“Looks like.” He pulled around in a circle and backed the trailer toward the corral, leaving plenty of room in case the horse decided he didn’t want to get in without a little persuasion. When Chet cut the engine, he asked Anna, “Want to stay in the truck? Shouldn’t take long.”
“Heavens, no. I don’t want to miss this.”
Chet glanced into the backseat. “Pete, help Nana Anna to the ground.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Chet got out of the cab and walked to the corral. “Afternoon.” He nodded, taking in everyone with a sweeping gaze. “You’re ready for us, I see.” He looked at Tara. “Do you have a halter and rope?”
“Not that’s mine. There’s a halter that belongs to Mr. Lyle.”
Chet glanced behind him. His sons and Anna stood not too far away. He performed quick introductions, then said, “Sam, get a halter and rope out of the trailer, please.”
“Sure thing, Dad.”
When Sam returned, he and Chet walked to the corral gate and went inside the enclosure. The pinto crow-hopped away from them, tossing his head, snorting his distrust.
“Easy, boy,” Chet said.
Behind him, he heard Pete ask, “What’s his name?” and Tara answer, “Doesn’t have one yet.”
There was something about the way the girl said the words that tugged at Chet’s heart. Maybe because he was used to the banter of teenage boys. Girls of that age were a puzzle to him. Whatever the cause of his sympathy, he wondered if it might cloud his better judgment in the days to come.
Chet cleared his throat and refocused his attention on the horse that had begun to settle down. That was a good sign. A little bit of patience, lots of human attention, and the gelding might turn out to be a decent horse for Tara.
“Hey there, fella. Let’s get this halter on.”
The pinto snorted as he spun away, putting as much distance between him and Chet as the corral allowed. While Sam moved in one direction, Chet circled around in another, talking all the while to the horse. The words themselves weren’t important. Only the tone he used.
The pinto eyed Chet, clearly not ready to be friends with him. But the horse had seen Sam on his other side, arms outstretched. Instinct had informed the animal of the futility of trying to escape. He bobbed his head again, snorting. The skin on his withers shuddered, as if the humans were pesky flies he wanted to be rid of.
Chet moved carefully, drawing the halter over the pinto’s muzzle. It surprised him that the horse didn’t do more to prevent the completion of the task. Perhaps there was a little bit of trust in him after all.
With the halter on and the buckle fastened, Chet led the gelding toward the gate. Sam opened it before him. The pinto held his head high, offering only slight resistance. Then they got within three or four yards of the trailer. That was when he pulled back hard, jerking Chet to a standstill.
He faced the horse, staring into his dark eyes while stroking him. “You’re gonna have to go in, boy. You might as well make up your mind now. We can do it the easy way or the hard way.”
The horse showed the whites of his eyes as he jerked his head upward again. But Chet was ready for it this time and didn’t give too much ground.
“Sam. Pete. Let’s get a rope around his rump, and we’ll give him a little encouragement.”
He and his boys had done this sort of thing many a time. They moved in a comfortable rhythm, unhurried, confident, watchful. The first touch of the rope against the pinto’s buttock caused the horse to step toward Chet and the trailer. When the rope touched him again, he kicked out with his right leg. Not that it did any good.
Little by little, they inched the gelding forward. Chet kept talking in a calm voice and hoped they wouldn’t have a real fight on their hands when he asked the horse to take that first step up into the trailer. While it wouldn’t have been a crisis—he’d dealt with much flightier horses than this one—he didn’t want to have to prove who was boss in front of Kimberly Welch. He could tell she wasn’t any too sure about this horse as it was.
God must have been smiling on Chet, because when the time came, the pinto stepped into the trailer as if it was his favorite thing to do. “Show-off,” he said softly as he tied the lead rope.
Sam was waiting to close the trailer gate when Chet stepped out. “That wasn’t so bad,” his son said.
“Nope. It went okay, all things considered.” He glanced toward the small audience of folks. “Pete, help Anna back into the truck.”
“Sure thing, Dad.”
Chet turned toward Tara. “You can ride to the ranch with us if you want.”
“Yes. Thanks.”
His gaze moved past the girl to her mother. “Is that all right with you? She can eat dinner with us, and then we’ll start laying some ground rules. She ought to be ready to leave by four o’clock or so.”
“Mr. Leonard?” Kimberly stepped close and lowered her voice. “We really must discuss how much this training will cost.”
“Let’s see how the next week goes. I’ll have a better idea by then what’s needed and how long it’ll take.”
Uncertainty flashed in her eyes. “I hate being in debt to anyone. I’ve already got more of it than I can pay back in my lifetime.”
“We’ll work something out. Don’t worry about it.”
As Chet turned toward truck and trailer, Susan Lyle spoke up. “Chet, are you sure you and your family won’t join us for Sunday dinner? We’d love to have you, and you know I want to get to know Anna. You’ve spoken of her so fondly for so long.”
“Thanks, but we’ve got a roast in the oven. It’ll be done to a crisp if we don’t get back to it soon.”
Anna and Pete were already in the truck by this time. After hesitating a moment to look at her mother, Tara hurried to the pickup and slid into the center of the backseat. Sam climbed in beside her and closed the door.
“I’ll be out to the ranch at four,” Kimberly said.
Something in her tone drew Chet around one more time. “This is going to be a good thing for Tara, Mrs. Welch.” He didn’t know why he’d felt compelled to say that, but when he saw the tears well in her eyes, he knew she’d needed to hear it.
Thank you, she mouthed.
He tugged on the brim of his hat one final time before getting into the cab of the truck and starting for the ranch.
Anna
1944
FOR ANNA’S FIRST TWO MONTHS ON THE LEONARD ranch, wariness was her constant companion. She had the proper papers to prove Shiloh’s Star belonged to her, so Abe’s doubts in that regard were quickly quashed. But worry that her cousin Luther would find her was driven away less easily. It wasn’t like him to give up. Had she hidden her escape route so well he couldn’t find her? She had a hard time believing it. She’d been lost, wandering without direction, and too desperate to keep moving to try to hide her tracks.
As the days passed, one by one, she began to believe her cousin wouldn’t find her. And then she began to believe she and Shiloh’s Star had found a safe haven. A new home and even a new family. Not that anyone could completely fill Daddy’s and Mama’s shoes.
Nights were the worst times. Bad dreams were all too frequent. Dreams of a soldier standing on their front porch with the news about her father. Dreams of her mother lying so pale on the bed, her breath rattling in her chest. Dreams of Anna’s vile cousin, Luther Poole—a second cousin twice removed, she liked to remind herself—lurking in the hallway, a living, breathing threat. A man who liked to touch, who liked to strike.
But even the nightmares began to fade with the passing of weeks.
Because the ranch was a good piece from the town of Kings Meadow, Violet Leonard—once a schoolteacher—offered to tutor Anna instead of sending her to school by horseback five days a week, especially since winters could be harsh in the mountains. Anna was grateful. She loved to learn, had always been a good student, but the less she was seen outside of the ranch, the better.
In the crisp days of autumn, whe
n Anna wasn’t working on her school lessons, she spent a good deal of time outdoors, helping with the chickens and cows, mending fences, and working with Shiloh’s Star.
“You know your way around a horse,” Abe commented one hazy October afternoon. “Where’d you learn so much so young?”
In a steady rhythm, Anna ran a brush, followed by her free hand, over Star’s back and rump. “My father. Only thing Daddy loved more than horses was Mama and me.” She smiled even though her heart ached at the memory. “That’s what Mama always said to him. And he always said he loved us more, but he understood horses better than any female.”
Abe chuckled. He had a nice laugh.
“Before he went to war, Daddy bought Shiloh’s Star and promised that when he came back, we were going to raise champions by him one day. That was his dream. He worked hard to make it happen. Now it’s up to me.”
“Where’d your horse come from?”
“Texas. His bloodlines trace right back to Shiloh himself.”
Abe leaned his forearms on the top rail of the corral. “Afraid that doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Anna turned to look at him, her eyes wide. How could anyone not know that name? She’d heard about the famous stud since she was a toddler. “Shiloh’s one of the foundation sires of the Quarter Horse breed.”
“Sorry. Never been around fancy horses. You know, with pedigrees and such. The ones we’ve got on the ranch are here to ride and to pull. They work hard, like everybody else on the place. Doesn’t matter if they’re thoroughbreds or mustangs.”
“Maybe you oughta think about raising Quarter Horses. All it would take to get started is a couple of good brood mares, and Star could do the rest.”
Abe’s gaze shifted beyond the corral, looking over the land where cattle grazed. “My grandpa came to this valley back in 1864. The gold rush was raging up in the Boise Basin. All of those miners needed food, and they liked their beef when they could afford it. So he raised cattle to sell to them. Before I was born, my pa managed to triple the size of the original ranch. People knew they could come to the Leonards and get a fair price for beef on the hoof.” He rubbed a hand over his face, as if to wipe away a bad memory. “The Depression was hard on us. I was fourteen—your age—when the crash happened, but I was old enough to notice how the years that followed turned my pa into an old man. Then Grandpa George, his father, died, and not long after, my mother passed too. Pa just gave up. Gave out, more like it.” Abe fell silent for a while, then continued. “By the time he passed away, I was already managing the ranch, married to Vi, and making sure we could hold onto the place. We’d weathered the Depression without losing it or selling off chunks of it. Even in hard times, folks want to eat beef. I reckon the same can’t be said for horses.”
In the months Anna had lived with the Leonards, those were the most words she heard Abe say at any given time. He was a tall, quiet sort, even around his wife. A wife he loved, sure and true. The way Daddy had loved Mama.
Anna swallowed the lump in her throat and went back to brushing Shiloh’s Star. Another time she would talk to Abe again about raising horses. She wasn’t going to give up on her father’s dream, a dream that was now her own, and she couldn’t help believing God had brought her to Kings Meadow to see that dream fulfilled.
Somehow she would make Abe Leonard believe it too.
Five
CHET WATCHED AS KIMBERLY WELCH’S SEDAN DROVE away from the house and barnyard, her daughter in the passenger seat. All things considered, the afternoon had gone much better than anticipated. Tara was a willing student and quick to obey what he said. Of course, it remained to be seen if that was temporary. Eager today. Not so much tomorrow.
With a shake of his head, he walked toward the house. Anna sat on the porch, enjoying the pleasant spring day, a glass of iced tea in one hand. Chet climbed the steps to the porch and sat in the chair next to her, his gaze on the horses in the nearest pasture.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“Good.” He nodded. “Pretty good.”
“She seems like a nice girl.”
“She is. I just hope I don’t regret bringing her and her horse out here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mrs. Welch doesn’t have a job, and she’s worried how she’ll pay me for the boarding of the horse and her daughter’s lessons.” Chet shrugged. “Not like it will make or break me whether or not she pays me anything, but it seems to bother her. I’m not sure how to handle it.”
“Do you mind an old woman butting into your business? I might have an idea.”
He turned his head toward her. “Wouldn’t be butting in. Not from you, Anna. Anything you’ve got to say, I want to hear.”
Smiling, she reached out to touch his cheek with her fingertips.
“What’s your idea?”
“I wasn’t much younger than Tara when I first came to this ranch. And your grandfather put me right to work. He made me feel like I was a part of the family. That what I did made a difference. Like I belonged here. That girl”—Anna looked down the driveway—“she doesn’t feel she belongs anywhere right now.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Heavens, no. But, you get to be my age, you pick up on things that others are too busy to notice. Little clues here and there.”
Chet wondered if he would ever learn to read people that well.
“I think you should hire Tara to do some work around here. Let her pay for the training and her lessons herself. Don’t let that fall on her mother’s narrow shoulders. If Tara wants this, she should work for it. It will be good for the girl, and it will relieve her mother’s anxiety over how to reimburse you at the same time.”
Chet grinned. “You sound like Grandpa Abe.”
“I should. Learned old-fashioned common sense from the Leonards.”
“Tara Welch is a city girl. She might be more bother than help around the barnyard and livestock.”
“Let’s start with her helping me go through things in the guesthouse. There’s lots of organizing and winnowing out that has to be done, and some of it could use a younger and stronger back than mine.”
Chet felt instant concern. “You haven’t overdone, have you?”
“In three days?” She harrumphed, her glance indignant. “I’m not that fragile, Chet. There’s still some oomph left in me.”
Her comment made him smile again.
“It’s settled then. Tara will help me organize and clean out the guesthouse as payment for boarding and lessons. There are so many decades of keepsakes and boxes of papers and who knows what all—it’ll take us weeks to go through it all.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Chet laughed softly.
Anna sighed as she leaned back in the chair, then fell into silence as she sipped her tea.
“I’d better call her mother and tell her what’s been decided.” Chet stood. “Make sure it meets with her approval.”
“Yes, you should do that. It’ll take some worry out of Mrs. Welch’s pretty eyes.”
Chet hesitated a moment. Anna was right. Kimberly Welch did have pretty eyes. Unique eyes. A lighter shade of green than he’d seen before. Or maybe they only seemed lighter because of her dark brown lashes and eyebrows.
Not that any of that mattered to Chet.
“MOM, IF I TOOK A DRIVER’S ED CLASS, I COULD GET my license. Then I could drive out to the Leonard ranch by myself if you didn’t want to take me or if it would be too late for me to ride my bike home again.”
Kimberly looked up from the food on her dinner plate. “You aren’t sixteen yet.”
“In Idaho, kids can sign up for driver’s ed when they’re only fourteen and a half. That’s what one of the girls at school told me.”
Kimberly turned from her daughter to Janet. “Is that true?”
“Yes. Idaho’s a rural state. Farmers want their kids to drive tractors or be able to take the truck to the nearest town to pick up supplies. Plenty of folks in these mountains
have been driving anything and everything since they were fourteen.”
Kimberly shook her head in disbelief.
“Please, Mom.”
“Sweetheart, even if you took a class and got licensed, I don’t think I could afford insurance for you. Not until I get a job.”
Tara dropped her fork onto her plate and pushed back her chair. “It isn’t fair. That’s always your answer. We don’t have the money. I hate this!” She darted from the kitchen.
Kimberly fought the tears that flooded her eyes, determined they wouldn’t fall.
“Teenagers are like that sometimes,” Janet said softly. “It isn’t personal. Not really.”
“I know.” She drew a deep breath. “What Tara doesn’t seem to know is how much I hate having to say no to her.”
Janet patted Kimberly’s shoulder. “Hang in there, girlfriend. It’ll get better.”
Would it get better? It didn’t seem that way.
The telephone rang, and Janet got up to answer it. A moment later, she said, “It’s for you, Kimmie. Chet Leonard.”
Her stomach flip-flopped at the sound of his name. If he’d changed his mind—and why else would he be calling?—Tara would blame her for that too. With great reluctance, she walked to where Janet stood holding out the receiver. She took the phone and put it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Welch?”
“Yes.”
“Chet Leonard.”
She could hardly hear him over the hammering of her heart.
“About your daughter and her horse.”
“Yes?” The word came out a breathless whisper.
“I know you’re concerned how to pay for the boarding and lessons, but I think we have a solution. Instead of you paying cash, we thought Tara could work for us here on the ranch.”
There came those tears again. Nothing Tara could do on the ranch would come anywhere close to covering his fees. She was certain of that. His generosity touched her, as did his sensitivity toward her situation. He’d managed to let her keep a little of her pride.
“It would mean she’d have to spend more hours out here. Not just when she’s working with the horse.”
The Kings Meadow Romance Collection Page 4