Page 75 of A Beach House Beginning

Hank—the same crusty old rodeo promoter who had a reputation for chewing up greenhorns and using their bones for toothpicks—grinned right back at the kid.

“You’re doing great, Toby. Just great. You won’t even need the lead line in another few weeks.”

In response, the kid smiled as big as Texas as he was led around the dirt-floor arena.

“So what do you think of the place? Terrific, ain’t it?”

Jace didn’t quite know how to respond as he gazed around the ring, which was filled with about a half dozen kids in riding helmets atop placid-looking horses. Each rider was accompanied by spotters, one on each side of the horse, and at least one girl rode tandem with an adult who helped support her weight.

These weren’t normal riding lessons, Jace knew. And they weren’t regular kids. Toby—the one who had waved to Hank—and another girl had the broad, distinctive features of those born with Down syndrome.

Two more had tightly contracted muscles that he thought might indicate cerebral palsy—not that he was some kind of expert—and yet another boy of about twelve rode past wearing opaque sunglasses and receiving visual cues from one of the spotters, so Jace figured he was probably blind.

Jace didnotbelong here.

His head throbbed in time to the plodding hoofbeats of each horse that passed him, and he fiercely wanted to push past Hank, head back to the ranch he had bought right after he retired and visited exactly twice and climb back into a bottle.

But he thought of the grim mood that followed him wherever he went, the survivor’s guilt that somehow seemed darker when he was alone, and decided maybe this wasn’t such a bad place after all.

He cleared his throat. “You look like you’ve got plenty of staff. What am I doing here?”

Hank’s rusty laugh echoed through the open space.

“Right now, looks like you’re getting them thousand-dollar boots covered in horse crap.”

Jace made a face. “What do you want me to do?” he clarified.

“I’ve got a special job in mind for you. One I think will be perfect. We’ve got a new client coming in a few minutes. For her first few times around she’s probably gonna need somebody strong enough to ride up behind her and support her in the saddle while the physical therapist does an assessment to figure out what would help her most. You up for that?”

Though he wanted—quite fiercely—to give in to the headache and tell Hank no way just before slipping past him out the door, Jace knew he couldn’t.

Unpaid debts were a major pain.

Instead he nodded tersely. “Whatever you need.”

Hank chuckled. “Until Hope and Christa Sullivan show up, why don’t you just watch the action for a few minutes. I’ve got things to do and can’t sit around babysittin’ you all day.”

He didn’t leave him much choice, Jace knew, so he nodded and leaned against the railing that encircled the arena, the smell of leather tack and manure heavy in the air.

Jace sure wouldn’t have believed Hank would spend his retirement running an equine therapy center for kids with disabilities if he hadn’t heard it from his grandmother, who never lied.

Hank had a reputation as a hard-ass. But when Jace had been a stupid eighteen-year-old with empty pockets at odds with his big dreams and bigger ego, Hank had spied potential in him. Without him, Jace would never have made it as far as he did. Hank had shown him the ropes, hooked him up with the right people who could help him figure out what the hell he was doing and guided him behind the scenes through those rocky early days.

In return, when Jace’s career had taken off, he hadn’t forgotten. Hell, Jace had introduced Hank to his own grandmother, who had turned out to be the love of the old man’s life, apparently. Who would have thought?

He knew he owed him. Without Hank, he would probably have given up after the first few months of mistakes and gone back to trying to make a living out of the dirt and sagebrush of the few acres left of his grandmother’s tiny Nevada spread.

Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, since his current situation wasn’t anything to write home about.

The door behind him opened, letting in sunlight. He instinctively turned and found a woman fumbling her way through the door, trying to maneuver a wheelchair over a low threshold. He stepped forward, extending a hand to hold the door that opened outward so she could make it through.

“Here. I’ve got this.”

“Thanks.” She backed the wheelchair into the arena, and as she passed him, he smelled the light, delectable scent of strawberries.

She was amazingly pretty, with sun-streaked shoulder-length blond hair and the most incredible green eyes he had ever seen, and for a moment he could only stare at her, struck dumb.

“Doorways can still sometimes be tricky business, I’m finding,” she said. “They’re never wide enough and they usually have that stupid threshold that’s a serious pain in the butt when you’re trying to get a wheelchair through.”

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