Hometown Hearts. Jillian Hart

“Daddy, please?” Julianna clasped her hands together, steepled as if in prayer. There had been so much he hadn’t been able to give her over the past few years—her mother’s return to their family, her mother’s full-time interest and a way to make her pain ease. But this he could do. His daughter wanted him to go on a horse ride with her. How could he say no?

       Remembering his single, very bad experience with a horse when he was a boy, how could he say yes?

       “Dad saddled up Scout for you. Scout is a real gentleman.” Cheyenne probably thought she was reassuring him as she led the way toward the horses, her light auburn hair spilling over her shoulder. “Don’t worry. It will be a piece of cake.”

       Sure, like last time. He tried to erase the images rising into his mind like a DVD player in slow motion. The pony baring his teeth and snapping as he tried to mount. The nick of teeth stinging his upper arm. Squaring his shoulders, he took one step forward toward the few horses still tied to the rail. Most folks had mounted up and the big crowd of Grangers were milling around, saddles creaking, steeled hooves striking the ground, all eyes on him.

       He probably looked like a coward, or at the very least a disagreeable man who didn’t know how to have fun. He felt the shadows within him. Fun wasn’t something he’d been inclined to have since the divorce, when life had become incredibly serious.

       “Dad, this will be so much fun. You’ll see.” Jenny, more child than teenager at the moment, loped ahead of him with deerlike grace. “You can ride with me.”

       “Uh-huh, he’s gonna ride with me!” Julianna argued cheerily from atop her little gold mare.

       “The trail is wide enough that he can ride with both of you.” Cheyenne cheerfully untied reins from the fence board. A cow rambled up to investigate, a daisy stuck in the tuft of hair between her ears, something his girls must have done. “I wish you could come along, too, Buttercup, but you’ll have to stay here.”

       The bovine had a similar pleading gaze as Julianna, wide eyes and hopes impossible to disappoint.

       “I’m sorry, girlfriend.” Cheyenne stroked the cow’s wide nose before turning to him. “Are you ready to saddle up?”

       He was more inclined to take off at a dead run, but cowardice had never been a flaw of his. If only so many gazes weren’t tracking his progress as he strode up to the horse, the menace on four legs. At least, that was his memory of being on horseback.

       It will be better this time. That was the only thought that kept the fear at bay. Lord, I hope this isn’t a disaster, he added in prayer, because he would need all the help he could get.

       The big behemoth studied him with friendly cocoa eyes. The horse’s nostrils rounded as he breathed in and out in a low-throated sound that could have been a growl.

      Man up, he told himself but he couldn’t stop the DVD player part of his brain. The memory froze in this exact spot when he’d been four at his own birthday party. His heart had been pounding then, too, from excitement, not an impending sense of doom. But instead of the grizzled old man holding the reins, Cheyenne posed beside him, awash with sunshine and beauty, looking like everything good in the world.

       “Does he bite?” It didn’t hurt to ask.

       “I’ve never known him to, but for you he might make an exception.” She must think she was being funny.

       He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth. He swallowed hard and stepped up to the saddle. He had to reach up to the saddle horn, but not too far. That was one advantage of being tall. He feared the disadvantage might be the old adage, the taller they are, the harder they fall.

       “Look at Mrs. G.” Cheyenne, determined to encourage him, nodded in the direction of the cluster of horses and riders on the gravel lane. The older lady balanced in the saddle, clutching the saddle horn with both hands.

       “I hear what you’re saying.” He wasn’t about to be outdone by a woman twice his age. His masculine pride proved to be stronger than his old fear. He lifted his foot and slipped it into the stirrup, gave a hop and rose into the saddle.

       “Hey, you’re an old pro at this.” Cheyenne beamed up at him, respect softening her fantastic blue eyes. Her irises had little flecks of aquamarine in them and darker threads of navy blue. His heart skipped.