by Amy Vastine
Boone could have sworn the stall walls moved inward. His heart beat faster, almost painfully. “What do we need to talk about?”
“I need to know what’s up with you and Ruby Wynn.”
That was not the issue Boone assumed he wanted to discuss. “What does Ruby have to do with me helping you with this horse?”
“Holly threatened your sense of privacy. I get that. What I don’t understand is why that impacted your relationship with Ruby and your willingness to help Violet.”
“Ruby knew I wasn’t interested in being interviewed, and she still brought that reporter here,” Boone answered. His anger reignited. “That woman is a beautiful disaster, and I’m not going to let her bring me down.”
“It was Ruby’s fault you felt anxious, so as punishment you wouldn’t watch Violet ride. Do I have that right?”
The way Jesse said it made Boone sound like a child. “It’s not that simple. I wasn’t punishing anyone. I needed to walk away because I was frustrated.”
“And when you’re frustrated, escaping is the easiest thing to do?”
Boone’s agitation increased. He could feel his muscles tense and his blood race through his veins. “No, the easiest thing to do is scream and yell, but that’s gotten me in trouble, and I was trying not to make a scene. What does this have to do with Willow?”
“First, this horse is going to frustrate you. Screaming at her isn’t going to help. You already know that. Walking away isn’t going to help me. I need to know that you’re willing to try some other strategies.”
“Sure,” Boone replied gruffly. A stubborn horse wasn’t anything like a stubborn woman. He could manage his frustrations with the horse because it wasn’t going to be personal. He could do this. He wanted to do this. He imagined Emmy answering the phone to hear all about his work with Willow.
“The other issue is, I promised Violet I would let her help with the new horse. You can’t join the team if that’s going to be a problem for you.”
The wind was quickly taken from Boone’s sails. Of course Ruby would ruin this for him...unless he didn’t let her.
“I’ve got no issue with the kid. I don’t have to work with her mother. So what’s the problem?”
“Violet doesn’t need to get caught in the middle of two more people who don’t see eye to eye. She can’t be someone you use to show Ruby you’re frustrated.”
Was that what he had done? Inadvertently, yes. He had needed to get as far away from the reporter as possible. He hadn’t thought about how his refusal to stick around to watch Violet ride would affect her. The only person he wanted to hurt was Ruby.
“The kid won’t be put in the middle. I didn’t mean to do that, and it won’t happen again.”
Jesse clapped his hands. “Then we start tomorrow.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“ARE YOU SURE you want to spend the rest of your summer at Helping Hooves, volunteering?” Ruby wanted to make sure Violet really understood what she was committing to. She couldn’t admit she didn’t want Violet to do it because it meant Ruby would have to drive her there and pick her up several days a week. Each visit was a potential run-in with Boone, a man she’d had the displeasure of knowing for all of a week.
“Oh my gosh, Mom. Jesse is going to show me how to train a therapy horse. Maybe Faith will let me work with her like the high school girls do.”
Not surprising Violet wanted to be like the high schoolers. She was thirteen going on eighteen. There was no way Ruby was going to convince her daughter this was a bad idea. She was much too excited.
“I guess that means yes, you want to do it. What time did he say you needed to be there?”
“Nine. Eat your breakfast faster. I don’t want to be late.” Violet snatched a blueberry muffin off the table and headed back upstairs to finish getting ready.
Ruby should have known Violet was serious about this when she was up and moving before eleven. All Ruby could do now was accept that there would eventually be some sort of awkward face-to-face with Boone.
Letting Holly come along had been the worst idea ever. Boone had proved to be exactly like Levi. Her ex-husband loved to blow everything out of proportion and didn’t care about anyone except for himself.
“Let’s go, Mom!” Violet shouted from the front door.
Ruby stood up and grabbed her purse. The things she did for this child. Although this time, she hoped Boone was there when she arrived, so she could get the awkwardness out of the way.
Her prayers were answered. Boone and Jesse were standing outside the barn when she drove into the farm. They watched the car pull in, and surprisingly Boone didn’t run off.
“Don’t get out of the car, Mom. Come back at eleven and wait in the car for me.”
Apparently Ruby wasn’t the only one worried about what would happen when she had to confront Boone again. “I’m not going to embarrass you, I promise.”
“Yeah, I totally trust you.” Violet’s sarcasm was not Ruby’s favorite. “Please stay in the car.”
Ruby did as Violet asked. There was no reason for her to start trouble with an angry teenager and an angry country star. She didn’t avert her eyes when Boone stared her down, though. She held his gaze until he was the one to look away. It was a small victory, but a victory all the same.
She drove home, determined to push all thoughts of Boone out of her mind. It was impossible that she could be under some strange spell like Holly claimed. Maybe he was a bit intriguing and quite handsome, but he was also stubborn and mean. His negative traits outweighed the positives.
Ruby’s phone rang just as she pulled into her driveway. Levi’s name appeared on the screen. Given a choice, she would have preferred fighting with Boone to fighting with Levi, but she wasn’t lucky enough to choose.
“Hello?”
“Ruby? I thought I was calling Violet’s phone.”
No, he didn’t. He had pulled this trick a time or two, especially when he had bad news to share with Violet but didn’t want to be the one who had to tell her.
“Violet is at the horse farm. Should I have her call you when she’s done?”
“Oh, I thought she’d be sleeping. Does she have an early-morning lesson?”
Ruby took a deep breath to keep her frustration from spilling over. She got out of her car and headed inside. “She’s volunteering there now. They got a new horse, and she’s learning how to train it to do therapy.”
“Wow. Good for her! What kind of horse is it?”
There was no need for all this small talk. “What do you want, Levi? Do you want me to have her call you when she gets done?”
“No, no, no,” Levi insisted. “I was just calling about that email you sent with the info on Violet’s horse show. Next weekend is kind of a busy one for me—”
Ruby lost what was left of her patience and cut him off. “Don’t you dare back out. You know how important this is to her. She has worked really hard, and she wants you to see what she can do. Your opinion matters to her.”
Violet was dying for her father’s approval. Levi was a bull rider. He wasn’t a huge star but made a decent living doing it. Violet thought riding was the way to prove to him that she was worthy of his attention.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t coming. I just need you to know that there’s a possibility I might only be able to drop by for part of it. I have a life, you know?”
He had a life? Ruby was about to hang up but stopped herself. If she turned this into a fight, he would tell Violet he hadn’t come because of what her mother did or said.
“I know you have a life. You also have a daughter. I trust you’ll do the right thing.”
“Of course you try to make me feel bad,” Levi complained. “I’m doing the best I can, Ruby. Sorry I’m not perfect like you.”
Ruby tried
not to laugh. “I’m far from perfect, but I am here. Every day. Trying to do what’s best for her.”
“You’re the one who moved out of Nashville. You’re the one who thought you could do this on your own. That’s not my fault.”
Levi loved to blame that one on her. As if he was such a big help when they were living within the city limits. Even then, Ruby was raising Violet on her own.
“You do what you have to do. I hope you make it to the competition. Vi really wants you to be there.”
Levi wouldn’t let it go. He wanted a fight even if she wasn’t going to give him one. “You act like I said I wasn’t coming. I called to say I was coming but wouldn’t be able to stay the whole time. You love to make me the bad guy, don’t you?”
“I’m not calling you a bad guy. I will let her know that you’ll be there.”
“Well, if you’re going to be like this, I’m not sure if I will. I don’t deserve to be treated this way.”
Ruby sat down at the kitchen table and propped her head on her hand. Classic Levi. He instigated the argument and imagined insults she might have thought but didn’t say aloud. It would be all her fault when he didn’t show up to the competition, and Violet would believe it.
“What if I promise not to say a word? Will you come then?”
“You don’t have to say anything to make me feel judged. You say plenty with one of your dirty looks.”
“I promise not to give you any dirty looks or say anything that could be construed as an insult. Please come,” she begged.
“I’ll think about it. As much as I want to go to support our daughter, I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“I hope you will.” She wanted to tell him to put Violet first for once but figured he’d take it the wrong way. Someone was on the other line. “I have to go, Levi. One of my patients is calling.”
“Right,” he said before hanging up.
Ruby wanted to scream, but there really was a patient calling. Iris Downing was thirty-nine weeks pregnant and had called last night about some back pain. Today her contractions were coming every ten minutes. She’d been timing them for almost an hour.
It was time to go to work. A baby would be born today, and it was Ruby’s job to see to it that the delivery went smoothly. Mrs. Downing would be in charge of smoothing out the bumps for the little boy or girl after that. Hopefully she’d be better at it than Ruby was.
CHAPTER NINE
BOONE AND VIOLET watched Jesse try to get Willow to follow his lead without much success. The horse wasn’t just stubborn. She was completely unmanageable.
“I think she’s laughing at him,” Violet said.
The horse whinnied and pulled Jesse backward. Boone chuckled. “She’s definitely laughing at him.”
“I don’t think she’s going to be a very good therapy horse. I think she needs therapy.”
Boone laughed harder. “You might be right about that, kid.”
Violet’s phone chimed in her back pocket. She pulled it out and started typing a reply to someone at the speed of light. Boone had never seen fingers move that fast. She waited for a reply and sent off another message like lightning. The next reply caused her to growl and type even faster.
“Everything okay over there?”
“My mom seriously hates me.”
Boone wondered why kids always thought that. Why did they think not getting their way meant their parents didn’t care about them? Had he been like that as a kid? He didn’t think so.
“What’s the problem? She tell you she isn’t going to buy you the new Jordan O’Neil record?” Girls Violet’s age all had a thing for the young pop star.
“Um, no. Ew. I don’t listen to Jordan O’Neil. Do I look like that kind of girl? If I do, please kill me now.”
So dramatic. Boone shook his head. “I have no idea what those kinds of girl look like. You seem like you’re the right age to listen to someone like him. Don’t you follow him and all the other cute boys in the teenybopper magazines?”
Violet’s nose scrunched up as she side-eyed him. “Seriously? No one says teenybopper. That’s not even a thing anymore. It’s not 1950, old man.”
Boone held up his hands in defeat. “Sorry, Miss Smarty-Pants. I’m not up-to-date on all the lingo.”
“No one says lingo or smarty-pants. You should stop talking,” she said as she shot off another text message.
If this was what Ruby had to put up with every day, he was beginning to feel bad for her. “Are you going to tell me what your mom’s done that’s got you all upset or not?”
“She says she can’t come get me on time because someone decided to go into labor. And she’s not sure she can find someone to drive me home.”
“Oh yeah, she totally hates you,” Boone said with a roll of his eyes. He could tell her stories about his childhood that would give her some serious perspective on what a mean and nasty parent was like. “And the nerve of that lady to decide to go into labor when you have plans. So rude.”
Violet shot him a look. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m hilarious. And I’ll bet I can give you a ride home when you’re done here.”
“You’d do that?”
“If we can find someone to lend us a car.”
“Are you for real? You’re offering to drive me home, but you don’t have a car?”
Boone shrugged. “Dean wanted to trap me here until I make him the album he’s been waiting for.”
“You are so weird.”
He nudged her with his elbow. “Tell your mom we’ll find a way to get you home.”
She somehow typed that into her phone in half a second and slipped the device back into her pocket. “Maybe I can ride Willow home. I’d probably have more luck doing that than Jesse’s having getting her to walk in a circle.”
Boone watched as Jesse tried to coax the horse to take a step forward. Dean was more likely to get an album out of Boone than Jesse was to get that horse to move where he wanted her.
“Maybe I should show him how it’s done. She likes me.”
“Oh, really? Did she ask for your autograph?” Violet said with a smirk.
“Never going to let me live that down, are you?”
Violet shook her head.
Boone crossed the paddock to where Willow was holding Jesse hostage. “Can I try?”
Jesse seemed reluctant to give up the rope. “This can take hours or sometimes days. Every horse is different, but they all learn eventually.”
“What if she doesn’t want to learn?” Violet asked.
The horse turned away and tried to pull Jesse along with her. He dug his heels in and tried to tug her back. “She’ll learn. They all do. You want to get her to look at you and understand what the rope is for.”
“Can I try now?” Boone asked again.
Jesse handed him the thick lead rope. The horse took notice of the new man in charge and began running around. Boone could see the anxiety in her eyes. He let her run and move, get out that nervous energy.
He made some kissing noises in an attempt to get her to come check him out. He gave the rope a gentle tug in his direction. “Come here, pretty girl.”
“Does that line usually work for you?” Violet teased.
“Watch and learn, kid.” Boone got Willow to look at him and met her halfway. He spoke quietly to her and gave her long neck a rub. After a few minutes, Boone had Willow under control. “And that’s how you teach a horse to lead,” he said proudly.
* * *
JESSE HAD A therapy session with someone after their training with Willow ended. He offered to let Boone borrow his car to give Violet a ride home.
“Mind if I watch Violet ride Sassy for a little bit first?” Boone asked, feeling generous.
One side of Je
sse’s mouth lifted. “I think that would be real nice of you.”
“Come on, kid,” he said to Violet. “Let’s get Sassy saddled up.”
“Are you sure you don’t have other plans?” She sincerely sounded concerned.
“No plans except for the ones I’m avoiding.”
“Cool,” she replied. “Thanks.”
For the next hour, Boone watched Violet complete all the Western riding tests with ease. She was an excellent rider for someone who was fairly new to the scene.
“Do you always ride Sassy, or have you ridden other horses here for your classes?”
“I tried riding Renegade a couple of times, but he’s a little bit harder to control. He’s faster, and I think I get freaked out.”
“It doesn’t hurt to ride other horses. You and Sassy are awesome together, but riding other horses teaches you to adjust quickly and deal with different situations.”
Violet unlatched her helmet. “That makes sense.”
Boone checked his watch. “I don’t know about you, but I am starving. You want to grab some lunch before I take you home?”
“You paying?”
“I have to drive and pay for you?”
“I’m a kid. I can’t drive and I have no money.”
“Excuses.” Boone gave her a playful shove. “We could see if Jesse will lend us twenty bucks and his car.”
“That’s a plan, but I thought you were rich and famous. Have you been lying to me this whole time?”
He narrowed his eyes. “No, I am richer and more famous than you could ever dream of being.”
“Then stop giving me a hard time and buy me lunch, old man.”
This kid was something else.
Violet picked the restaurant, since she was familiar with the town. The Cup and Spoon Diner didn’t look like much, but Violet swore the food was good. Boone decided she didn’t rave about too many things, so it must be true. They sat down in one of the booths and perused the menu.
“What’s good?”
“Anything breakfast, the bacon guacamole burger, the double cheeseburger, the chicken fingers, all of the salads.”