Page 77 of A Beach House Beginning

This was a crazy idea, and Christa wanted to push Hope past both men and back into the spring sunshine, away from this arena that smelled of the painfully familiar scents of leather and horses and the sweet tang of hay.

Now she didn’t know which was stronger: the nerves skittering through her at the idea of her medically fragile daughter on one of those big horses or embarrassment that Jace McCandless—Jace McCandless, for heaven’s sake!—had been dragged into her family’s problems.

Drat her mother and the rest of the Busybees. Ellen’s quilting circle certainly lived up to its name. Christa hated that she and Hope were the topic of conversation among the ladies at their weekly gossip session.

She never would have dreamed when Ellen told her Jace McCandless’s grandmother was a member of the Bees that one day Ellen and Junemarie Stevens would conspire to drag Junemarie’s grandson into Hope’s limited world.

But then, she had become used to weird, convoluted side trips on the wild journey that had become her life in the five months since Hope’s brain injury.

This was only the latest in a long line of unexpected detours.

What was she supposed to do now? Her instincts were urging her to drag Hope out of there, kicking and screaming, if she had to. But her daughter had been so looking forward to coming to the equine therapy center. It was all she had talked about for days. How could Christa withhold such a treat from her?

“Let’s go!” Hope suddenly burst out, slamming her curled hands on her armrests. “I want to ride!”

A lot of words for her, Christa thought. Hope’s expressive speech was one skill that had been slow to return since the accident. She struggled to find the right words, and those she could manage were often slurred or garbled.

When it came to horses, she apparently didn’t have any trouble getting her point across.

“The boss has spoken,” Hank said with a grin.

She didn’t return his smile as those nerves jangled in her stomach again.

“Just give it a chance, Christa. Even if she only goes a few times around the arena, her muscles will get a good stretch. We’ll be careful, I swear.”

She could feel herself weakening. Hope had shown more excitement about this than anything else in a long time. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. Her daughter had been horse-mad for most of her life and had followed the rodeo circuit faithfully, reading rodeo magazines the way other girls devoured fashion magazines.

OfcourseHope would be thrilled to see Jace McCandless. Long before they moved back to Utah, to the same town where he had a small ranch near his grandmother’s place, Hope had followed his career, claiming some kind of link to the man since their respective grandmothers were friends and quilted together.

Even after he retired from the rodeo world and translated his success and stunning good looks into product endorsements for things such as blue jeans and soft drinks, Hope had followed his career.

Her daughter probablywouldwork harder for him than anyone else. But that didn’t ease her nerves.

“I don’t know. What if she falls? What if she has a seizure? She’s still so...breakable.”

Hank sighed. “We’ve been over this, Christa. I swear, she’ll be well protected. She’ll be wearing a helmet and she’ll have a spotter holding her on—Jace, here—and one more on each side of her. Our therapist has picked a horse with a slow, even gait for Hope to start out during the initial assessment. Jace, it’s that big roan over there. You mind grabbing her and meeting us at the mounting block?”

The man gave Hank a long, unreadable look, then shrugged and headed toward the horses tied up across the arena.

“Please, Mom.” Hope gave her a lopsided smile. “I can ride. I want to. Please.”

She studied her daughter, once so fiercely independent, and the ache that never seemed to quite leave her burned through her chest. Hope had been through so much these last five months.

How could Christa deny her this momentary pleasure?

She squeezed Hope’s fisted hands. “All right. Just be careful while you’re having so much fun up there. No jumping the gate, okay?”

Hope grinned, looking so much like her old self that Christa was helpless against the tears that burned behind her eyelids.

She wanted her daughter back, prickly teenage moods and all. If this equine therapy would help get them closer to that goal, it was worth a little maternal anxiety.

Chapter Two

From the moment Hope was helped onto the horse in front of Jace McCandless, Christa knew she had lost the battle.

She supposed it really wasn’t a battle she should have been fighting at all—but how could she help it after everything her daughter had endured? Up until a few months ago Hope had even been missing a piece of her skull, temporarily removed to allow the swelling around her brain to subside.

Christa had earned the right to be overprotective. What mother wouldn’t be? It wasn’t easy to see Hope up on that big horse, knowing how just one tumble could set back all the progress they had fought so hard to attain.

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