Page 14 of Shine On Oklahoma

That was when she’d started to change, thattime with him. He was so good it was contagious. Typhoid Dax. He’dinfected her. She’d been losing her edge since the day she firstmet him, waiting tables in a joint where high-end people came forlunch. Track owners and gamblers, breeders and fans. Poor peopledon’t go to horse races. They’re too smart to throw money awaywatching horses run. They’d rather see them gallop across a meadow,or ride them across one, like she was doing right then. This wasnice.

“I’ve had that mare since I was nineteen,” hesaid. “She was boarding at Mom’s place in New York. I just got hermoved down here this past summer. Rob insisted.”

She nodded. His mother owned a small boardingstable near his father’s racetrack.

There were other horses in the meadow,soaking up the autumn sunshine and nibbling on grass andwildflowers. She and Dax took a trail that followed the fence line,riding past spindly legged colts, who stuck so close to theirmammas, Kendra was afraid they’d get stepped on.

It was quiet. Quiet tended to make heruncomfortable. She said, “If I’m riding your horse, who are youriding?”

“This is Louise.”

“That’s my sister’s middle name.”

“Rob thought naming her Kiley would getconfusing,” he said. “She’s a blue roan. A stunner, isn’t she?”

“She is.” Her horse jumped over something inthe path, and the landing knocked her whole body dangerouslysideways. She almost jerked the reins to hold herself upright, butcaught the impulse just in time, gripped the pommel, squeezed herthighs, and got herself right again.

“Nice,” he said.

She found herself beaming with pride that shehadn’t fallen off a horse. Big fat hairy deal. She wanted to talkto him some more. She wanted to talk to him about the track and hisinheritance and try to find out why he’d lied to her about it.

But he looked at her with that serene smileand said, “You’re not here. Stop all that chatter going on in yourpretty head, and try to just be right here.”

She frowned at him. “I don’t know how to dothat,” she said, and it was completely honest.

He said, “Listen. Try and count how manydifferent sounds you can hear.”

Kendra listened. The first sound she noticedwas the steady rhythmic plodding of the horses’ hooves over thepacked earth trail. It was a soft sound, agentle thud,tha-thud, tha-thud, tha-thud.She noticed that her hips rockedin the saddle right in time with the beat, if she let them, andtried to relax her stiff posture a little more. That was one of ahundred tips Dax had given while he’d been saddling the horses,relax your hips and rock.

She could hear the Cimarron, too. The riverunwound not a hundred feet from the trail, to the right. There wassplashing and gurgling where it tumbled over rocks and fallenlimbs, but behind and beneath that, a deeper, constant murmur ofraw power.

There were birds singing, too. A loud onerepeated the same cry over and over, and then as she paidattention, she heard others. Warblers warbled and songbirds sang.She listened even harder, leaning slightly forward in her saddle,eyes intense. There was a bumble bee buzzing from flower to flowersomewhere.

“Works better if you don’t try too hard,” Daxsaid. “Just relax and let the sounds come to you. Same as thesmells.”

She could only smell horse. But no, therewere late-blooming lilies that pulled her gaze right to them assoon as her nose caught a whiff. The river had a scent of its own,and so did the trees and even, she thought, the sunshine.

And Dax. He smelled clean and familiar andgood.

He wasn’t up to anything. He’d asked her tocome riding because he still cared about her. And he’d probablylied about his inheritance so he could assure himself she wasn’tgoing to try to con him out of it.

Yeah, that was probably it.

She relaxed even more, kind of sinking intoher own body from a posture that had been tense and tight. Shedidn’t even realize how tense and tight until she let go of it. Sherode along on Sweet Caroline and smelled horse and leather andflowers and Dax, and she listened to the songs and buzzes andsplashes and hoof steps that came from everywhere andeverything.

It was the most peaceful morning she thoughtshe had ever spent.

#

After their ride, Kiley invited Kendra to gobaby shopping. Dax didn’t expect her to agree, once she found outthree other women were also going along; Rob’s cousin Sophie,sister-in-law Emily, and Allie Wakeland, who was three weeks lesspregnant than Kiley. She was also the talk of Big Falls because shedidn’t have so much as a boyfriend, and because when her war-herobrother got back from Afghanistan, he was going to hunt downwhoever had got her pregnant, and murder him.

To Dax’s stunned surprise, Kendra acceptedthe invitation, and went off for a girls’ day out that wascompletely not her kind of thing.

He and Rob were working with the oldest coltsthat day. In Dax’s opinion, the most important part of training wasthe relationship between horse and trainer, and you couldn’t startbuilding that too soon. They spent a lot of time with the colts,touched them frequently, and worked on keeping their attention rapteven when distractions, from passing cars to bumblebees, camealong.

Rob said, “She’s too close to her due date tobe running around shopping malls. I don’t even know how her littlelegs cancarryall that around a shopping mall.”

Dax, who’d been waiting for a break in Rob’sover-protective, dad-to-be griping, so he could change the subjectentirely, said, “Sophie’s a doctor, Emily’s a vet, and Allie’salmost as far along as Kiley is. I’m pretty sure your wife is saferin a mall with those three than she would be in her own livingroom. Besides, Kendra’s with her.”

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