Her Sure Thing

“Are you serious?”

“Very. Dump your loads into the manure spreader.”

“Yes, sir.” Austin mock-saluted and took off for the barn.

Arlo shook his head as he came toward Sean.

“Might as well spit it out,” Sean said.

“Seems to me you’re setting up one helluva confrontational relationship with that boy,” Arlo said under his breath. “You sure that’s what you want?”

“What I want is to not be a father.”

“Too late for that.”

“Dammit!” Denise had said he was a chip off the old block. “When I was his age I was running a trail riding operation, not working at one.”

“But is that what you want for your son?”

“He could do worse,” he said, watching Grace bring a pad and saddle outside and setting them over the nearest rail fence.

“I raised two boys here on Mirabelle,” Arlo said. “Made ’em work here at the stables every summer. They helped take care of the horses every winter. And you know what?”

Sean waited.

“Neither one of ’em ever comes to the island to visit. Oh, they came down to Florida last winter. Couldn’t wait to see me and Lynnie once we were off the island. But Mirabelle? They don’t want anything to do with this place.” Arlo started heading toward the livery barn. “Seems to me there’s an opportunity here for you two. What’s made of it is entirely up to you. Not that young man.”

Sean stood alone in the yard. Arlo was right, of course. It was up to Sean to take the first step in forging a relationship with Austin and to make whatever relationship they developed worthwhile. Still, he didn’t know where to start. How the hell could you forge a relationship with someone who didn’t want anything to do with you?

SO THE KID WAS SEAN’S SON. Interesting.

Grace had tried not to eavesdrop while she was brushing Louie, but with the rising voices, it had been difficult not to absorb a few of the somewhat startling bits of information.

She set Louie’s pad on his back, getting ready to saddle him for a ride and watched the boy attempting to muck out a stall. He’d stalked past her a few minutes earlier without the slightest acknowledgment of her presence and went into the first stall with an empty wheelbarrow and a shovel.

“How you doing, Grace?” Arlo said, his tall, bony frame ambling by her. Other than the fact that his short beard was much more gray than she remembered, he’d barely changed all these years.

“I’m fine. You, Arlo?”

“Good.” He grinned. “I’m always good. You should know that.”

Arlo went into the massive livery barn, took two of his Percherons—a matching pair of dappled grays—out of their stalls and brought them outside. Then he started prepping one to be hitched to a shuttle carriage that took groups of passengers around the island, most often from the Rock Pointe Lodge or Mirabelle Island Inn into town, or vice versa.

“Need some help?” she asked.

“If you’re offering.” He cocked his head toward one of the horses. “I got Pat here, if you can take Mike.”

“Sure.” Holding off on saddling Louie for the moment, she led him into the stall Austin had already mucked out. Then she came out to the yard, patted Mike’s neck and whispered a few words to him as she attached his bridle and collar. Spreading the leather traces along his back, she was careful not to entangle them. It was a good thing she was tall. They were big horses.

“I want to thank you for sticking your neck out with Sean and agreeing to board Louie,” she said as she adjusted the crouper. It’d been so long since someone had her back that she’d almost forgotten what it felt like, but Arlo had always been that way. Ready to stick up for her at a moment’s notice.

“Ah. No worries,” he said. “Sean might seem a bit gruff, but he’s all bark and no bite.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?”

“And the boy,” she said softly. “Sean’s son?”

“Ayep.”

“Came to work here for the summer, but he doesn’t know a thing about horses?”

“That so surprising?” Arlo considered the boy as he straightened Pat’s traces. “I seem to recall a certain young gal who once upon a time didn’t know her bits from her reins.”

She chuckled. “Too true.”

She and Arlo hitched Mike and Pat to the carriage, and he climbed into the driver’s seat. They both glanced at Austin. He’d dumped his first load into the spreader and was working on his second. The way he tried to keep from stepping in anything was like a poorly written comedy sketch. Either he had no clue what he was doing or he had an extreme aversion to horse manure, possibly both.

“The way I see it, somebody around here oughta take that boy under his—or her—wing,” Arlo said. “Lord knows I don’t have the time.”

“Subtle, Arlo.” She smiled. “Real subtle.”

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it quick, huh?” He made a clicking noise and tapped the reins, setting Pat and Mike off and out of the yard.

Grace glanced at Austin. He was sidestepping the manure as if it were acid. She couldn’t help laughing.

The kid glanced at her and scowled. “Oh, that’s real mature.”

“It’s just horse shit. It’s not going to jump up and bite you.”

“Easy for you to say. You like horses.”

“What are you doing here, then, if you don’t like horses?”

“Like I had a choice.”

Man, did he look like a younger version of his dad. “My name’s Grace.”

“Austin.”

“So, Austin, you’ve never mucked out a stall before, have you?”

“No.” He looked angry, frustrated and in need of a friend.

Funny, that’s exactly the way she felt these days.

Before thinking better of it, she opened the stall door. “Well, first off you need to change shoes.” She pointed to a pair of rubber boots by the barn door. “Wear a pair of those and then you don’t need to worry about stepping in anything.”

He glanced toward the door. “Whose are those?”

“Probably Arlo’s, but he won’t mind.”

Grudgingly, Austin pulled on the barn boots.

“While you’re over there grab those gloves.” She indicated the pair on the shelf above the boots. “So you don’t get blisters.”

He came toward her, looking at least a little bit better prepared.

“Now you’re ready to get to work.”

She showed him a better way to hold the shovel and before she knew what she was getting herself into she’d changed out of her riding boots and into her Wellingtons and was helping him take another load out to the spreader. In no time, they’d finished mucking out all the stalls in the livery stable and she’d shown him how to use the spreader in the back pasture.

On their way to the barn, she said, “So you really don’t know anything about horses?”

“Nope.”

“Bet your dad took that real well.”

“He’s not my dad.” Austin frowned. “Technically, I guess he is my dad, but I didn’t know it until a couple weeks ago. I thought my mom’s husband was my real dad. Turns out he’s not.”

Unbelievable. “So Griffin deserted you and your mom?”

“No. He never knew she was pregnant. She’s got all kinds of excuses for keeping that a secret. They were splitting, and he never wanted to have kids. I guess she thought she was doing them both a favor.”

“So Griffin just now found out you’re his son?”

“Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“What are you doing here now?”

He looked away. “My mom and…Glen are getting divorced. She’s got enough on her hands with my younger brother and sister.”

“She sent you here?” To get rid of him. That had to have hurt.

“Yeah. For the summer. Just for the summer.” He sounded as if he was making excuses for her. “So now Sean’s mad at me. Sent me in here to muck out the stalls.”

Some small part of her took perverse pleasure in this upset to Sean’s life. Why, she had no clue. The man simply drove her crazy. Then there was the fact that she felt a kind of affinity toward the kid, an outsider, like her. “How ’bout I teach you to ride?” Grace offered.

“Can you?”

“I can try. I grew up here on Mirabelle. Used to work for Arlo. I can teach you how to saddle a horse, how to feed them, brush them. You name it.”

“Why do you want to help me?”

“Because I have a feeling it’ll bug your dad,” she said, grinning. Any enemy of Sean’s was a friend of Grace’s. “Time to teach you everything you never wanted to know about horses.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“THIS IS RIDICULOUS,” GRACE muttered to herself as she flipped off the bedcovers. First hot, then cold, then hot again. To the bathroom. To the kitchen for a drink of water. Night after night after night. She’d been on Mirabelle for more than a week and she wasn’t able to sleep any better here than in her Hollywood Hills home. And she’d used the last of her pain medication.

Rolling out of bed, she glanced out the window. Below, the lights of Mirabelle’s small village center twinkled, and the lake, black as the clear night sky, stretched as far as the eye could see. A full moon glittered on the surface of the abnormally still lake. On a night like this the view from Full Moon Bay would be amazing, but then the views from there were always amazing.

Her favorite spot on the entire island, Full Moon Bay, was north of Rock Pointe, the lodge and resort area her brother owned, Henderson’s apple orchard and even the lighthouse. A gem of sugar-soft sand accessible only from the main road by a narrow deer path, no one but the locals knew of the bay’s existence. When she was little, Grace had gone there to hunt for agates, and when she was older, for bonfire parties with friends. She’d skinny-dipped more than once in the shallow waters of Full Moon Bay, and, in fact, had lost her virginity there to some boy from Chicago who’d been there on vacation with his family. Funny, but she couldn’t even remember the boy’s name.

As much as she would’ve loved seeing the bay after all these years, the idea of hiking to the deserted northeast end of Mirabelle alone in the pitch-black stillness of the night sounded a bit bizarre. Instead, she walked into the bathroom, splashed water onto her face and patted her skin dry. Glancing through her window toward the barns behind her house made her think of Louie. Was he adjusting to Mirabelle any better?

The hell with it. She pulled on a sweatshirt and sweatpants, remembering that even after a hot day the nights on the island could get chilly, and slipped out the back door. She flashed on the possible complication of being discovered by Sean or one of his stable hands, but quickly dismissed that risk. She’d snuck into the Duffy’s barns on many occasions when she’d lived here. Besides, what was the worst thing that could happen if she did get caught?

IT WAS PAST MIDNIGHT.

Sean sat in front of his computer screen in his office off the kitchen working up a new shift schedule for the stable operations. He’d already taken care of the livery schedule, prepped the day’s bank deposit and gathered and emailed off the last two weeks of hours to his payroll accountant. All that after taking care of the carriages that had come rolling into his yard after the last of the shuttle runs around the island.

He finished the schedule and then stood and stretched. He was done for the night, and Austin still wasn’t home. Granted, it was Friday night and he’d said it was okay to stay out late, but he’d made it clear to Austin that curfew on this island for sixteen-year-olds was midnight on Friday and Saturday. Sean had checked with Garrett.

His hands stuffed deep into his front jeans pockets, he walked outside and onto the wide, wraparound front porch, staring out into the night and hoping he was going to see a tall, lanky teenager coming toward him any minute. More than likely, Austin had made some friends and simply lost track of time. But what if he’d been scrambling around on the boulders along the shore? What if he’d slipped and fallen into the water? Sean didn’t even know if the kid could swim.

The longer he stood there, the madder he got. The little shit. No wonder Denise wanted to get rid of him.

No, that wasn’t fair. The truth was he couldn’t blame the kid for acting out. Rebellion was probably in his genes, and Sean knew exactly from which side it’d come.

He paced the length of the porch and glanced out over the pastureland. Finally, he’d found a purpose for the money that had been put in a trust fund when his mother had passed away. Buying this old farmhouse and the one hundred plus acres of land along with the four barns, more than sixty horses and ten carriages would’ve made his mother happy.

Unlike the rest of the island with its Victorian gingerbread charm, the only quaint thing about this farmhouse was that it had been painted red with white trim to match the barns. Sean was okay with that. In fact, he rather liked this old house. With its wide-open rooms and simple design, it wasn’t far off the mark of something he’d build on his own, given the chance.

He especially liked the fact that his property was at the outskirts of town, although as such, it was dark here. For Austin’s sake, Sean had left every light on inside the house, as well as outside. He’d even left the floodlights on by the barns, hoping the kid would find his way.

He was starting to wonder if he was going to have to call Garrett Taylor when he caught some movement near the road. A shadowy form took shape. It was Austin, and he seemed to be taking his sweet time making it up to the house.

“Hey,” Austin said sourly, as he came close.

Questions swirled around in Sean’s mind, one after another. What have you been doing all this time? Who have been with? Have you eaten supper? He settled for, “Where you been?”

“Around.”

That tipped the scale, and Sean’s badly worn patience snapped. “You couldn’t take the time to answer your cell phone?” He’d called Austin’s number no less than four times and had left two messages. “I need to know where you are, so you need to answer your phone when I call. And you’re past curfew. I expect you to follow the law on this island.”

The kid rolled his eyes. “Or what? You gonna send me back to Mom’s?”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that. Maybe that’s what you want, huh?”

Austin didn’t say anything.

“Stay. Don’t stay,” Sean said. “I don’t really care one way or another, but if you decide to stay, then you’d damned well better not make any trouble on this island. It’s my home and the people here are important to me.” He took a breath. “Get this through your head right here and now. Tow the line or leave.”

Austin glared at Sean. “You’re not my dad, okay? Not really. So you can’t tell me what to do.”

“That’s the way it’s going to be?” Anger, frustration, and concern all battled inside Sean for dominance. “Well, then, fine. Go,” he said. “You think I really care what you do, or when you do it?” he said, anger pushing through.

“Figures.” Austin glared at Sean. “You’re just like Glen. I don’t know why I thought you might be different.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I can’t go home, okay? If I do I’ll have to go to juvie. The judge agreed to waive detention only if I came here.”

Denise had definitely not said anything about a judge, court or juvenile detention. She’d said he’d gotten into some trouble, but Sean had been too blindsided by the whole deal to ask for specifics. “What did you do?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I want to know.”

Austin hesitated. “Broke a teacher’s car window.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a dick.” He looked away. “He told our class that we could skip the final if everyone was getting Bs by the last week of school. We did it, but then he made us take the test anyway.”

“So a teacher’s a jerk and you’re in trouble. Was it worth it?”

“Hell, no. I’m stuck here for the summer, aren’t I?” Austin pushed past him on the porch and went into the house.

“Wait a minute.” Sean followed him inside. “We need to get something straight.”

He stopped, but didn’t turn.

“This is working ranch, not a playground. I don’t care if you stay out until curfew every damned night of the week, but you’ve had enough time to get settled. No more sleeping in until noon. You stay here, you work here just like everyone else.”

“Whatever.”

“No, not whatever. I don’t want to hear the word whatever the rest of the summer. Understood?”

Silence again.

“Understood?”

“Yes!” the kid hissed through clenched teeth.

“Good. If you’re going to live in this house, you’re going to have to live by my—” Sean clamped his mouth shut.

Had he really just said that? Had he really just said all of that…that crap? He sounded like his own father. All the words, fighting words, had spilled out of his mouth as if he and Austin had been sparring for years.

The kid stood quiet and sullen, as if he’d heard it all before, as if nothing Sean said could cut him any deeper than he’d already been cut.

See? You were right, asshole. This was why you had no business being a father.

Sean took a deep breath. “Tomorrow you start work for real around here. Seven a.m. Okay?”

“Yeah.” Austin walked away, slammed his bedroom door and a few seconds later the lights went out.

Sean shouldn’t have been so hard on him. He could’ve at least given the kid more time to adjust. Too late. If he went and apologized right now the kid would laugh in his face. Better to let the dust settle.

He went around the house, shutting off lights, inside and out. He flicked off the yard floodlights and noticed a dim light on in the livery barn. Now what?

Stalking outside, he crossed the yard and opened the barn door. One light was on in a storage room and a rear window had been propped open with a stick. How had that happened? Those windows didn’t even open. On his way through the barn, he glanced into the stalls. All the horses were quiet except for the Friesian. He was wide-awake and alert and sticking his muzzle toward Sean inquisitively.

“Still on West Coast time, boy, or what?” Sean stopped and glanced at the horse. Since Sean had seen him earlier in the day, someone had brushed and braided his mane. His coat looked even softer and shinier than it had that afternoon, if that was possible.

Hay rustled in the stall though the horse hadn’t moved.

Sean went still. “Who’s in there?”

More rustling sounded before a head popped up over the gate. “It’s me.”

Grace. A curry brush in one hand, she leaned her head against her horse’s neck.

The first thing he noticed was that she’d traded in her tight jeans for baggy sweats. Hot on the heels of that observation was that all of the tenseness she’d seemed to be carrying in her body since the first day he’d met her was nearly gone. She looked as relaxed as a person could get, and while a part of him hated to destroy the moment, the last thing he wanted was for people to come and go on his property as they pleased.

“You know,” he said, softly. “Some people might call this trespassing.”

“I haven’t been sleeping well.” She looked away. “Brushing Louie…calms me.”

“So that gives you the right to sneak into my barn.”

“Sorry.” She didn’t sound, let alone look, very apologetic.

At a loss, he glanced toward the back. “Those windows stick. According to Arlo, they haven’t been opened for years.”

“There’s a trick to it,” she said. “Tap the upper right hand corner and they slide like a dream.”

“You know this because…”

She took the brush and ran it down the horse’s shoulder. “When I was a kid, I used to sneak in here at night.”

“Troublemaker, huh?”

She wouldn’t look at him. “You could call it that.”

She’d likely been all kinds of trouble when she’d been younger. Probably still was. Why that turned him on, he hadn’t a clue.

“Look,” he said, switching gears, “I don’t know what kind of deal you worked out with Arlo, but I meant what I said the other day about you taking care of your horse on your own. Arlo doesn’t complain much, but he’s not as young as he used to be.”

“Don’t worry about it. Arlo won’t have to lift a finger to help me, and I plan on helping him out as much as I can.” Grace’s horse rubbed his forehead against her and then settled his head on her shoulder. “Besides, I enjoy caring for Louie.” She wrapped her arms around her horse’s neck and smiled.

Suddenly Sean understood why people paid top dollar for pictures of this woman. Her blue eyes sparkled to life, her cheeks rounded with delightful fullness and her lips glistened with pure, sensual joy. Despite her face being devoid of makeup, she was without a doubt the prettiest thing he’d ever seen on two feet.

Their gazes caught, and as if she sensed his gut-level, very male reaction, her smiled slowly faded. Still, he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze from her mouth.

He had to get out of this barn before he remembered exactly how long it’d been since he’d kissed a woman. That little peck he’d given last year to Missy Charms, the owner of one of Mirabelle’s gift shops, in an effort to test the waters of their friendship didn’t count. That kiss had fallen flat from both ends. Grace, he had a feeling, would be a whole different story.

Married, he reminded himself.

“For what it’s worth,” she murmured, “I’m sorry about causing a hassle over boarding Louie that first day we met.” Now that apology was sincere. “Arlo should’ve told you it wasn’t his business any longer and just to set the record straight.” He paused. “I wouldn’t have made you send Louie home.”

“So your bark is worse than your bite.”

“Don’t tell anyone, though, okay?” Clearing his throat, he turned toward the barn door. “By the way, you’re a little old to be sneaking through windows. Next time you feel the need to visit your horse in the middle of the night, try the door.”

“Does that mean I have your permission to trespass?” she asked, the remnants of a smile clinging to her voice.

“For now,” he called over his shoulder. “But be careful, Grace. You never know who you might run into while you’re lurking around a man’s property in the middle of the night.”

“That a threat or a promise?”

He stopped in his tracks, felt a strong stirring in his groin and smiled to himself. Too bad he couldn’t act on this sucker punch of an attraction he was feeling toward this woman. “Aren’t you married, Grace?”

“Not anymore,” she whispered, sounding almost breathless.

He turned to find her partially hidden in shadows, making it tough to discern her thoughts. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jeremy filed for a divorce last year.” She ran her fingers down one of the braids on Louis’s mane. “I signed the final papers just before I came to Mirabelle.”

Was it his imagination, or did her gaze just travel all over him only to linger for a split second longer on the growing bulge in his jeans? Now he remembered how long it’d been since he’d kissed a woman, touched a woman’s naked skin, let alone had sex. Too damned long. And he wasn’t going to be able to rely on a set of vows to keep his head clear and focused.

“Consider this fair warning. Think twice before starting something with me, Grace. I’m not sure you’ll ever be ready to give what I want from a woman.”

“Which is?”

“Nothing short of happily ever after.”

Surprisingly, she didn’t look the slightest bit shocked by his admission, and that made him want her all the more. Before he could put into action every shocking thought running through his mind about exactly what he wanted to do to Grace, he stalked out of the barn. He wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but his summer had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.

CHAPTER SIX

“THERE,” GRACE SAID, LEANING back from the gardens in the front yard of her father’s house. Her left side was aching from use, but it was a good ache. “What do you think, Dad?”

Her father shook his head. “It’s different. Pretty, I suppose.”