And even now, the scent of whatever his Gramma had cooked for supper—meatloaf?—was turning his stomach.
His cell rang. He was aware that the women in the living room weren't done with him yet, but he dug his phone out of his hip pocket, holding it up to his ear. "Starr."
"Luke, it's Dusty."
There was a prolonged moment where he could feel his pulse beat in his throat.
"I'm calling to check on Gramma."
The momentary hope was replaced by bitterness. Of course his brother would be checking up on him. Not to ask if Luke was having nightmares or was dealing with the past, but worried about whether he was man enough to take care of Gramma, keep her from getting hurt again on his watch.
And it was his own fault. He was the one who'd let the distance grow between himself and the twins. It was better this way. He had to keep believing it.
"She's fine. In fact, she's hatching a plan to set me up with a local schoolteacher."
His brother was noticeably silent.
A clink of a dish from behind him alerted Luke that he wasn't alone. He turned slowly to see Jess standing at the counter, having placed her empty glass in the sink. Color rose high in her cheeks, and her eyes skittered away.
He settled his hip against the countertop, watching her. She didn't leave. But she didn't look at him either, instead messing with a tea towel on the counter. Her nervous fiddling reminded him of a green-broke filly.
"I'm kidding about the setup," he said into the phone, breaking Dusty's still-conspicuous silence. Nice that his brother had so little faith in him. "But Gramma and the local special ed teacher have cooked up a plan to have one of the kids visit your horses. You okay with that?"
The teacher's gaze came up and met his head-on, though those spots of color still rode high in her cheeks.
"You supervising?" Dusty asked in his ear.
"Looks like it."
There was a pause, and his thumb was ready to end the call if Dusty brought up any reminders of the past, but his brother just said, "Have fun."
The call ended, and he let his hand and phone fall to his side. "Guess you're in luck," he said to Jess. And he was out of it.
At least he got to spend time with a pretty lady.
"Wanna come out to the barn? It hasn't exactly been child-proofed. You can help me spot danger areas."
"Now?" Her feet shifted, bringing his eyes to the short boots beneath her jeans. Apparently, she hadn't wasted time after the school day had ended before she'd run back out to Gramma's. She still wore the same clothes she'd worn earlier.
"When else?" He tried for a charming smile, but she'd already dropped her gaze.
He stuck his head through the doorway into the living room and told Gramma, "We're going out to the barn. You didn't wait dinner on me, did you?"
Gramma's eyes twinkled. "I did, but it'll save. Take your time."
He pointed his index finger at her. "Don't get any ideas." Even though he'd had the passing thought to ask Jess out, he didn't have enough time left in town to cultivate anything.
No matter how pretty the teacher was.
Jess followed him out the back door and down the steps. The evening sun was still warm, the late summer humidity hitting him like a muggy blanket after the A/C inside.
"So tell me about this kid."
"Josh," she said.
"Josh."
#
Jess's cheeks were still blazing as she followed the cowboy out of the house and across the yard. Ms. Shirley setting them up? Not likely.
Her eyes scanned the yard, where a few butterflies still flitted over the tall grass in the evening light. She couldn't help the slight tense of her shoulders as she waited for the inevitable questions about Josh. Usually, they started with, what's wrong with him?
But Luke only asked, "What are Josh's main challenges?"
"Communicating," she said instantly. "He's very smart. Especially in science and math. He understands everything you say, but he won't respond."
She stopped herself. Her students were her passion, and she could talk for hours if she wasn't careful.
Josh was currently her only student. She'd gone from a large elementary school in Austin, where she'd been one of several teachers and wasn't able to cultivate real relationships with the kids, to this. Here, she saw the difference she made—minuscule as it might be some days.
"So what exactly are you expecting here?" Luke asked.
The barn door was open, but with the sun setting behind it, the interior was shadowed. He ducked inside the door, and she heard the sound of a switch being flipped. The interior flooded with light.
From inside, a horse blew.
Luke motioned her to follow him inside. Her dressy school boots caused little puffs of dust.
"If we could come out for an hour, a couple times a week, that would be good."
"An hour?" He looked almost horrified.
She stifled a smile. "I'm sure there's a lot you could show him in an hour. You have to feed the horses, right? And give them baths? Brush them? Clean their feet…?"
His mouth quirked before settling into a straight line. "Paint their toenails…?"
Was he teasing her?
"City girl?"
Her face went hot. "You caught me."
"Four hours," he muttered. Then, to her he said, "I'm only here for two weeks. You'll have to talk to my brother after that."
He walked to a small enclosure—a stall, she guessed—and pushed on a broken piece of wood that hung loose. He pounded it with the side of his fist, but it just came loose again.
Two weeks. It would be a start for Josh. Maybe enough to convince his mom to do real equine therapy. Jess could only hope not to make a fool of herself in front of the cowboy before then.
Chapter Three
Two days later, Luke met Jess and her charge in the barnyard as they climbed out of her car during the early afternoon. No doubt the other school kids would've been jealous if they'd realized what Jess and Josh were up to.
It was shaping up to be the hottest September in years, with temperatures hovering in the high nineties. But Jess looked cool and pretty in a pair of slim jeans and a fitted T-shirt.
Two days ago, he'd been too distracted by the noisy, running, laughing kids to really notice Josh.
Up close, it was easy to see the kid might not fit in with his classmates. He looked everywhere but at Luke, even when Jess made a very formal introduction. He wore starched jeans and a polo shirt, even though Luke had relayed to Jess to have his parents dress the kid in clothes that could stand to get dirty.
He'd had second—and third and fourth—thoughts about what he'd agreed to, but when he'd found himself staring blindly at an infomercial during the wee hours of the night last night, he'd been desperate for any distraction.
"Howdy, Josh."
After Jess's primer the day before yesterday, it wasn't a huge surprise that the boy's eyes remained on the ground.
"Miss Sadler said you wanted to learn more about horses." He motioned to the corral where he'd turned out Dusty's gelding earlier. Now the horse stood on the far side, tail swishing.
His boots crunched in the gravel as he headed toward the corral. Jess and Josh followed.
"We call this fenced-in area the corral," he said, resting one boot against the lowest railing and his elbow on the top, his body turned toward the boy. "It's a safe place for the horses to stay. They aren't quite as cooped up as they are in the barn, where they spend the night. And me or my brother can easily get them saddled up for riding."
Luke reached into his back pocket and pulled out the book he'd folded and stuffed in there just before they'd arrived.
"I found this when I was going through some old junk in my room. Thought you might like to have it."
He extended the book to Josh, who focused on it with a powerful intensity. The front cover showed a horse, and inside were detailed drawings of a horse all the way from a skeleton to musculature to a page showing
the different colors and names. He'd been enamored of horses when he'd been Josh's age, and it seemed the perfect book for someone like Josh.
The boy took it, flipped to the first page and seemed absorbed immediately.
"That was yours, wasn't it?" Jess asked softly.
"When I was a kid," he replied easily. "I'm too old for it now."
He liked the admiration in her gaze maybe a little too much. Especially when he wasn't staying. He couldn't get involved. Only distracted.
He cleared his throat. "Let's check out the barn."
It took a nudge from Jess to get Josh's focus off the book, but he was soon following a step behind Luke.
They stepped inside the wide open double doors.
#
Jess followed the two males into the barn. She was immeasurably touched by Luke's gift. She hadn't gone into great detail about how kids on the autism spectrum obsessed over things that caught their interest, but somehow he'd known to give the little boy a book that would keep his attention for hours.
She couldn't help but notice that the pile of rusty implements that had taken up space in the corner two days ago were gone.
Bringing Josh out here had been the right thing to fight for. She'd had to get special permission from the elementary principal, but even that tough conversation had been worth it.
Maybe she shouldn't have had such low expectations, but the cowboy was blowing her away by his thoughtfulness and the way he spoke directly to Josh, even though Josh wouldn't answer.
"This is where the horses stay when they're resting. My brother has a horse for himself, one for his wife Lindsey, and a couple of brood mares."
Josh turned a slow circle in the middle of the barn, and she wanted to do the same. The light streaming in from the doors behind them illuminated the dirt-packed floors and dust-motes dancing in the light breeze—one that did nothing to cool the back of her neck beneath her ponytail. Scents of hay and animal tickled her nose.
And there was a conspicuous trail on the floor. A double-track where something heavy had been drug away from the depths of the barn, out to…where?
She couldn't forget how Luke had followed the kids around on that first day, harping about them being careful and watching out for dangerous objects.
It seemed like overkill.
Unless you knew about his past.
Luke approached one of the stalls that lined the barn. "Sometimes we let the horses out to roam in the pasture, but not today."
A horse whickered softly and then a brown head with a white blaze down its nose appeared next to Luke over the top of the wooden stall door. Jess jumped, not expecting the horse to just suddenly appear. She heard Josh's quick intake of air but knew better than to put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't like to be touched, though she'd pull him bodily out of the barn if he started to get upset.
But Josh seemed fascinated, not frightened, as Luke reached up to stroke the horse's forehead. "This is Patches."
Jess took a half-step to one side to see Josh's face. He couldn't seem to take his eyes off the horse, and while he wasn't quite smiling outright, his expression was one of interest.
"How old is he? Or she?" Jess asked.
"Patches is a mare—that means a girl," Luke explained. "She's eight years old. You want to know the best way to tell how old a horse is?" He looked to Josh, right at the boy for his answer.
Josh nodded, and Jess's stomach did a slow flip. Josh was interacting with another adult!
"You can tell a horse's age by her teeth." Luke held onto the horse's halter with one hand, just beneath its chin. He used his free hand to touch the horse's lips. She tried to bob her head, but Luke didn't let up his grip, and the horse obliged by opening her lips wide. The cowboy stuck his fingers inside.
Jess wrinkled her nose. That was kinda gross. A glance at Josh showed he was fascinated.
"She's only letting me do this because she knows me," Luke said. "You wouldn't ever want to walk up to a strange horse and stick your hand in its mouth. You'd probably get bit."
He winked. She couldn't tell if it was aimed at her—couldn't tell if he sensed she was grossed-out—or at Josh, but all her insides went tingly as if he were talking to her alone. She pointed her internal Teacher Finger at herself. The cowboy was taking time out of his day for Josh, not to woo her. He was just being kind to a little boy.
That was it.
Too bad her insides refused to listen.
"A younger horse has baby teeth, just like little kids do. And after they get their permanent teeth, when horses get older, their teeth start to wear down." He finally took his fingers out of the horse's mouth and Jess could look again.
"Once a horse hits about ten, it's harder to guess their age by their teeth." He rubbed the side of the horse's neck, putting his face in profile to her as he focused momentarily on the horse.
She was reminded all over again just how handsome he was. The strong line of his jaw with its hint of stubble. The patrician nose. The cowboy hat that topped it off just made him even more attractive.
And made her nerves rush back. She forced herself to look down at Josh, the reason she was here. He was responding to Luke and to the horse. He was interested, and an interested kid was easier to work with than an uninterested one.
If she focused on Josh and his needs, she could get through the rest of this visit without making a fool of herself. She hoped.
"I'm only in town for another week or so," Luke told Josh. "Then I'll get back to my real job."
His reminder should've thrown cold water on her interest. But it didn't, not really. How could she not like someone who'd taken time out of his day for her student?
"Do you know what my real job is?"
Josh didn't answer this time, not verbally, not with a shake of his head, though she sensed he was still listening.
"I'm a bullfighter. That's what they call us, but another name for it is rodeo clown. My job is to help protect the bull riders."
His words threw her. She'd known he was somehow involved in the rodeo, but for some reason, she'd thought he was a bull rider like his brothers. Although both were dangerous, wasn't risking yourself to save other crazy cowboys just asking for trouble?
#
Luke could get used to the admiration Jess couldn't quite keep off her expressive face. So far, he wasn't blowing things too badly.
And Josh seemed interested.
"When I'm doing my job, the bulls in the ring give me clues about what they'll do next."
Jess's eyebrows rose, and he easily read the skepticism in her expression.
"It's the truth," he said. "You learn to read them." A flick of the eyes or a tilt of the head could indicate where a bull would go next. Luke tossed a glance back down to Josh. "A lot like a horse. A horse can tell you lots of things about how it feels, even though it can't talk like you or me."
He pointed to the mare's ears. "Do you see how her ears are forward? That means she's paying attention to us. She's not afraid. She's interested."
So was Luke. He was interested in why the pretty, intelligent teacher didn't wear a wedding ring. Why hadn't some small town good guy—a guy like Sean would've been—snatched her up already?
He wanted to know more about her. Wanted to spend time with her, get to know her.
He shouldn't. He was leaving town soon.
But the few times he'd seen her, she'd changed the entire paradigm of his time here. Just her presence lifted the fog of guilt that constantly wore down on him.
If he kept things platonic, he could make a new friend. Maybe survive the next couple of weeks without any new nightmares.
Should he, or shouldn't he?
He knew he had to keep Josh engaged with the horse, so he buried those thoughts for now and went on. "If her ears are turned out to the side, it means she might be sleeping. You don't want to sneak up on a sleeping horse, or you risk scaring her. If her ears are swiveling"—he made a motion a little like a rodeo queen's wave, twisting his ha
nd back and forth—"it probably means she's agitated about something. You'd want to keep your distance to make sure you didn't get kicked or run over if she startled. And if her ears are all the way back, it means she's scared or upset, and she might bite or kick."
Josh was soaking up everything he said, and Luke figured it was time for the fun part of the lesson.
"You want to meet her?"
Jess raised her gaze to meet his. He saw the question there without her having to verbalize it. Is that safe?
Luke might not trust himself, but he did trust Patches. His brother couldn't have chosen a gentler horse for Lindsey.
He pulled a lead rope from a hook on the wall nearby and clipped it to Patches's halter. Then he unlatched the stall door and let her step out.
Josh and Jess were far enough back, and the barn was big enough, so he brought Patches completely out of her stall. He let her turn slightly—the better to see them, if they weren't approaching her head-on—and took up a relaxed stance near her head.
"She'll see you better if you approach from the side," he said. Then, when neither of them moved, urged, "C'mon."
Jess was the first to take a tentative step. She didn't touch Josh or hold his hand like a regular kid might want, but Josh followed about two steps behind her.
Jess joined Luke close to the horse's head, and Josh stood slightly behind her.
"You still watching her ears?" Luke asked.
Jess's nod was jerky, but the boy nodded gravely.
Luke reached out and touched Jess's hand. It was ice cold. He didn't grab it or anything, just let the brush of his fingers get her attention.
"You scared?" he asked when her eyes flicked up to his face.
He didn't really need her to confirm it; those wide blue eyes told all.
"I didn't expect her to be so…big."
And yet, Jess didn't move away. She had a lot of guts, or maybe she could handle anything she was doing for Josh.
"It's okay to be a little nervous, but she'll know if you're scared or upset. Why don't you let her sniff your hand?"
The Butterfly Bride Page 2