Page 92 of A Beach House Beginning

“Not Ellen’s?”

“I owe my mother more than I can ever repay for all the help she’s been the last five months. But I’m still Hope’s mother and I’m ultimately the one responsible for her care. I try to listen to Ellen’s opinion when it comes to Hope, but in the end I have to trust my own judgment about what’s best for my daughter.”

It was all she could do, she thought, though sometimes the weight of that task seemed heavier than she could bear.

“All right,” he finally said. “If you feel my presence isn’t helping Hope, I’ll agree to back off.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, somewhat surprised at how readily he agreed. “We should probably go back to the house or they’ll be wondering where we are.”

He nodded and followed her back up the rocky pathway toward home.

It looked as if her luck had finally run out—or finally caught up with her, depending on how she wanted to look at things.

Nearly two weeks after their intense kiss and equally intense conversation by the barn, Christa pulled into the driveway of her mother’s house beside a familiar gleaming silver pickup truck.

Nerves skittered through her, equal parts excitement and wariness.

She hadn’t seen Jace since the evening Ellen had invited him for dinner, though she was grimly aware that had to be more a matter of coincidence than anything else.

Or perhaps he had taken her concerns to heart and done his best to stay out of her way.

She wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about that. Had she given him the impression she wanted nothing at all to do with him?

Probably, she admitted. She had been running scared of the fledgling emotion taking root in her heart.

Two weeks away from him had done nothing to yank it out, especially since she couldn’t escape him, even when he wasn’t physically present.

She sighed, looking at all the evidence of his handiwork around her mother’s place. The graceful new redwood ramp he had built off the back porch. The smooth-as-glass new sidewalk he’d poured the week before down to the horse barn so Hope could visit Shiloh and Shane. The new coat of white paint on the fence that made the whole property seem brighter, happier somehow.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about all those improvements, either. She supposed in her heart she still hoped the wheelchair and the accommodations necessary for it wouldn’t be needed for much longer. At the same time, this was her mother’s house. Since Ellen had obviously given permission for the changes, Christa couldn’t very well complain.

Besides, universal design elements such as ramps and smooth sidewalks made sense for more than just someone using a wheelchair. Though Christa didn’t like to think about it, Ellen wasn’t getting any younger, and those same things that made it easier to push a wheelchair also helped ease the way for aging bones and joints.

Jace had settled right into their lives—or at least into Ellen’s and Hope’s.

Christa hadn’t even seen him at Hope’s second equine therapy session, since an emergency at the store had demanded her presence and Ellen had ended up taking her.

Hope had spent the entire evening afterward trying to squeeze the words out to tell Christa about how she had ridden by herself and Jace had walked her around on the lead line and how Debbie, the center physical therapist, said next time she might even be able to trot.

Jace had occupied much of Hope’s conversation the last two weeks. He seemed to spend every afternoon Christa was working at the house, and one memorable evening when she’d had a chamber of commerce meeting he had invited Ellen and Hope to his ranch, the Silver Spur, for dinner.

He’d taken them both for a tour of his ranch on a horse and old-fashioned buggy he had on the property, and Hope had glowed for days.

Christa sighed, worried all over again that Hope would be devastated when he eventually got bored of the quiet pace of Sage Flats and returned to his real life.

And he would, she knew. Rodeo cowboys always got itchy boots eventually. It was the nature of the beast.

She let out a breath. She couldn’t sit out here all night, like the craven coward she was.

Her nerves jumped crazily as she opened her car door and headed for the house.

The last time she had returned from work during his visit, silence had greeted her inside the house. This time she heard raucous country music blaring from inside before she even opened the door.

She recognized the song as a hit from the singer whose name had been linked romantically with his some months ago, and though she had always enjoyed the group’s music before, she decided on the spot that the woman had to be a talentless has-been.

She forgot all about some washed-up Nashville honey when she walked into the family room and found the furniture had been pushed against the walls. Her gaze passed briefly over Ellen, sitting at her quilting frame in the corner, before her attention was completely caught by the other two occupants of the room.

Jace stood in the middle of the space, supporting Hope’s weight as her daughter swayed to the music, beaming as though she were at the prom on the arm of the high school football star.

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