Page 89 of A Beach House Beginning

“They’re magnificent animals,” he said.

“They are. My father loved them. He rode every day of his life, up until he dropped dead of a heart attack. Hope loved to ride them, too, before the accident.”

“I guess they’re a little high-strung for her now.”

She sighed. “You could say that. They’re both gentle as can be most of the time. But I would worry about those times they tend to get a little overexcited.”

She went about the business of feeding and watering them—something he should have handled for her earlier if he’d been thinking.

He helped as much as she would let him. Finally he decided he might as well jump feetfirst into the fire rather than stand here being scorched by excruciating inches.

“Go ahead. Spill it.”

“Spill what?”

“The ire you’re itching to pour on me. I know you’re not happy I stayed for dinner.”

“You’re a guest of my mother’s,” she said promptly. “This is her home and she’s certainly free to invite anyone she wants for dinner. Beyond that, Hope is obviously thrilled to spend even a minute with you, so I have no right to be annoyed.”

“But you are.”

She was quiet for a long moment, her face a pale, lovely blur in the gathering twilight. “Yes,” she finally said, her voice low. “This is...awkward for me.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, if that helps at all. I really was just driving on my way back to the Silver Spur from the feed store and I happened to see Ellen and Hope. I stopped to say hello, and before I quite knew what happened I was pushing Hope’s wheelchair while we walked and Ellen and I were talking about the Busybees and they both sort of invited me to stay for dinner.”

“You could have said no,” Christa pointed out. “It would have been easier all the way around.”

“I could have,” he agreed. “But I didn’t want to.”

“Even after the...after the other day? I told you I wasn’t interested in anything with you. I haven’t changed my mind.”

Her words were firm enough, but he thought he heard a slender thread of uncertainty in her voice, just enough to make him wonder if she wasn’t as unaffected by him as she wanted him to think.

No. He was probably imagining things. Damn it.

“Lucky for me, my ego is healthy enough to survive a little rejection. It’s bigger than my horse, remember?”

“How can I forget?” she muttered.

He laughed, charmed by this lovely woman with more prickles than a whole field of burdock.

“Anyway, my accepting an invitation to dinner from your mother and daughter wasn’t about you. Or at least notcompletelyabout you.”

“What was it about?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I enjoyed the afternoon with your mother and Hope. More than any afternoon I’ve had in a long time. Ellen knows everything there is to know about Sage Flats and the people who live here. She’s full of funny stories about the mayor’s pigs and Betty Renfrew’s hair-color-gone-wrong and the time Tag Jensen was cornered by his prize bull and ended up stuck in a tree all afternoon.

“And Hope,” he went on. “She’s just...amazing.”

She was just about the most courageous person he’d ever met. He smiled, remembering how she had laughed at his jokes and even told some of her own. He was getting better at understanding her labored speech.

“Is it my imagination or is she using her hands better than she did before we went riding?”

Christa nodded. “We’ve been working on writing her name for a long time now, and she just hasn’t quite been able to master it until after we went riding. The day after equine therapy, she wrote it plain as can be—and she’s been doing it ever since.”

“Writing her name? That seems an odd skill to be affected by riding a horse. I wouldn’t think the two would go together.”

“Who knows? Maybe some hand-brain connection clicked in while she was holding the reins. I’m not going to question the mechanics of it, I’m only grateful for the result.”

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