d found at a Spokane antiques store to make up for the fact that the house had no closet anywhere near the front door.

She suggested he come back to the kitchen and then led the way, her nerves jumping with her awareness of him so close behind her.