Then I was listening only to the wind battering at the exterior of the old house. I let it fill my mind like white noise and concentrated on it to relax, until at last I drifted off….
THE NEXT MORNING the electricity was back on and the sun was shining brightly. As a matter of fact, the weather was perfect. The sun had chased away the clouds, the winds had died down to an errant breeze, and the air was warm and thick with the scent of trees and grass well-pleased by the rain.
“Let’s work outside after breakfast,” I suggested to my charge. “I’m assuming we can connect to the Internet from the gazebo.”
Nissa shrugged. “Maybe.” But she didn’t sound in the least enthusiastic.
Still, I thought the gazebo would do well for my purposes. “Let’s try.”
So after breakfast, which we ate alone—the Graylord brothers apparently were early risers so they could see to the needs of the horses—we packed up our laptops and took them to the gazebo.
The large, weathered cedar structure with a shingled roof decorated with a weathervane was tired looking but nevertheless inviting. Boxes of brilliant flowers skimmed the rails in the openings, and in addition to a large padded “window seat” on one side, it was furnished with a round glass table and padded wicker chairs.
“Is something wrong?” I asked Nissa when she stood on the steps, seeming reluctant to follow me inside. “Don’t you like the gazebo?”
“I used to come out here with my mother for afternoon tea.”
“If coming here upsets you, you should have told me. We can go sit on the front porch.”
“No. It’s okay.”
Wearing an expression of mulish determination, Nissa ran up the steps, set her laptop down on the table and threw herself into a chair. Her fingers dug into the wicker arms, and her attention was focused elsewhere. I turned and followed her gaze. Damian and two men I had not yet met—one leading a big bay—were deep in conversation.
“I take it you like horses.”
“I love horses!” Nissa’s expression transformed her plain face into one more appealing. “I’m going to be a trainer.”
“What kind of trainer?”
She rolled her eyes. “Someone who trains horses, of course.”
“But what kind of horses?” I pressed, having read everything I could about them once I’d decided to take lessons. “Or perhaps I should ask—train horses to do what? Thoroughbreds to race or become hunter-jumpers? Or are you interested in dressage?”
Nissa blinked at me and shrugged. Obviously, she hadn’t thought the training thing through.
“Why don’t we make training the focus of this morning’s lesson, then.” I’d already figured going with some topic about horses would appeal to her.
“You mean I should figure out what kind of trainer I want to be?”
“Well, you don’t have to decide that now. But perhaps you could find information on different kinds of trainers so you can see your options.”
The assignment proved to be a stroke of genius. Enthusiasm for the subject won over Nissa’s hesitation at working in the gazebo. It even won over her distrust of me.
I did a little Internet research of my own so that I would have enough information on trainers to ask her pertinent questions about her research. After which, noting that Nissa was still humming away, I checked my e-mail.
No message from Dawn.
I sent my friend another plea to contact me, but this time it bounced back to me with a message that her e-mail box was full. A sense of doom I didn’t want to acknowledge pushed me back into my chair.
I don’t know how long I sat there, mind empty of even one positive thought, before I realized Nissa was staring at me.
I flushed guiltily and gathered my thoughts. “So, what have you found so far? Anything interesting?”
“Are you okay?”
Now I felt doubly guilty. Nissa didn’t need more worry. “Hey, I’m fine. I was just letting my mind wander, I guess.”
“Yeah, I do that sometimes. My teacher at my school said it’s why I was failing.”
Though I wanted to ask if the teacher was correct, I held back the question. If Nissa broached the topic of her mother, I would gladly lend an ear and some reassuring words, but I didn’t want to spoil the morning when we’d just gotten started.
So I forced myself to concentrate on her litany of jobs having to do with horse training, which covered everything from Thoroughbred racehorses to quarter horses used to round up cows, and others in between. I used the bits of information I had gathered to pull more out of her.
Nissa was a smart kid. She had most of the answers and quickly found the ones she hadn’t absorbed. It seemed her mind was like a steel trap. If she read it, she remembered it. Her near failure in school had to have been a result of her emotional crisis over her mother’s walking out on her.
“That’s great, Nissa,” I said. “Now what I’d like you to do is write a report on what you learned. Go through each category of training and tell me whether or not it appeals to you and why or why not.”
Nissa grinned, the big smile making her freckled face look almost pretty. “This is fun. Not like school at all.”
“School should be more like this, but it’s difficult when a person has a whole classroom of kids,” I said in defense of overworked teachers, something I’d experienced myself in the school where I taught. “Every student needs something different.”
“And every teacher isn’t as cool as you.”
High praise, I thought.
“Though Dawn was pretty neat,” Nissa said wistfully.
“You liked her.”
“I thought she liked me, too.”
“I’m sure she did.” I knew she did because Dawn had told me so in more than one of her weekly missives.
“Then why did she leave me?”
A question I would like answered, as well. “Everyone says she eloped.”
“I know what they say.”
“But you don’t believe it?”
“Dawn confided all kinds of stuff in me, but she never said anything about eloping.”
“Confided…you mean things about boyfriends?”
Nissa flicked an errant strand of red hair from her forehead. “She told me this guy liked her, but she just said there were lots of fish in the sea.”
A guy who liked Dawn…another of her exaggerations or the truth? “This guy—was he someone who works here?”
“Nope. A neighbor. Jack Larson.”
Larson…the man who’d been trying to buy one of the stallions. It occurred to me from the exchange I’d overheard that Larson might have been more interested in getting information out of Dawn than he’d been in romancing her.
Not wanting to press Nissa further, I said, “So, back to your assignment…if you need help remembering something, feel free to use the Internet to look it up again.”
“That’s like taking a test with your book open. Isn’t that cheating?”
“Not if I say it isn’t. I don’t want you to just memorize facts. I want you to learn to think about a topic and know your resources,” I explained. “That’s how we adults get through real life.”
Nissa sighed. “I wish all my teachers could be as cool as you.”
And I wished all my students could be as smart as Nissa. Smiling, I watched her work for a few minutes. She seemed so focused. Determined. Like her father. Although, that was the only resemblance I could see between the two. She must look like Priscilla.
The kid was heartbroken at the loss of her mother. I could empathize. What about Damian? I wondered. Was he heartbroken, as well?
My gaze strayed beyond the gazebo to the barn where Damian Graylord was working with a pretty chestnut on a longe line. Rather than watching the horse, I found myself watching the man.
Even from a distance, I could see the muscles of his upper arms flex beneath his shirt, whose sleeves were rolled up above his elbows. He turned with the horse, and my gaze strayed to his thighs,
thick and tightly muscled from all the riding he must do. He was beautiful to watch—as graceful as the horse. And his air of command was enough to take away my breath.
Suddenly he seemed to realize I was staring at him. He was too far away from me to actually see if his eyes were focused on me, but I swear I felt them.
Pulse humming, I looked away quickly, turning to his daughter, who was industriously typing away on her laptop. Still, I could feel his gaze on me, the sensation a tangible thing. My heart beat a little too fast for my comfort. And when I heard footsteps and looked up to see him approaching, I could hear the rush of my blood through my head.
“A great day for working outside,” he said.
“I thought so. You don’t object?”
“Not when my daughter is looking so happy.”
Nissa was beaming. “Chloe has me doing this really great project, Dad. I’m learning about the different kinds of horse training.”
It was clear that Nissa worshipped her father. And Damian’s expression, which softened as he looked at his daughter, told me the feeling was mutual. The close connection between them moved me, and I felt a hunger that I’d put to rest many years before.
“That sounds like a very grown-up assignment, honey,” Damian was saying.
“But Nissa is up to it,” I quickly assured him. “She’s doing a wonderful job.”
“Then that calls for a reward. How about a ride after lunch?”
“Chloe can come, too, right?”
Damian fixed his gaze on me and said, “Of course.”
“Yay!”
“Unless Chloe doesn’t know how to ride,” he amended.
“Then I’ll teach her.”
“And I’ll accept any pointers you can give me, Nissa,” I said.
I tried not to squirm with discomfort. What was wrong with me? We would be on separate horses, so why was I so reluctant to spend time in Damian’s company? That’s what I was here to do, after all. Spend time in company with all of them until I learned what had happened to Dawn.
I smiled at Nissa. “I’m sure you’re a far better rider than I am.”
But it was Damian who answered. “So you do ride.”
“Not nearly as often as I would like.”
“That won’t be a problem here. You can ride daily if you like. The horses always need exercise. I’ll pick out a mare that will suit you.”
The personal attention was getting to me. “You don’t even know what kind of rider I am yet.”
“I think I can figure it out.” Damian tousled Nissa’s already-wild red hair. “Get back to that assignment, young lady.”
“I’m on it!”
Nissa’s brow furrowed as she picked up where she’d left off before her father had interrupted. I acted as if I had something urgent in my planning book, when in reality I was watching Damian go from the corner of my eye. He looked back once, and either it was my imagination or it really was me rather than Nissa that caught his interest.
If I was right, what was I going to do about it?
LUNCH WAS HEARTIER than I was used to—slices of beef and mashed potatoes with gravy and string beans—but Damian and Alex rose early and worked hard outside, so I expected they needed a meal that stuck to their ribs. I concentrated on my salad and simply tasted everything else. To my amazement Nissa inhaled her meal and asked to be excused so she could change into her new breeches and boots.
“Can I get you seconds, Mr. Damian?” asked a very human-sounding Mrs. Avery.
I did a double take. She was hovering over him, nearly fawning.
“I’m stuffed, but thank you, Mrs. Avery.”
“Not too stuffed for dessert, I hope,” she said, removing his empty plate. “Merle made one of your favorites. Chocolate flan.”
“For lunch? Tell Merle she’s spoiling me.”
“I shall fetch it for you.”
“Cook would do anything for you, bro,” Alex said as the housekeeper headed for the kitchen.
It seemed Mrs. Avery would, as well. Wondering if the housekeeper were more like family than hired help—which would explain her possessiveness—I asked, “Has Mrs. Avery worked for your family for a long time?”
“Do you mean did she work for our parents before they retired?” Damian asked. “No.”
“Actually, she was Priscilla’s creature,”Alex said. “But apparently with Priscilla gone, she took to devil-boy.”
Priscilla’s creature? What an odd way of putting it.
“Only because I pay her salary,” Damian said. “Mrs. Avery can be something of an enigma.”
“She’s an old bat,” Alex muttered, as the kitchen door swung open and the housekeeper drifted through carrying a tray.
From the glare she aimed at Alex as she served him his flan, I was pretty certain she’d overheard his comment. As she approached Damian, her expression softened, but I wondered if it was because she liked him—did Mrs. Avery like anyone?—or because, like he’d said, he paid her wages. By the time she got to me, the sour expression was back in place.
I smiled pleasantly in return.
Trading the dining room for the barns couldn’t come fast enough for me. At this rate, meals were going to be the low points of my day. We walked out—Alex and me together, Damian following, Nissa having called down that she would be out in a few minutes.
“So you ride, do you?” Alex asked.
“A bit.”
“Then perhaps you’ll consider riding with me. I could use the company.”
“She could never keep up with you,” Damian said, sounding annoyed.
“I could hold back for her.”
“You never hold back, Alex. That’s your problem. You plunge into things without thinking.”
Tension between the brothers was rife. But why? Over me? The idea made my pulse pick up a beat. I remembered wondering if Alex had been interested in Dawn and how Damian would have reacted to that. Then again, Alex might merely be looking for pleasant company on a ride, nothing more. No need to get ahead of myself.
“So what do you say?” Alex asked me directly. “Will you ride with me or will you let big brother keep you from having a good time while you’re stuck here?”
“I am not stuck. I chose to be here, remember. Nissa is my priority, but if I am free when you want to ride out, I would consider going along.”
“A very well-spoken non-answer.”
I laughed. “It’s the best I can do for now.”
My neck sizzled and I glanced back at Damian, whose gaze seemed to be boring a hole in my flesh. I smiled at him the same way I’d smiled at Mrs. Avery at lunch.
When I turned forward, I saw a slight man in dusty overalls leading a small bay out of the barn.
“There’s your ride,” Damian said. “Sweet Innocent. She’ll be perfect for you.”
Sweet Innocent. Was that how he saw me? As in ingenuous? Unsophisticated? Harmless? All the better for me to let him think what he would.
“She’s beautiful.”
If small and seemingly quiet natured, a bit of a disappointment since I was used to riding some feisty mounts. She was also saddled Western, not a problem, though I was used to riding English.
“Clifford, over here,” Damian called, indicating he was to give the mare to me. “Alex, come in the barn a minute.”
“Uh-oh.” Alex wiggled his eyebrows at me. “I think I must have been bad.”
I was still laughing when Clifford handed me the reins. He appeared to be fiftyish, with silver threading his thinning brown hair. His face was narrow, his hawkish nose sunburned at the tip.
“Here you go, miss.”
“The name’s Chloe. Chloe Morgan. I’m Nissa’s summer tutor. And you are?”
“Clifford Wakeley—groom, exerciser, hot walker.”
“A man of many talents.”
“A man who has too much work for too little pay,” he groused. “Why Mr. Damian went and hired a schoolteacher he could ill afford instead of giving the rest of us a raise�
��.”
“I’m sorry.”
The man shook his head. “Not your fault. You’re just another working stiff like me.”
The statement gave me reason to probe a bit. I lowered my voice. “So you don’t like working for the Graylords?”
“I work for Mr. Damian,” he clarified.
“It’s a family business, though, isn’t it?”
“Mr. Alex does promote the place, brings in money. Mares that need to be covered. Buyers. Real enterprising, that Mr. Alex. When he’s here, he exercises horses and helps out some, but Mr. Damian runs the farm, makes all the important decisions. At least, he does now.”
“He didn’t always?” I asked casually, as if it really didn’t matter to me.
“Not when his missus was still here.” He lowered his voice. “Almost bankrupted the place. She was a selfish woman who deserved whatever she got in the end.” Clifford’s expression darkened.
“What do you mean, whatever…?”
The groom drew his mouth tight and mumbled, “Miss Nissa’s coming. Better get back to my work now.”
Nissa was jogging to catch up. I waved to her and she returned the greeting, making me feel good about our first day together. Her attitude was a big departure from what it had been upon my arrival. She was dressed English-style—breeches, flat-heeled boots, hard hat.
“Got to get Wild Cherry!” she yelled, jogging right past me and into the barn as the Graylord brothers exited, Damian leading a big, powerfully built bay.
He was delayed by the blond man I’d seen him with in the pasture earlier—Theo Bosch, barn manager. They seemed to be arguing about something. If only I could read lips….
My mount was getting restless, so I turned to pay her some mind.
“Hey, girl, are you ready to ride?” I murmured, stroking up her long neck and letting my hand rest a minute on her poll, the prominent bony area between her ears.
Then I eased myself in front of her so she could see me and stared deep into warm brown eyes. I stroked the velvet of her muzzle, and as she lipped my hand, I released the treat I’d brought her—a couple of sugar cubes. She nodded her head and snorted in approval.
Ghost Horse Page 5