“At last!” Colin cried from the end of the arena. “Now tell me, love, was that really so difficult? Well done.”
Jill gathered her reins into one hand and wiped her cheeks free of relieved tears before he saw.
“I think that’ll do.” Colin strode toward her, reaching to pat Dragon on the neck.
“I’m sorry,” Jill said quietly. “This was not a good ride for me today.”
He nodded curtly. “I’d like to see you work on your posture and your hands. They were quite noisy.”
“They were, and I will.”
You didn’t argue with or make excuses to someone of his stature. Like the tornado that had swept through town nine months earlier, she’d destroyed this lesson. Maybe her dream, too.
“Good then.” Colin said nothing about another lesson and gave her boot top one pat. “Thank you for taking the time to work with me today. It’s good to meet you.”
“Thank you.”
He walked away. As Jill crawled from the saddle, Colin stopped briefly beside David, watching from the arena door. She pressed her forehead against the flap of her saddle and choked back a sob.
“Jill?” David placed a hand on her shoulder, and she tensed. “What happened?”
A little bump from a horse. She’d had worse injuries. This should not have been a big deal. Dragon shuffled sideways and she straightened, running her stirrup iron up its leather. “I had the crappiest ride in years, that’s what happened. I had a bad day.”
“Rubbish. I watch you ride three times a week. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”
Without fanfare, Chase appeared. His narrowed, knowing blue eyes, added to David’s badgering, took away any fight she had left. She spilled the stupid story with gritted teeth, and to her amazement, David broke into a smile.
“Thank God. For goodness’ sake, are you daft? Why didn’t you ask Da’ to postpone?”
“I didn’t think I needed to, honestly. Remember the time I rode with a broken arm for six weeks? This was just a little bump. I thought.”
David’s lips twitched with humor and he shrugged apologetically at Chase. “Athletes. We all need our heads examined.” He looked at Jill. “I get it. So tell him now.”
“No. I screwed this up. I’ll have to fix it. I’m not going to make an excuse after the fact. That’s no way to start a relationship.”
“I hate to say it, love, but neither was this.”
“I know. But I’ll sweet-talk him into one more try.”
“Sweet-talk him. There’s a laugh. Well, no tries for a week or more by the look of you.”
“It’ll be fine after I rest it.” She didn’t admit to the doubts forming in her mind. “I’ll be good and cancel my two other students for tonight—unless you want them?”
“I can take the lessons. I’ll take the Dragon, too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not a whingeing child.” She used David’s favorite British phrase for students who complained. “He’s my responsibility.”
He held up his hands the same as Chase had. “All right. But then go home. You’re no good to me injured.” He spun on his booted heels, and got halfway to the door before calling back to her. “It wasn’t that bad, you know.”
She loved him to death. But, oh yes. It had been that bad.
“Why?” Chase spoke for the first time.
“Why what?”
She gathered Dragon’s reins and led him forward.
“Why be so stubborn? It makes no sense to have kept the injury from David’s father. Why let him think you’re a bad rider?”
“Look. I …”
How could she explain? Colin was her Olympic idol, someone she’d dreamed of riding with for years, and David had bragged her up. The last thing she’d wanted to do was come up with an excuse for postponing the first ride. As if she weren’t confident of her ability. This had been her equivalent of the one big shot with a football or baseball scout. Colin had likely made up his mind about her already—and she’d have to scramble to get him to look twice.
“If this had happened during a show or, heaven forbid, Olympic trials,” she continued, “I couldn’t have used it as an excuse. I’d have had one of two choices—withdraw from the competition because I couldn’t ride, or suck it up and finish. I sucked it up.”
“So tell him after the fact. That’s not an excuse to get out of anything.”
“It’s looking for absolution. ‘Oh, Colin.’ ” She adopted a squeaky cartoon voice. “ ‘I’m really such a good rider, but my horsey banged my shoulder and it hurts.’ ”
He sighed, long and low. “You have to be one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met.” The chastisement didn’t reach his eyes. “And one of the toughest. For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen anyone ride like that. I was damn impressed. Means nothing coming from a motorcycle driver, still …”
On the contrary, warmth spread from Jill’s belly to her face, to her sore shoulder, to her fingertips. She had ridden with as much grace as spaghetti on a Brahman bull, but Chase had stayed and been impressed. It kind of made up for her letting Colin think she was crap.
CHASE WATCHED JILL struggle through the process of cooling her horse, wondering what possessed him to stay. It wasn’t just her injury. There was the simple fact that she and Dragon were mesmerizing. Chase had grown up in the heart of Lexington horse country, and he knew pretty horseflesh when he saw it. Dragon, with his powerful black haunches and stark white burst of lightning on his forehead, would definitely come out tops on a most-beautiful list. But what truly kept Chase spellbound was the way Jill seemed one with the horse—on the ground as well as mounted.
And, for as short a time as he’d known her, his attraction was as stubborn as she was.
She let him help carry her saddle to the tack room, open the pasture gate for her to let the horse out, and close it again. He slipped into the little routine effortlessly.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she said, once Dragon had bucked off to find his pasture mates. “You really have earned about six Boy Scout badges today.”
He laughed. “I am nobody’s Boy Scout.”
“You’re good in a crisis.”
He winced inwardly, but her smile spilled impishly into her eyes, banishing memories of home before they could take hold. He remembered the short meeting with her sister earlier. Jill’s smile was everything Dee’s had not been, inviting, fun, guileless.
“You are going to get that shoulder checked, right?”
Her sigh pushed through her smile, dimming it. “What I’m going to do is get my truck back. I’d rather leave it in the ditch, but since I’d be kinda screwed, that’s not an option. After that, a hot shower will make it all better. I honestly think it’ll be fine in the morning.”
He opened his mouth but forced himself not to speak. She was not his to protect although he desperately wanted to protect her. And he was red-blooded enough to let an image of her in the shower distract him and linger in that part of his brain that would forever be a randy teenage boy.
“You know best how it feels,” he conceded. “So, what can I do next?”
She halted and looked at him in confusion. “Next? I don’t know why you’re still here. You’ve helped so much, and you have places to go. There’s not a thing I’d ask you to do.”
“How are you getting to your truck?”
She started walking again. “Dee or David will take me.”
What the heck? The only place he had to go tonight was a hotel. “I’d be happy to do it.”
“What? Make me ride on that overgrown chainsaw again?” Her brown eyes shone.
“Listen, Miss Jumps Tall, Hard Objects on a Thousand-Pound Animal, your supposed fear of motorcycles doesn’t fly with me anymore. That harebrained horse ride was way more likely to splatter you on the ground than my motorcycle is.”
At the mention of the harebrained ride, she looked for the briefest second as if she might cry. Then the tiniest quirk at the corner of her mouth showe
d the shake-it-off spirit he was coming to recognize.
“You think a bicycle-on-’roids with a rocket engine strapped to it is safer than my horse? What the heck, then, I might as well live dangerously. I’d be more coordinated jumping your broken motorcycle than I was jumping the horse anyway.”
“Hey, it’s not broken. I told you—bad gas. But, if you let me take you, I’ll have your town’s expert mechanic have a look at the bike. To prove it.”
“Fine. I’ll come only because I’d hate to worry about you on that hiccupping leaf blower all night.”
Her regained humor relieved him.
“Facing your fears to save me. I’m flattered,” he teased. “But, you being that brave and all, I still think you should tell Colin about your shoulder and save yourself, or at least your reputation. I’m missing the logic in your choice here.”
“I told you, I’d rather prove my ability without excuses,” she said, and the stubborn set to her full, kiss-shaped lips was inexplicably sexy. “Anyway, who said a reason has to include logic?”
Who indeed? He didn’t push her further. He was beginning to see that sexy stubbornness flowed through Jill Carpenter’s veins side by side with her life’s blood.
AS SOON AS Chase turned off the Triumph twenty minutes later, Dewey Mitchell stuck his head out of a garage bay and eyed him with mild suspicion. When Jill pulled off the oversized helmet, however, Dewey relaxed and waved. “Oh, hey, Jill,” he called. “Got yourself new wheels, I see. Your truck’s almost done. Hang tight, be right with you.”
“You’re a dream, Dewey. Thank you!”
She slid off the bike. Chase followed and stretched. Dewey’s shop possessed small-town familiarity except that the place was weirdly pristine—as if everything had been freshly painted and power washed. A solid brick station building stood beside a three-bay metal garage with not a scratch or dent on it; the apron asphalt around the six-pump island all but shone like a waxed floor with not a crack to mar its surface. A tire display flanked by a giant poster of the Michelin Man stood in front of the station’s huge picture window. The oldest-looking things in the entire place were the cars lined up beside the garage awaiting repairs—Chase assumed.
“This has got to be the cleanest garage I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“Dewey lost pretty much everything in the tornado.” Jill looked around, a touch of nostalgia in her eyes. “Buildings, tools, vehicles, pumps. This place was one of the first things rebuilt. Everything is brand-new, down to the last socket set, and I’m pretty sure everyone in town pitched in to get it done. Kennison Falls couldn’t survive without Dewey’s shop. Same for the Loon Feather Café three blocks up.”
Chase followed her finger up the long, sunny main street. The still-healing scars of Jill’s hometown were clear even to a stranger. A low whistle passed his lips.
“I’m sorry, honey. This was bad, wasn’t it?”
“Pretty bad,” she agreed.
A patchwork of empty lots and freshly refaced storefronts marked the continuing restoration.
“The Loon Feather’s up where all that new plywood is. It’s kind of the heart of town, everyone’s favorite restaurant. As long as Dewey’s and the Loon are back, the town is back. The saddest losses are the trees. The street used to be lined with gorgeous old maples.”
The boulevards did look shorn and ragged, like a child who’d taken a scissors to her own hair with disastrous results.
“I’ve never been through anything like this. Were people hurt?”
“Nobody! Amazing, isn’t it?” A combination of pride and sadness lit her eyes. “Tough Midwesterners in a resilient little town.”
“Small towns do have a special kind of bravery.”
“This is a good place,” she agreed.
Chase pointed at a vending machine beside the station door. “What can I get you, I’m after bourbon myself, but I doubt I’ll find that for a buck in the machine.”
“Never know. Dewey’s pretty good at having what his customers need.” She reached for her striped bag and extracted a wallet. “Anything cold sounds wonderful.”
“Got it.” He waved off her money. “Sit over there on the grass. I’ll be right back.”
He leveled his gaze at her when she opened her mouth. For once, she let his directive stand and headed without protest for the slice of freshly sodded lawn at the far end of the driveway. It took him only two minutes to rejoin her with two dripping Coke cans.
“Sorry. Nothing stronger than a couple little ol’ Coke colas, but this’ll get rid of the dust in your mouth,” he said.
Her fingertips grazed his knuckles when she reached for the Coke can, sending a zing through his skin. Was he imagining that her eyes lingered on his hands? Was it wrong that this attraction on his part wouldn’t let up?
Yes. Callous bastard.
“We don’t hear ‘Coke cola’ used that way very often.”
“You all say pop up here?”
She nodded. “Pop,” she said, at the same instant she snapped open her can with a satisfying hiss and fizz. She tipped it to her lips, and her throat bobbed sweetly while she guzzled like a pirate. The delicate-tough contrast intoxicated him.
“So are a lot of people in town still rebuilding?” he asked to distract himself. “Like David?”
“Oh, right. My boss, the traitor.” Her elegant, girly brows puckered in on each other. “A lot of people are still waiting, yeah, because they won’t do what David did and hire Connery.”
“Because of the gravel pit project you told me about. Rigby says the hostility around here is veiled but real.”
“You asked this Rigby an awful lot of questions.”
“I sort of had to since the opportunity came up.” He fixed his eyes on hers to gauge her reaction. “I came from Memphis to take a job with Connery Construction.”
She took several seconds to process his news. “Seriously?”
“He’s a friend of my granddaddy’s.”
“Who? Duncan Connery? The man who runs roughshod over rules and regulations?” She certainly didn’t veil her animosity much.
“Wait now. How do we know this?”
“From all the times he’s ignored opposition to the project. From all the dismissals his lawyers get within hours of complaints and injunctions being filed.”
“Could it be there isn’t as big a problem as people think there is?”
Her eyes were now clear windows into muted frustration. “Don’t say that too loudly around this town.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He appeased her with a smile. “Look, I’m not on any side here, but I came to do an honest job and seem to have kicked up a hornets’ nest.”
For a moment longer the stubborn set to her jaw held firm, but slowly it softened. “Sorry.”
“No. It’s a good thing to be passionate. Obviously the town has gone through a lot, and I suppose there’s not much stomach for being charitable.”
“Exactly. They’ve seen enough land ripped up to last generations. The idea of ripping up more and maybe harming the state park a mile away doesn’t sit well with most of us.”
Chase sighed inwardly. From the viper pit of Memphis, Tennessee, to the hornets’ nest of West Nowhere, Minnesota. He sure knew how to pick ’em.
“Okay, Jill, I think she’s passed inspection.” Dewey was a tall, muscular man, roughly Chase’s own age, with quick eyes, a broad-cheeked face and mustache, and a flat but pleasant Minnesota drawl. “Joey’s givin’ the bumper a little last shine. Interior still smells like burgers ’n’ fries, though. I can put one of those little trees in there if you want.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Nah, Dewey, thanks. I’ll scrub ’er out and stick a saddle or two in there. That’ll fix the smell. What do I owe you?”
“Heck, it only took us fifteen minutes to hook ’er up and pull her free. Thirty-five bucks?”
“That’s all? Dewey, don’t short-change yourself.”
“I’d be outta business if I did that.�
��
“I was honestly expecting more.”
Chase listened with interest. Thirty-five dollars was equivalent to nothing. Dewey’s tow truck across the driveway was state-of-the-art, and who knew what his costs had been to rebuild. Clearly Dewey took friendship more seriously than profit.
As if he’d heard Chase’s thoughts, Dewey impaled him with stern eyes. “And who’s this?”
The question hung in the air with neither a welcome nor a threat, just the expectation of an honest answer. Chase stuck out his hand.
“Chase Preston,” he said. “Turns out, helping Jill was fortuitous for me, too. How much do you know about motorcycles?”
“Some,” Dewey said, cracks forming in his skepticism. “That’s a beauty you got there.”
“Thank you. When you and Jill are finished, I’d appreciate you taking a look at it.”
Completely won over by the request, Dewey shook hands.
Jill held a blue credit card out to him. “Here you go. Doesn’t hurt nearly as much as I’d feared.”
“We aim to please. C’mon, Jill. Let’s get you on your way.”
Dewey headed toward his station door, Chase’s disappointment flared at the thought of losing his last excuse to stay with Jill.
“Hey,” she said, hesitating before following Dewey. “Come to dinner.” The words appeared to surprise her as much as they shocked him. “Come home to dinner, I mean. I owe you a very big thank-you, and I can forgive you for consorting with the enemy long enough to hear the motorcycle story you promised.”
A zip of happiness shot through him despite the warning in his brain. “That’s awful nice of you, but, you know, I could tell you the story right here, and you could go take care of that shoulder.”
“What?” She scoffed. “A little ice. A shower before bed. What’s a good story without food? There’s a catch, though.”
“Oh?”
“I live at home, with my mother and my sister. We’re a little dysfunctional.”
Her lips turned up, but a second of embarrassment flickered in her eyes.
Rescued by a Stranger Page 5