don’t you pet them?” he suggested, having noticed she was hanging back like she had last time.
He stayed where he was to gentle the horses, which might have been a mistake. She stepped close enough to allow a citrus scent to rise to his nose. Probably shampoo. He studied her fingers as she tentatively stroked one sleek neck and then the other, giving a surprised squeak when Aurora lipped her fingers.
“Her mouth is so soft!” Ciara exclaimed.
He couldn’t help thinking her lips looked soft, too. So did her skin. It was exceptionally fine-pored, more like a young child’s than an adult’s. In self-defense, he began to scratch Hoodoo’s poll. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so tempted to touch a woman. Hell, if he laid a hand on her, she’d probably jump six inches and shy away just like one of the horses did to an unwelcome surprise, he thought ruefully.
But the face she turned up to him was alight with pleasure. “They’re so friendly! They’re just like dogs.”
For that moment, all the guardedness he’d seen in her was gone. Those eyes, huge and bright, shone with delight. And the way her mouth curved...
He’d have sworn he heard a cracking sound, the first ominous fissure in the Grand Coulee Dam, holding back the weight of enough water to wreak havoc through the whole Columbia River basin. Nobody else seemed to hear the sound, originating in his chest, where he’d built walls he would have sworn were rock solid.
Panic spiked, and he took a step back.
Irritable, that was his defense.
“Just so you remember, horses weigh two thousand pounds,” he reminded her and her son.
She shot a worried look at the boy before fixing her gaze on Gabe again. “Do they ever, well, step on you?”
“Yeah, I’ve had horses step on a foot. Sometimes they don’t even notice. That’s why it’s a good idea to wear boots around them.” He glanced at Mark. “You have any?”
“Uh-uh. Maybe I should get some, Mom.”
“Is leather really good enough?” she asked Gabe. “Or do you get steel-toed or what?”
Amusement eased his panic. “You ever seen a cowboy boot coated in steel?”
“Is that what I should get him? Cowboy boots?”
“Yeah, probably,” he said in resignation. Sure as hell, he’d be putting the kid up in the saddle before he knew it. Might have to do it on a lead line, if Mark didn’t turn out to have any more ability to center his weight when sitting than he did on his feet. Quarter horses had been bred to turn on a dime, whether their rider went with them or not.
“Well, okay.” Ciara gave him another sunny smile that had him backing up yet another step. “Thank you for...well...”
His eyebrows climbed. “Not shooting the dog?”
The boy grabbed his dog’s collar. “You wouldn’t!”
His mom’s smile turned to a glare. “Don’t say things like that!”
Gabe chose not to say anything.
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you have a gun?”
“A rifle. Yes, I do, ma’am.” Ma’am—that was good. Distancing.
“You hunt?” Her voice spiked with disapproval.
“I was raised hunting,” he said. “My family needed that meat on the table. But no, actually, I don’t.”
“Then why—?”
“Do I keep the Remington on hand?” He hesitated, not wanting to tell her it had been a gift from his dad, which at the time had meant something. In these parts, giving your son a fine rifle was a way to acknowledge he’d reached manhood. His father hadn’t been very good with words, but sometimes he’d done something that had made Gabe glow with pride. Not often, which is maybe why those rare moments stuck with him. “Anyone with livestock has to worry about coyotes or wolves,” he said instead. “If I heard someone breaking into my workshop, I’d reach for it, too.”
She looked shocked, giving him an idea how she’d cast her ballots. His mouth twitched. If he was right, she’d be in a minority in this corner of the state. The thought made him wonder anew what she’d been thinking, a woman raising her child alone, buying a house so isolated, in a county where she and her son might both have trouble fitting in with what neighbors they did have.
He glanced from her outraged face to Mark’s. The kid was kind of dorky-looking to go with his personality. Lips a little too big and loose, expression too open. Gabe’s amusement faded. Sure as hell, Ciara Malloy had gone for isolated on purpose. He just hoped she hadn’t made one hell of a mistake.
He dipped his head. “I need to be getting back.” He met Mark’s gaze. “You want a dog, teaching him what’s acceptable and what isn’t is your responsibility. You understand, son?”
The boy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“All right, then.” Gabe walked back to his truck, not allowing himself any softening chitchat. Whatever that strange feeling he’d had when Ciara smiled, he had to have imagined it.
He was going to be pissed if he was back here in two hours because the damn dog was already in the pasture nipping at his horses’ heels again.
“Sir? I mean, mister...I mean, Gabe?”
The driver’s-side door was open; he didn’t have a lot of choice but to glance back.
Neither woman nor boy had moved. The old dog had settled her butt and looked as if she’d be content never to move. The young dog, however, was getting antsy.
“Yes?”
“I can still come to your place this morning, right?”
Oh, hell. In his exasperation, he’d forgotten. He wanted to say, You’ve already wasted enough of my day, but the apprehension coupled with hope that the boy couldn’t hide stopped the words in Gabe’s mouth.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I’ll be expecting you.”
He took one last look as he started the engine, bothered by the knowledge that he wanted to see warmth again on Ciara’s face. That it would be easy for a man to get to crave the sight of that expression.
And there it was, just as he’d envisioned it, and the crack in his protective wall groaned a little as the damage done to it allowed further weakening.
He drove faster than he should have down their long, dusty driveway.
* * *
STARING IN DISMAY at the math problem Mark didn’t understand, Ciara wished she’d escaped to her workroom immediately after breakfast instead of making the mistake of lingering to ask if he needed any help. She’d mostly been okay with the seventh-grade math in the original curriculum, but once she downloaded the kind of work he’d already been doing in his advanced class, she was lost.
What’s more, this was the first major download she’d tried since discovering high-speed internet wasn’t available. In moving to such a rural location, they’d apparently lost a decade or two. Dial-up was torturous.
“This is geometry, isn’t it?” she said unhappily.
“Um...yeah.”
“Sarcasm is not appreciated.”
“Well, it’s about angles.”
“I can see that,” she snapped. It showed a shape—God help her, she didn’t even know what the shape was called—and wanted to know the sum of the angle measures in it. She’d taken geometry in high school and hated it. “You know, if you’re going to work on this stuff, I’ll have to review it in advance to be any help to you.”
“But