Chapter Three

Three

Melanie’s mother was a veritable wellspring of optimism and forceful determination. Quitting was not a part of her vocabulary. She had reared both her daughters to believe there was no obstacle, no setback that couldn’t be overcome. Ain’t no mountain high enough and all that. Mel’s younger sister Elizabeth was a year away from her bachelor’s degree and was already applying to law schools, one of which would undoubtedly offer her a full academic scholarship.

Mel’s decision to drop out of college at twenty-two so she could focus on her equestrian pursuits had nearly sent her mother to the hospital. Only polite, careful insistence, planning and organization on her part had finally convinced both her parents that she wasn’t quitting, but simply redirecting her life down a more suitable path. Afterward, it had taken three years of hard physical labor, long nights, early mornings, calluses, blisters, saddle sores and a persistence she hadn’t known she’d possessed to land the job of all jobs – at least for a dressage rider like herself: a stint as a working student under the tutelage of  Arthur and Marissa Carlton at Carlton Premier Hanoverians.

Her mother would have a coronary if she knew she’d quit, that she’d spent the night in a horse stall in whereverthehell, Georgia in yesterday’s clothes. And because Mel wanted to puke every time she contemplated telling her mother that she had, yet again, quit something important, she followed a stranger named Eli over to the rodeo’s concession stand at seven-eighteen in the morning.

“Where’d you come from?” he asked as they fell into place at the end of the line. Eli did not ask the question with the slightest hint of shy impropriety. His soft, boyish face was guileless, the gold ringlets of his hair curling from beneath his John Deere hat. He had the palest blue eyes; they were so translucent they were almost gray. Though he wore the requisite jeans, boots, spurs and western shirt, an unzipped Carhartt jacket over it, Mel had trouble rectifying him with her mental assumptions about cowboys.

She shrugged and glanced down at her palm, trying to grip the end of the splinter between her nails. “About thirty minutes south of here.”

“That’d put you in Florida, right? Yeah, that’s right. That’s where our ranch is,” his voice took on a proud note. “Dry Creek’s the biggest place in the area.”

The name tickled at her memory, but Mel couldn’t place when or where she’d heard it. She frowned as the splinter evaded her grasp again and she changed tactics, squeezing the skin of her hand, hoping to push the sliver of wood out.

“You don’t run barrels do you?”

Despite the current state of her life, she wanted to smile. This kid was trying so hard to figure out what the hell she’d been doing asleep in a stall, and because he was attempting to be subtle, he wasn’t going to come right out and say it…yet, anyway. Mel had a feeling he’d resort to bluntness if his curiosity wasn’t satisfied.

“No,” she said, giving up on the splinter for the time being. She offered him a tight smile. “I ride dressage, actually.”

He blinked. “What’s that?”

After a lifetime of answering that question, she had her response down pat. “Have you ever seen Olympic footage of the riders in top hats and tails? Where the horses look like they’re dancing?”

“Like, jumping over fences?”

“Not quite.”

They moved up as the line shortened. As usual, rodeo or horse show fare smelled more heavenly than anything. Mel inhaled and caught the scents of strong coffee, hashbrowns and burgers.

“So…” Eli, drawled, his Southern accent thick. “Why are you here, then?”

She chewed at her lip a moment, nerves flaring with a burst of butterfly wings in her stomach. Just thinking about the reasons for her current location made her palms clammy and set her insides to quivering. But embarrassment and caution kept her answer short. “I was working at a farm and…had to leave suddenly. The storm was so bad last night…” and I’m broke and don’t want to have to call my parents. “Honestly, when you guys found me this morning, I thought you were going to turn me in for using the stalls.”

Eli cracked a grin. “Nah. Don’t know how you dressage people do it, but we’re not like that.”

A few months ago, she would have frowned at him and offered some indignant remark about the kind hearts of “dressage people”. Now: not so much.

“Where’re you headed?”

She shrugged. “My parents live in Ohio,” a knot formed in her chest, “so I guess I’ll head back that way.”

Eli whistled. “Ohio’s a long way away. Your folks got a farm up there?”

“No.” They advanced in the line again and Mel felt her irritation building. Though grateful for the kindness, she could have done without this guy’s round of twenty questions. She knew she’d presented a picture that had sparked curiosity this morning, but she was not the kind of person who spilled her life story to strangers. And her frustration at being so unusually lost was overwhelming: she stood here and wasted her morning because she had no idea what she was doing. What she was going to do. What she should do.

“Where you gonna take your horses then?”

“I don’t know,” her voice was tight, the words clipped. A quick glance showed that Eli’s glowing blue eyes had widened and she sighed, regretting her loss of manners. “I’m sorry,” she softened her tone. “It’s been a rough couple of days and I’m bitchy.” She twitched a smile. “I really appreciate you being nice to me.”

A broad grin broke across his face. “Sure.

They reached the counter and a teenager with a face full of pimples and an oversized cowboy hat asked for their order. Melanie tried to hide her grimace as she dug for her last forty-two dollars and eighteen cents in the pocket of her breeches, but Eli stopped her with a wave.

“Nah, this one’s on the boss.” He had his wallet in hand and whipped out a credit card. “Got Larry’s Am Ex. You just want coffee? Or are you hungry too?”

As if on cue, her stomach rumbled and Eli smiled. “Two coffees and two cheeseburgers.”

-O-

“No,” Dan dropped Pete’s hoof and straightened. His boss stood at the gelding’s stall door, an amused smile making his eyes twinkle. He couldn’t actually tell Larry Shaw what to do, but Dan knew that if he was going to have any influence in this decision he had to be quick and hard with the “no”s before Larry made up his mind.

“Ah, c’mon,” Larry said with a chuckle. “You haven’t even seen her yet.”

“Don’t need to.”

“She’s a pretty little thing.”

Dan snorted. There was never a shortage of “pretty little things” around the rodeo circuit, and while, ordinarily, he saw that as a good thing, he had no tolerance for some lost little lamb who’d bummed two stalls for the night and was batting her big, sad eyes in order to take advantage of Larry’s generosity. Because as stoic a picture as he normally presented, Larry had a soft spot the size of his ranch, especially when it came to the fairer sex.

He moved to the left foreleg, the last of his round, picked up his gelding’s hoof, scraped the manure and mud from around his frog, then dropped the leg and checked for any signs of heat or swelling. When he stood, his boss was still staring at him, his expression blank.

“I just hate to think if it was my daughter,” he said with a shrug. “I’m at least gonna ask her.”

“Ask her what?” But Dan already knew the answer.

“If she needs any help.”

Dan shook his head as he let himself out of the stall door, but said nothing further. He didn’t care that the guys had found a girl sleeping in a stall that morning, but they did, and he had long ago stopped trying to dissuade people from whatever it was they wanted to do. He was just disappointed that some chick had overtaken the morning’s conversation. The whole rest of the shedrow was talking about her.

Larry’s phone rang and the rancher ambled down the line of stalls to answer it. Alone for the moment, Dan ensured the other horses were quiet for the time being, then haltered Pete and led him out of his stall to the muddy stretch of grass just beyond the roof’s overhang. The bay happily plunged his muzzle down into the roughage and began ripping it up with his teeth.

Over the tree line, the sun had bubbled up like volcanic lava, an avalanche of orange, yellow, red and magenta clouds billowing around it. Post-storm light bathed a world that looked crystal with lingering moisture. The familiar, organic, hectic sounds of a morning barn routine filled the air and Dan shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, Pete’s lead rope looped casually over his wrist, for the moment content to just exist. That night, when the lights above the arena came on with loud, electrical thumps and the stands filled with spectators, adrenaline would be coursing through his veins, but now, he felt almost sluggish. Some of the other outfits had brought along barn rats to walk and water the horses, but Dry Creek was short on hands these days, so the guys were in charge of their own mounts. Not that Dan minded: he’d never trusted others to saddle his horse.

The light, dancing sound of feminine laughter captured his attention and he glanced toward the two figures walking down the shedrow. He recognized Eli’s gangly form, the idiot wearing his Carhartt even though it was already seventy degrees and rapidly warming. But the girl who walked beside him, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand, a foil-wrapped burger in the other that she took a bite of, was unfamiliar.

Figuring she must be the stall-sleeper, and the owner of the nasty-looking black gelding in the second to last stall, Dan gave her a quick once over. She was blonde and petite, with a delicate, feminine face and large eyes. Slender, she wore black but muddy English riding pants. A rain jacket was knotted around her waist and he allowed himself a moment of amusement at her mud-spattered white t-shirt and hot pink sports bra that was visible beneath it. She swallowed and then, smiling, said something in response to what Eli had just said.

Larry had at least been right about one thing: she was a pretty little thing. Pretty smile.

Eli caught his gaze and nodded a greeting, said something else to the girl and then her eyes landed on Dan. They were blue, he noticed as the pair walked toward him. But then he shoved that bit of detail aside and felt a frown settle across his features as the two came closer: Eli obviously intended to make introductions.

“Hey, Danny! Dude, you gotta meet our stowaway!”

The girl rolled her eyes with a smile. “We’re not on a boat, so technically, not a stowaway.”

Eli chuckled – again making Dan think of him as an idiot – and gestured the girl closer. “This is Melanie. Melanie Walsh, our head ranch hand, Danny Rawlins.”

Her eyes met his – and they were really, really blue – and she offered an unsure smile. “Hi.” Then her shyness was replaced with a sudden, stiff formality, as if she’d had to remind herself of some internal code of manners. Her smile widened, but in a forced way. There was anxiety in her eyes. “I really wanted to thank you guys for -,”

“Dan,” he cut her off, and her mouth closed with a startled click of her teeth. “My name’s Dan,” he stressed again, shooting Eli a nasty glare that was either ignored or not internalized, because the dumbass continued to smile.

The girl, Melanie, got the hint, though. She twitched her eyebrows and did an about-face, headed for the barn where the big black gelding was bobbing his head in anticipation of his owner.

When she was gone, Eli frowned. “Dude, she’s nice.”

“Dude,” Dan returned, “she’s trying to take advantage of Larry’s big wallet.”

The blonde narrowed his eyes, trying to gauge Dan’s seriousness, then turned away with a shrug. “You’re paranoid,” he said over his shoulder.

Maybe he was, but maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.