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“Mom, you’re babying me again. I’m ten years old.”
Jordan’s gaze zoomed in on Zachary leading a horse out of a stall, hoping he hadn’t heard how old Nicholas was. She couldn’t have the conversation she knew she now had to have in the middle of a barn with her son looking on. This wasn’t the time or the place—if ever there was one. But she would have to soon on her terms. After all, Zachary walked away from her, refusing to return her calls.
“Fine. But if I think it’s getting too dangerous, you’ll get off immediately and that will be the end of riding.” A few years ago, she’d almost lost Nicholas. She wouldn’t lose him now.
“I know what you’re thinking. My atrial septal defect has been fixed. My cardiologist says I’m fit as a fiddle. While I never thought of a fiddle as especially being fit, the point he’s making is I’m fine now.”
Jordan shook her head. There wasn’t much she could get past her child. She flitted her hands. “Go. Have fun.” For now. She’d find something else he’d enjoy that would give him some physical activity to make him forget about the horses.
“I will.” Nicholas covered the short distance to Zachary, who had the chestnut mare already saddled and ready to go.
“There’s a mounting block outside that you can use.” Zachary led the horse out the back double doors, never once looking her way since he’d left her standing by the corral.
Jordan trailed after the pair, wanting to be close for Nicholas but far away because of Zachary and his possible questions. Lord, what do I tell him? He wanted nothing to do with me after we broke up that summer after graduation.
Before she knew it, her son was sitting on a horse that was huge. If he fell off, the ground would be a long way down and the impact would be hard. As Zachary gave Nicholas a few instructions on how to sit properly in the saddle, use the reins and get the animal to do what her son wanted, Jordan stepped a little closer to the paddock where they were. Zachary walked beside Nicholas and the mare as they circled the corral.
The deep timbre in Zachary’s voice as he explained to her son what to do flowed over her, prodding memories forward of those fun times they had shared before everything had fallen apart. The memory of the feel of his long fingers as they combed through her hair or the brush of his lips over hers sent her heart beating faster.
She jerked back from the fence, putting some space between them. She would not fall for Zachary Rutgers again. Even if he was Nicholas’s father and not married now, she would keep her distance. If she never told him about Nicholas being his son, then it would be easy to keep away. If she did, they would be connected always.
Zachary glanced toward the entrance into the barn. “Ah, I see the others are here.” As he peered away, his look brushed over her, reminding her again of the soft feel of his lips grazing hers. “Sit here for a few minutes, partner. I’ll be right back.”
After tying the horse to the fence, he passed her striding toward the large double doors. His gaze homed in on her, his eyes narrow, his mouth set in a tight line. The we’ll-talk-later stare held her rooted to the ground although her first inclination was to whirl around and flee. Again her anger flooded her. He acted as if he hadn’t done anything wrong. She refused to break the visual connection first.
He looked toward the barn when a child called out his name. His steps lengthened, and he quickly disappeared inside. Jordan let out a long breath and sank against the fence post nearby, her legs weak, her hands shaking.
“Isn’t this cool, Mom?”
Her son’s question forced her to pull herself together. She was discovering how much anger she still had toward Zachary for leaving her when she’d needed him the most.
“You might hold the saddle horn.” She moved toward the mare. If he fell, maybe she could catch him before he hit the ground. She’d remembered Zachary once having a broken arm from being thrown from a horse, and then there had been the accident at the Oklahoma Junior Rodeo Finals. Him lying crumpled in the dirt. The dust created from the horse finally settling around Zachary’s prone body. Whatever had possessed her to agree to come out here in the first place? She hadn’t really thought the riding lessons out.
Zachary approached with three kids. “Nicholas, this is Jana, Randy and Ashley. They’ll be riding with us.”
Her son greeted each one as they led their horses out of the barn to mount. His grin spoke of his joy and pushed Jordan’s fears to the background. She’d be right here as he rode around in the paddock. She’d be right here to make sure he didn’t go faster than a walk.
“Uncle Zachary, can we go for a ride to the stream?” Ashley sat atop her mare, her dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Randy swung up into the saddle. “Yeah, it’s getting hot today. It’d be fun wading in the water. Can we?”
“I don’t know. Nicholas is just learning.” Zachary rubbed his hand along the stubble of growth on his jaw.
“But I did my first time riding.” Jana took off her cowboy hat and fanned her face.
“I’d love to go for a ride. Please.” Her son threw in his own plea.
“Let me get my horse.” Zachary started for the barn.
Jordan stepped into his path. “Nicholas doesn’t know how to ride. He can’t go.” Over his shoulder, she could see the hopeful look on her son’s face fall.
The intensity in Zachary’s eyes bored through her as though it could make her move away. “He’ll be okay. But he’s your son.”
Yes, he was. She’d been in labor for thirty-six hours alone. She’d raised him alone. Watched him go through the surgery to repair his heart defect alone. “He’d never been on a horse until fifteen minutes ago.” She hated the fact she felt as though she had to justify her stance.
“If I remember correctly when I taught you how to ride, we went riding in a meadow not long after that. Doing it in a paddock isn’t what I really call riding.”
She remembered one time when they had ridden across a pasture, galloping, the wind blowing through her long, loose hair. And they had ended up kissing for the first time under a large oak tree when they had finally stopped. Heat flushed her cheeks at the remembrance of his lips on hers.
“He’ll be okay, Jordan. Nothing ever happened to you riding.”
“But it did to you.”
“If it’ll make you feel better, come with us.” His voice held no emotion. It was as though she were a stranger to him.
“I haven’t ridden in years.”
“It’ll come back to you.” He skirted around her and strode into the barn.
Chewing her bottom lip, Jordan peered at her son, who patted his mare. Should she go?
When Nicholas stared behind her, his face brightened. Jordan swept around and saw Zachary leading two horses out of the barn. He handed the reins of one to her, their hands brushing against each other. His eyes widened for a few seconds as he peered down at where they had briefly connected. With a shake of his head, he quickly stepped away and swung up into the saddle of his mount.
He’d felt the electric jolt just as she had. She massaged her fingertips into her palm, trying to erase his touch. It had been nearly impossible as a teenager and still was.
She glanced at her son then at the mare next to her. “Okay, I’ll come along.”
“Yippee!” Nicholas shouted, pumping one arm into the air.
Ashley rode in the lead with Jana next to her. Randy followed with Nicholas slightly behind him and to the side. Zachary waited for Jordan to go next then took up the rear. As they crossed the meadow, heading toward a grove of trees, the feel of Zachary’s gaze zapped a fiery trail down her spine. In less than an hour in his presence, he tempted her to forget eleven years of heartache. No, she wouldn’t let him get close this time.
She listened to her son talk with the other children, who willingly answered his questions about Key Elementary although all of them were homeschooled. Nicholas had only been attending the school for ten days. He hadn’t said much to her, but she sensed the same teasing was happening there that had at his previous one in South Carolina. Her son was a scholar and a pacifist besides being a grade ahead and small. She’d questioned him on the way out to the ranch about how school was going, and he had gone silent. A sure sign something was wrong with her talkative son.
“He’ll be all right.” Zachary came alongside her.
She slowed the horse’s gait and let the kids get a little farther ahead because she didn’t want Nicholas to overhear anything that might lead to questions—at least not until she knew what she was going to do about Zachary. She’d tried to tell him about Nicholas, but when he hadn’t returned her calls, she’d decided she could do it without him. She would never force anyone into a relationship he didn’t want. “Who?” she finally asked although she knew he was referring to her son.
“Nicholas.”
She wasn’t so sure Nicholas would be all right. A couple of kids at his last school had been awful to him, making his life so miserable that she decided to move back home before school started in August. She was tired of doing everything without any family support, and her mother had said she needed help with Granny. Now at least she had her mother, grandmother and sister here. In all those eleven years, she’d only returned to Tallgrass a couple of times, the last time two years ago when her sister’s husband died unexpectedly from a heart attack.
“He’s a natural when it comes to riding. He knows instinctively how to flow with his horse.”
Jordan studied Nicholas for a moment and had to agree. He was a natural—like his father.
“Are you always this uptight or is it just around me that you get that way?”
“Uptight?”
He gestured toward her hands gripping the reins. “Relax. Maybelle is sensitive to her rider.”
“Do you blame me? We didn’t exactly end our relationship on a good note.”
He nodded his head toward Nicholas. “It looks like you found someone to replace me pretty fast. What’s your son? Eight?” A tic twitched in his jawline, its strong set strengthening even more.
“How about you? I thought you would be married by now.” The last time she’d called Zachary’s mother to get hold of him, she would never forget the news the woman imparted before she could tell Zachary’s mom about the baby. He was engaged to someone he served with in the army, and he was still stationed overseas. His mother might as well have said, “Out of your reach.”
“No. Where’s your husband?” His gaze held hers captive, a hard glitter to his eyes.
What happened to your fiancée? She bit the inside of her mouth to keep the words inside. She wouldn’t let him know how much that had hurt her when she’d discovered he’d moved on only seven months after they had broken up. “I’m not married.”
“What happened to Nicholas’s father?”
“He hasn’t been in the picture for quite some time.”
“Sorry to hear that—” he paused for a long moment “—for your son’s sake.”
But not mine. His unspoken words cut her to the core. The pain sliced through her in spite of her efforts to distance herself. Anger rose. “How long have you been back in Tallgrass?”
“A couple of years. Becca found this ranch for sale for me. The deal was too good to turn down.”
“How’s your sister?” Becca had been the first one she’d talked to when she’d called after the doctor had told her she was pregnant. She’d only been at art school in Savannah for two and a half months. The news had rocked her world, and she hadn’t known what to do. She’d desperately needed to talk with Zachary, but he’d enlisted in the army and was at boot camp. Becca had promised her she would tell Zachary to call. He never did.
“She’s still married to the same man, and they have three kids. They live here on the ranch, too. Ashley is the oldest.”
Jordan glanced toward the children. Zachary’s niece slid from her horse and tied its rein on a tree limb. Jordan nudged her mare to go faster as Jana and Randy dismounted, too. Her son started to bring his leg over and drop to the ground.
“Hold it, Nicholas,” she shouted, mentally measuring the long distance from the horse to the patch of grass below the mare. “I’ll help you.”
“Jordan, he’s doing fine. Let him do it himself. That’s the way he’ll learn.”
She slanted a look toward Zachary. “But…”
“See.” Zachary pointed toward her son, who’d slipped to the ground and like the others was tying up his horse. “Why are you so protective?”
“That’s how mothers are supposed to be.” She’d come so close to losing Nicholas. She didn’t know what she would have done if he’d died. He was her world.
“Yes, protect but not smother.”
“What do you know about being a parent?” Her hands curled around the reins, and she pulled harder than she should have to halt the mare. He hadn’t wanted children, or at least that was the impression she’d gotten when they had talked about the future right after high school graduation. At the time, his dreams had centered around the rodeo—not having a family.
A flicker of pain glinted in his eyes before a frown descended. “You’re right. I don’t have personal experience raising a child, but I was a boy once. I know he needs a little breathing room.”
He dismounted and strode away from her before she could think of a retort, some kind of defense for herself. She shouldn’t have lashed out at him. He was right. Nicholas had told her that on more than one occasion, especially when she’d wanted to march up to the last school and face those kids who’d teased Nicholas and made fun of him. If it had started again, she would have to do something different. She wouldn’t let her son be miserable for another school year.
Zachary stood at the edge of the stream that ran through his property and watched the kids wade across it. Their giggles peppered the air and brought a smile to his mouth. He’d enjoyed living near his niece and nephews, but at night he always went home to an empty house with no child’s laughter to fill it or bedtime stories to tell. And yet, Jordan had moved on with her life and had all of that with Nicholas.
The boy captured his attention as he bent down and stared at something on the ground. He picked it up and straightened. When he saw Zachary staring at him, Jordan’s son crossed the creek and approached him.
“Look what I found. This is a Terrapene carolina triunguis.” Nicholas held it up for Zachary to see. His expression must have conveyed surprise because the child added, “A three-toed box turtle. They were common where I used to live. They eat insects, worms, fish, berries, snakes.”
“Did you have one as a pet?”
“No. They’re better off in their natural habitat. I have a dog named Tucker.”
What eight-year-old kid knew the scientific name of a turtle? At least he assumed that was what the child spouted off. “Do you like science a lot?”
Nicholas shrugged. “It’s okay. I really enjoy math the most. I’ve been working on algebra, but tell you a secret—” he leaned toward Zachary “—Mom’s not very good at it. I have to teach myself.”
“Teach yourself? That’s mighty ambitious.”
“I love to learn.” Nicholas set the turtle on the ground.
Like his mother. Jordan had always been a good student while he’d been more interested in sports, especially riding. She’d helped him with his classwork and he’d taught her to ride. For a brief moment he allowed himself to recall some of the good times he and Jordan had in high school—when she’d helped him cram for a test and he’d made an A or when he’d worked odd jobs to save enough to buy her a necklace the first Christmas they’d been together. The glimpse of her smile had made it all worth it. Randy’s voice calling Nicholas pulled Zachary away from the past—thankfully. He didn’t need to remember.
Jordan’s son flashed him a smile. “Gotta go.” He whirled and raced toward the other kids.
Zachary watched the children talking. Nicholas pointed at something in the creek and Jana squealed, ducking behind Randy. A brown, foot-long snake slithered through the water. Zachary slid his attention to Jordan. Her eyes grew round, and she backed away from the stream. She never did like snakes.
He chuckled, remembering that time he’d found one on her porch. She’d jumped into his arms so fast he’d staggered back, almost losing his balance. But he’d recovered and tightened his embrace, cradling her against him. The onslaught of memories cracked a fissure in the wall about his emotions.
Those carefree days were over. She’d walked away from him and never looked back.
“We better get back to the barn.” Zachary started for his horse.
“Do we hafta, Uncle Zachary?”
He glanced at his niece. “Yeah, Alexa will be here to pick up Jana.”
Nicholas had already crossed the stream while the other three were still on the opposite side. They reluctantly followed. For a few seconds a yearning for what he didn’t have inundated Zachary. But he pushed it aside. He just had to be satisfied with having a niece and two nephews. And staying out of Jordan’s way.
Chapter Three
Sore, Jordan slid to the ground back at the barn half an hour later, keeping her eye on her son to make sure he dismounted okay. He did, almost like a pro. She had to admit everything Nicholas did he did well. He was quick to pick up things. But usually they weren’t physical activities.
Jordan caught sight of Zachary taking a few extra moments to explain to her son how to take care of his horse after a ride. Nicholas absorbed what Zachary told him with his usual intense concentration. She knew that after this he wouldn’t have to be told again. Zachary patted him on the shoulder. The smile her son gave Zachary right before he strode away to tend to his gelding stirred doubts in her that she hadn’t made a good choice all those years ago.
That brief scene confirmed she had to tell Zachary about Nicholas soon. There was no way she could keep her secret if they were both living in such a small town. He was bound to find out some way or another. She still didn’t know how she would break the news. Tell Zachary first or Nicholas? She felt in over her head. But maybe this was one of the reasons she’d finally come home. She wanted Nicholas to be surrounded by family—even Zachary’s. It would be to her son’s benefit, and maybe for once, she wouldn’t feel so alone in this world. Yes, she’d always had the support of her mother, grandmother and sister, but long-distance support wasn’t the same as immediate face-to-face interactions. And yet, for years she’d lived far away from that support because of her feelings toward Zachary.
Could she really tell him? If she kept quiet, she wouldn’t have to see him. She could even leave Tallgrass. He never had to know. That idea suddenly appealed to her because every time she thought of telling him about Nicholas, her stomach coiled into a hard ball.
“Hi. Jana told me your son had his first riding lesson today.” A young woman with long, curly mahogany hair and soft, dark brown eyes stopped next to Jordan. “I’m Alexa Ferguson, Jana’s stepmom.”
Jordan shook the hand the twentysomething offered her. “Nice to meet you. My son enjoyed getting to know Jana and the others. He can be shy around new kids.”
“So can Jana, but this year she’s come a long way.”
“How so?”
