More Than Neighbors (3 page)

“It’s on acreage. We dealt with the former owner’s son. Um...something Walker. I think the owner was Ephraim Walker. The name stuck in my head.”

“So would Ephraim, if you’d known him. He was the original cranky old man. One of my husband’s best clients. Ephraim liked to sue people.”

Ciara chuckled at that, trying to imagine excuses to file a lawsuit. “He must have been popular.”

“Oh, he wasn’t so bad when he was younger,” Audrey said tolerantly. “Who wouldn’t get cranky if they lived into their nineties? I’ll bet the place needs work.”

“Yes. Can you recommend any local contractors?”

Audrey could. Seeing Mark’s restlessness, Ciara accepted Audrey’s phone number so that she could call later, when she had paper and a pen in hand. Maybe she could find someone to mow the pastures a couple of times a year, too. Or would anyone be interested in renting the pasture? Of course, it would be hard to keep Mark away from any four-footed creature who lived on their own property.

Pleased by the idea of making a friend, Ciara moved on, buying generously. As skinny as he was, her son had an enormous appetite.

They were no sooner in the car than Mark reminded her that they had to stop at the neighbor’s again. Wonderful.

They pulled into the black-topped driveway to find a pickup truck and horse trailer parked in front of the second barn.

Mark leaned forward. “Mom, look! There’s another horse!”

Ciara couldn’t have missed the fact that a man was backing a horse down the ramp. The one in the pasture was just plain brown; this one was a bright shade that was almost copper, with a lighter-colored mane and tail, two white ankles and, she saw as she got out, a white star on its nose.

“A chestnut,” Mark declared, having leaped out of the car faster than she could move. “And I’ll bet it’s a quarter horse. The other one is.”

Trust Mark to know the subtle difference between breeds, even though he’d probably never seen a quarter horse in real life.

“Mark,” she said sharply. “Wait.”

The horse’s hooves clomped on the pavement when he reached it. He shook his head, sending his mane flying, danced in place and trumpeted out a cry that made Ciara jump and brought an answering call from the pasture.

“Mo-om!” her son begged, all but dancing in place himself.

The man holding the rope barely glanced at them before turning his back and leading the horse around the side of the barn.

“Really friendly,” she mumbled.

“What?” Mark said.

“Nothing.”

“Can we go watch him turn his horse out to pasture?”

“No, we’ll wait here like the polite people we are.”

“But Mom—” he begged, expression anguished.

“No.”

It had to be five minutes before the man reappeared. He hadn’t bothered hurrying, that was for sure. He’d probably hoped they would go away if he took his time.

She felt a stir of something uncomfortable at the sight of him walking toward them, although she wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t incredibly handsome or anything like that. Nobody would look at him twice if he was standing next to her ex-husband, Ciara started to think. But as this man came closer, she changed her mind. If nothing else, he was...imposing.

Like the already-pastured horse, his hair was brown. Not sun-streaked, not dark, just brown. So was the close-cropped beard that made his face even more expressionless than it already was.

He was large, likely six foot two or even taller, and solidly built. Either he spent a lot of time in a gym, or he did something physical for a living. His stride was long and yet somehow collected, as if he controlled his every movement in a way most people couldn’t.

He was only a few feet away when he said, “May I help you?” in a deep, quiet voice that was civil while also sounding remote.

“That was a quarter horse, right?” Mark said eagerly. “I’ve read all about them in books. Why do you have quarter horses when you don’t have a ranch? They’re best for herding cattle, you know.”

To his credit, the man barely blinked. “I do know. In fact, both mine are trained for cutting.”

“Is that what you were doing today? Why don’t you keep some cows here to practice on?”

Was that a smile glinting in eyes that Ciara decided were gray? “The next-door neighbor—” he nodded to the north “—runs a herd and lets me, er, practice on his.” He held up a hand to stop her son’s next barrage of questions. “And today I went on a trail ride.”

“Oh. What I wanted to know is—”

Ciara cut him off. “That’s enough, Mark.” She met the neighbor’s eyes. “We stopped by to introduce ourselves. We bought the place next door.”

“I saw lights last night.” He didn’t sound thrilled.

“We arrived late yesterday. The moving truck came and went this morning.”

“I see.”

“My name is Ciara Malloy, and this is my son, Mark. He really likes horses and is hoping you won’t mind if he pets yours if and when they come to our fence line.”

She sensed more than heard a sigh. “That’s fine.”

“Do they bite?” she had to ask.

“Only if they think your fingers are carrots.”

Mark lit up. “Do they like carrots? I wanted Mom to buy sugar cubes ’cuz horses like them, but she didn’t. Maybe they’ll come to the fence if I give them something to eat.”

“An occasional treat is fine,” the man said. “And I do mean occasional. Sugar isn’t healthy in large quantities for horses. A carrot or two a day won’t hurt anything.”

“Cool!” Mark exclaimed.

“Do you know how to give a horse a treat so he doesn’t mistake your fingers for food?”

“I can just hold it out like that, can’t I?” Mark demonstrated.

Another near-soundless sigh. “No, you have to remember that horses can’t see your hand when you hold something out. If you have a minute—” he glanced at Ciara with his eyebrows raised “—I’ll give you a demonstration.”

“You mean I can pet them now?” Mark bounced like an excited puppy. “Mom, did you hear?”

“I heard. Yes, that’s fine.”

“Give me a minute.” The man disappeared into the barn briefly, reappearing with a fistful of carrots. Maybe he was nicer than he appeared; he’d obviously guessed that feeding one measly carrot wasn’t going to cut it for her son.

She trailed man and boy around the corner of the barn, seeing the fence ahead and a kind of lean-to with a big enameled bathtub filled with water and a wooden manger beside it. The horses currently stood side by side, both grinding hay in their mouths.

Mark raced forward. One of the horses swung away in apparent alarm, and the other threw up his head.

“Gently,” the neighbor said. “You have to be quiet and calm or you’ll scare them. Keep your voice down. Make your movements slow.”

“Oh. I can do that.” Mark tripped, fell forward and had to grab the fence to keep from going down. Both horses shied and ended up twenty feet away.

Their owner cast a look at Ciara in which she read understandable desperation. If he wasn’t used to kids—

“Gently,” he repeated.

“I’m sorry.” Mark quivered with passionate intensity. “They’ll still come to me, won’t they? So I can feed them?”

“Greed will overcome them,” the man said drily. He whistled and held up the carrots. As speedily as they’d departed, the horses returned.

Ciara stayed a few feet back, watching as Mark learned how to hold out a treat on the palm of his hand, where horses liked to be stroked and how and what they didn’t like. He laughed when their soft lips tickled his hand as they whisked pieces of carrot off it, and laughed again when one blew out a breath with slimy orange bits of carrot that got on his face. He asked what their names were and nodded solemnly at the answer: Hoodoo and Aurora. Both apparently had long, unintelligible names under which they were registered with the Quarter Horse Association, but they didn’t know them. The man had come up with Hoodoo; Aurora was used to that name when he’d bought her. He corrected Mark when he described Hoodoo as a chestnut; for some reason, that coloration was called sorrel when it came to quarter horses.

“Hoodoo is prettier than Aurora.” After a sidelong glance, Mark placed one foot on the bottom rail and his elbows on the top rail in exact imitation of the neighbor. “Do you think she minds?”

“I doubt horses think in terms of
pretty
. And Hoodoo is actually her son. I did have her bred the once.”

“Will you again? That would be amazing.” Her son swiveled enough to look over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t it be amazing, Mom?”

“I’m sure it would. Now, say thank you, Mark. We need to get those groceries home.”

“Do we have to?” His shoulders slumped when he saw her face. “Okay. Now they know me, I’ll bet they’ll come when they see me with a carrot.”

She mouthed the words “thank you” at Mark.

“Thank you, mister,” he said obediently. “You didn’t tell us what your name is, did you?”

“Didn’t I? That was rude. I’m Gabe Tennert.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Ciara said, holding out a hand.

He looked at it for longer than was polite before gently engulfing it in his much larger hand. The rough texture of his calluses sent a tingle through her and, she suspected, warmed her cheeks.

“Thank you for stopping by,” he said, leaving her in no doubt whatsoever that he wasn’t at all glad for their visit.

“We’re going to get a dog,” Mark told him as they walked back to the van. “Mom said we could as soon as we moved.”

“If you do, please make sure it’s one that won’t chase horses or cattle.” There was no flexibility whatsoever in that deep voice now.

That was reasonable, Ciara supposed.

Mark got in, and she circled to her side.

“Do you have other children?” Gabe Tennert asked.

She paused. Somehow, she didn’t think he was hoping she’d say yes. “No, only Mark.”

He nodded brusquely. “Good day.”

Before she had so much as gotten the key in the ignition, he had hopped into his pickup truck and began maneuvering to back the trailer into an empty slot inside one of the barns. He didn’t even glance their way as she turned in a circle and started down the driveway.

Ciara surprised herself by wondering whether he had a wife.

CHAPTER TWO

A
LWAYS AN EARLY RISER
, Gabe was outside forking hay into the manger when the school bus passed the next morning. Without thinking about it, he’d known it was coming; the brakes squealed at every stop, and the Ohlers a couple of properties past the old Walker place had two kids that rode the bus.

Now he turned, thoughtful, when the bus lumbered on past without stopping next door. Would have made sense, when Ms. Malloy and her boy were in town yesterday, for her to have registered him for school, wouldn’t it? Today was Wednesday, though; maybe she meant to give him the rest of the week to settle in before he started.

April was a funny time of year to move, when it meant pulling a kid out of school and him having to start in a new one at the tail end of the year, Gabe reflected. Usually people with kids tried to move during the summer. Maybe this was following a divorce?

He shook his head as he unlocked the big double doors and let himself into his workshop. Why was he bothering to wonder about the new neighbors? All he cared was that they stayed on their side of the property line.

He always had several projects going at various stages. Today he settled down immediately to measure and mark what would be the pins and tails of dovetail joints, these particular panels to be sides and backs of drawers. He almost never used any other kind of joint but dovetail for drawers, liking the solidity and elegant appearance. Although they could be cut with router and jig, he preferred to use traditional hand tools.

Securing a solid board of alder with a vise, he reached for a dovetail square and pencil. Despite the care required, long practice meant he was able to let his mind wander as he worked to mark where cuts would be made.

That boy—Mark—was an odd duck. The mother hadn’t said how old he was, but he had to be almost a teenager. Middle school, at a guess. What had he been? Five foot nine or ten, Gabe thought. Clumsy, but a lot of boys were at that age. Gabe’s mouth twitched. God knew he’d been a walking disaster for several years in there, when he was outgrowing pants and shirts so fast, his mother despaired. Sometimes he’d felt as if those gigantic feet had been transplanted onto his legs during the night. He had to stare at his feet when he was walking to make sure he was setting them down where they belonged. Unfortunately, that didn’t work when he wanted to run or climb a ladder or even race up the bleachers in the gymnasium.

It wasn’t the clumsiness that suggested the boy was a little off. And maybe Gabe was wrong—but he didn’t think so. Mark’s excitement was more like a younger kid’s than a near-teenager’s. The way his mother seemed to be coaching him, too, as if he were a kindergartener who hadn’t yet learned to say please or thank you.

Grudgingly, Gabe conceded the kid had been nice enough, though. And he had known a surprising amount about horses and the breed of quarter horse in particular for someone who obviously had done his learning from books or on the computer rather than real-life exposure. Was the mother thinking of buying a horse for her son? Gabe hoped she wouldn’t rush to do so without seeing that he get some lessons first. And making sure the enthusiasm wouldn’t wear out three months down the line.

He continued to work methodically, out of habit marking the “waste” sections—the parts he’d be cutting out and discarding—with
X
s, then, finally, reached for a dovetail saw as his thoughts reverted to yesterday’s two visitors.

The mom had an unusual name. Ciara. Irish? Probably. She was exceptionally pretty, he had to admit. Eyes so blue, a man more susceptible than he might liken them to the sky just before twilight or the vivid gleam of sapphire. Hair darker and not quite as bright as Hoodoo’s sleek sorrel coat. Envisioning it, he thought,
bubinga
. Bubinga was an exotic hardwood he liked and used on occasion. Harvested in West Africa, it was a reddish-brown with fine, dark lines that created interesting patterns, as if the coloration was made up of distinct strands. Yeah, that was it, he thought, pleased with the comparison.