“Now that Fancy is a little more comfortable with you, I think that you should be safe to mount her,” Sarah said as she walked back up to the horse and took hold of the lead rope.
“Safe?” he asked as he swallowed down the dread he had felt earlier that morning. He could already picture himself lying on his backside in the dirt with Sarah standing over him.
“You’ll be perfectly safe,” Sarah said, then gave him a mischievous smile. “I’ve never lost a student yet.”
David put his leg in the stirrup as she had shown him how to do earlier, then with a leap of faith born from the knowledge that Sarah knew what she was doing, he lifted his other leg over the horse.
“Relax, David. Fancy can smell fear a mile away, relax your seat and take the reins,” Sarah said as she handed him the leather straps.
As Sarah explained the use of the reins and the other parts of the bridle, both he and Fancy began to relax and by the end of the lesson he had managed to take the two of them in a circular walk around the yard with Fancy protesting only mildly.
“You did great,” Sarah said as they led Fancy out to a bigger paddock.
“Are you talking to me or the horse?” he asked. He felt a bit silly about his first reaction to the horse. He’d had a good time learning how to interact with the beautiful animal.
And it hadn’t hurt that he’d had a beautiful teacher too.
He thought of the feeling of her hand on his again. No, that didn’t mean a thing. It was strictly male appreciation for a lovely woman and no more.
He looked over to where he’d last seen Davey standing on a small bench outside the paddock and froze.
“Where’s Davey?” he asked, not trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
“It’s okay. He’s with Jack. I saw them walk toward the house. I’m sure they’ll be back in just a minute,” Sarah said.
He looked down the road where he knew the house had to be. How had Sarah seen Davey leave when he hadn’t?
“The lesson isn’t over, cowboy, till we put the tack up,” Sarah said, trying to get David’s attention back to the horse. She knew her father-in-law would never let anything happen to Davey. She hoped that David would know that too. She could see the time away from David was good for Davey and hanging out with Davey was good for Jack too. Not that she could blame David for being so cautious. She was the last person to judge David’s parenting. He had been through a lot with Davey and you could see what a wonderful job he was doing with the happy little boy.
Sarah removed the saddle and bridle from Fancy then shut the paddock gate. She watched as the horse headed across the large yard to where a water trough waited for her. Looking over at the man standing beside her, she could see the same look of wonder she’d seen on most of her students after their first lesson. When it came to horses, the beauty and excitement they generated was enough to enchant all ages. Except it hadn’t been just David that had been enchanted, for that moment when they had been alone in the stable, their hands touching, their bodies so close, she’d felt as spellbound herself. She’d had to remind herself that she was there to teach David about horses, not flirt with her student. What had gotten into her? This was not how she allowed herself to respond to men. She was a mature widow who had lived without a man in her life for three years now. She had no business responding to one of her colleagues. She’d made sure to keep her distance during the lesson itself, but it still ate at her as David came to stand next to her to watch Fancy as she cantered off to the other side of the fenced yard.
“Let me take that,” he said as he reached out for the horse tacking in her hands. As he took the saddle from her she was careful to make sure that she kept her hands away from his, and then she laughed at the ridiculousness of her reactions.
“What?” he asked as he heaved the saddle up on his shoulder as they walked back toward the stable.
“Nothing,” she said. She wasn’t about to explain how stupid she was acting. She was sure the man had seen more than his quota of women that had fallen all over him. She wasn’t going to give him any ideas that she was like those women. Because she wasn’t. She had just been being silly about something that she had done with plenty of her students, she just wasn’t used to having a man’s hands on hers, not anymore at least.
The sight of Jack and Davey coming toward them with her late husband’s dog, Pepper, in tow swept away any thoughts she had left of her reaction to David. It was her reaction to Davey that was the problem she needed to concentrate on. Part of her wanted to scoop the little boy up in her arms and hold him close while another part warned her that becoming too involved with the little boy could only lead to heartache when he and his father left Houston after his father’s fellowship was complete. And always there was that question in the back of her mind that she found herself wanting to ask. The one question she had no
