the pleasant tone of her voice, Trent found himself relaxing for the first time in ages.
“How long has this place been a guest ranch?”
“Since a year after Kimberly died.”
The girl’s mother, he thought. Alana’s fiancé had died in the same wreck. Wait. She’d corrected him on that. She hadn’t been engaged to Braden, but they’d been close, despite her words to the contrary. He thought about the emotions on her face when he questioned her the first day. The pain he’d spotted. The lingering sadness. The emptiness. He’d felt like a heel the moment he’d closed the door behind her.
“Is that how all this started? With Rana’s injuries from the wreck?”
He saw her swallow and nod. “We almost lost her.”
One of his wheels hooked on a rock. He straightened himself out before asking, “How long was she in the hospital?”
“Months.” She shook her head, as if trying to shake off the memories. “She lost her mom and her uncle all in one fell swoop, and then had to fight for her life. It was almost too much for her to bear.”
Was she speaking of Rana? Or herself?
“When we brought her home, Cabe and I put our heads together. I’d always planned on being a therapist, had the majority of my schooling done. He was desperate to get Rana back. The extent of her injuries harmed her mind as well as her body and so we came up with a plan to distract her. Horses. Lots and lots of horses. We made sure she was out of doors every chance we could get. I finished my degree and went to work on her. I guess you could say she was my guinea pig.”
She’d slowed down, stopping by a massive tree, one with roots jutting out all the way down to the riverbank. A frog croaked nearby. The breeze had kicked up, and it tossed her hair back. She seemed lost in her thoughts. He almost didn’t want to breathe for fear of distracting her. Then she blinked, met his gaze.
“Everything happens for a reason.”
She meant the ranch, of course, not what he’d gone through.
“You didn’t stop with Rana, though,” he said.
“No. When word got out that Rana was walking again, the phone started ringing. Cabe talked to me about opening a guest ranch specializing in people with disabilities. I thought it was a great idea. We started looking into grants. Before we knew it, we had the financing and a waiting list. We couldn’t build the cabins fast enough.”
He could tell she loved what she did. Just talking about it set her whole face aglow, causing Trent to marvel at how pretty she was all over again. The sadness was gone and in its wake was the joy of her success.
“It seems quiet here now.”
She smiled ruefully. “The calm before the storm. School’s still in session. Come July we’ll be packed solid. Cabe will bring in some help, usually interns from nearby colleges. It’s crazy, but it’s so amazing to watch people with a disability get on a horse for the first time. When they feel a horse beneath them, when they realize they can walk again, well, not them, but the horse, their faces light up. And then when they learn to control the horse and suddenly they’re mobile in a way they never imagined...”
He could watch the play of emotions on her face all day. The happiness. The excitement. The satisfaction. He couldn’t look away.
“I can’t imagine ever leaving this place...or Rana. She’s like a daughter to me now.”
Suddenly, he was unaccountably jealous of Rana, and that was just plain ridiculous. Why?
Because she could walk again.
“How long did it take?”
She seemed to snap back to earth. “For what?”
“To teach Rana to walk again?”
She smiled. “Months, but Rana makes it sound like it took a decade. I’ve never seen anyone attack therapy like Rana did. She told me at one point that God might have taken her mother, but He wasn’t going to take her legs away, too. She was angry.” Alana stared at him pointedly. “We had to deal with that, too. I’ve learned it’s pretty common for people to latch on to their anger when they’ve been dealt a debilitating blow.”
The way he had. He couldn’t miss her point.
“By the way, this is where we’re having our picnic.” She pointed to a spot beneath a tree, one so big its branches hung out over the nearby river. “That rope there will be your therapy today.”
She’d done that on purpose, he realized—changed the subject.
“We’ll work on leg strengthening, but not until after you eat.”
When she opened the basket he once again caught a whiff of something fried and mouthwatering.
“Don’t people think it strange, you living all the way out here with only Cabe and Rana for company?”
Her hands froze in the middle of unpacking plates. “No. Everyone knows we’re just friends. But even if people did talk, I wouldn’t care. I stick around as much for Rana as for myself. People can say what they want to say.”
She wasn’t messing around with Cabe—had never messed around with the man. He could see that in her eyes.
“Eat up.” She handed him a plate full of food before sitting down next to the basket.
It was good. Delicious, actually. “You’re a good cook.”
“Thanks,” she muttered, taking a bite of her own food. She didn’t eat all daintylike, either. She ate like a woman who worked hard for a living and consumed calories to keep her energy.
Sexy.
He jerked his gaze away. What the hell was wrong with him? Okay, granted, she was hot. A year ago he would have crammed down his hat and gone after her. A year ago he’d have been able to pursue her. A year ago he’d had the use of his legs.
The thought put him in a sour mood all over again, the two of them eating in silence. He thought about making small talk, but what was the use? He didn’t want to be her friend. Hell, he didn’t want to be here at all. So if she insisted on dragging him out of his cabin, she could deal with the silence.
As it turned out, she didn’t seem to care. As the silence stretched on, Trent found himself starting to relax again. That was, until she stuffed her plate back into the basket and asked, “Ready to get to work?”
He lost his appetite.
“Not really.”
She smiled. He hated when she did that. It increased the wattage of her beauty, and he didn’t like being in enemy territory.
“Too bad.”
He glanced down at his own plate, surprised to note he’d eaten it all.
“Come on.” She held out her hand for his plate. He reluctantly gave it to her. “Wheel yourself as close to the rope as you can get.”
He didn’t want to. He really didn’t. He could feel things from about midthigh upward, and those thighs told him he was done—sore as a castrated bull dragged to the fire.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Simple, really. Just wheel yourself close to the rope and pull yourself up.”
He eyed the rope in question. The thing dangled down from the branch above him, one with a canopy of leaves so thick you couldn’t even see through it. Why did he have a feeling this wouldn’t be as simple as she made it sound?
“You sure it will hold my weight?”
She smirked. “Positive.”
Okay, so he was stalling, but he was really sore. All he wanted to do was sit in the damn chair.
He reached for the