I hope you enjoy this story of new beginnings and a little girl’s fragile heart. And I hope you’ll take a look at my backlist of other published books at PatriciaJohnsRomance.com. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter, where I enjoy connecting with my readers.
Much love from my home to yours,
Patricia
WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK FROM
Uplifting stories of faith, forgiveness and hope.
Fall in love with stories where faith helps guide you through life’s challenges, and discover the promise of a new beginning.
6 NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE EVERY MONTH!
Starting Over in Texas
by Jessica Keller
Chapter One
“That better not be Hailey.” Boone Jarrett squinted toward the farthest riding arena as he turned his sedan up Red Dog Ranch’s long driveway. Gravel churned under his tires as worry roiled in his gut. Out of habit, Boone reached for the passenger seat, toward where his wife’s hand usually rested on her leg. There was nothing.
There never would be again.
His eyes burned and no matter how many times he swallowed, his throat closed up.
June was gone. Forever. With her funeral so fresh in his memory it was a wonder how often he forgot she wasn’t there any longer. Just assumed she would be beside him as she always had been. But he would never be able to reach out for her comfort again. His breathing became shallow. If he focused on his grief it would debilitate him. It would swallow him and everything he cared about—including his daughter, Hailey.
Boone refused to allow that to happen.
He forced his body to drag air in through his nose, filling his lungs, then let it out slowly, evenly. Stay in control. In the four days it had taken him to drive from Maine to Texas, he had thought everything through. Navigating their loss logically was the only way to help his daughter. The only option if he wanted to keep functioning and to make certain she felt safe. Seeing her father falling apart would do neither of them any good.
Logic had carried him through his last few months of seminary despite his loss; it would have to be enough to get him through the summer as he decided their next steps, too.
After shoving the gearshift into Park, Boone climbed out of the vehicle and stalked toward the arena. Sure enough, that was his six-year-old daughter up on a huge horse—a horse that could buck and send her tiny body flying in the space of a heartbeat.
Way too dangerous.
Sweat touched his brow and his back as his stride ate up the distance to the riding arena. After two years of mild Maine summers, Boone wasn’t used to the Texas heat he had known growing up. But presently, with the calendar nearing July, it felt as if the sun had a personal vendetta against him.
Boone picked up his pace. His family had suffered too much loss in the last few years for his daughter to be taking needless risks. His father had been killed when he was struck by a car while returning books to the library, of all things, and his wife had died on a hiking trip with girlfriends.
Hailey didn’t belong anywhere near that beast.
Back in seminary, he had once preached a sermon on the topic of anger and how, more often than not, that emotion was the child of a much stronger one: fear. Distantly he remembered the point of the sermon was something about the strength of faith and focusing on Jesus in the midst of fear, but those thoughts gave way when he saw the large horse frog-hop with his tiny child on it. He had grown up around horses on this very ranch, so he knew enough to know that a frog-hop could lead to a lot more than Hailey could handle.
Boone started running. “Get her off that thing. They’re not safe.”
A woman with long blond hair held the lead line of the horse Hailey was riding. She spun in her boots, quirking an eyebrow as her striking green eyes snapped to meet his. “That thing is a horse. And if you’re so worried about these ‘dangerous beasts’—” she made air quotes for the last two words “—I’m sure hollering around them is definitely the best plan for safety.”
A part of Boone knew the wisest course was to back down. His time would be better spent greeting his daughter, whom he hadn’t seen in eight weeks. But after being trapped in a car for four days with only his thoughts for company, something about the potential of sparring with this woman made him feel alive. And he hadn’t felt that way in a long time, if he was being honest. Like a valve on a water main, he had turned his emotions to the Off position since June’s accident. Because he knew when he turned the valve back on, it would cause a flood. A flood he might not be able to recover from. He had been functioning on numb the past few months so in some weird way, it was nice to feel a flicker of emotion. Any emotion.
“No one asked my permission for Hailey to learn to ride.”
The woman popped a hand to her hip. “See, and therein lies the main problem here.” She pinned him with a glare. “You would have actually had to be around for us to ask your permission. And you weren’t, were you? Hailey’s been alone here for months without you.”
A hot wave of frustration flashed through Boone’s chest. This woman didn’t know him. What gave her the right to speak to him that way? Then again, he didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to her point. He hadn’t been around. He had left Hailey at his family’s ranch for more than two months while he was in Maine. But Boone didn’t need to explain himself to some stranger. Besides, even if he wanted to, he wasn’t going to get into those specifics while his daughter could
