From where they stood in front of the tack room, the sound of a car door slamming shut carried easily.
“I bet that’s them.” Hannah shifted for a view out the front doors. “It would probably be too much if I went out there and met them, wouldn’t it?”
Dale chuckled. “I don’t see how it would hurt. It beats bouncing off the walls, waiting for them to come in. Let’s go.”
Fueled by her eagerness to share her news with Clark, her enthusiasm waned quickly at the site of Mrs. Hampton standing at the passenger door arguing with her son. “Uh oh.”
“Clark William Hampton, we did not drive all the way out here for you to sit in the car. Your father made it very clear. Either we do this or you get shipped off to that therapy hospital. But you cannot spend the rest of your life sitting in a closed room.”
Taking in a deep breath, Hannah blew it out slowly and put on her all-is-well-I-didn’t-hear-a-thing face. “Good afternoon.”
Something told Hannah the only reason Clark even glanced in her direction was a testament to what had once upon a time been good upbringing. Even angry, frustrated, and here sort of against his will, he couldn’t completely ignore her. “I don’t see what’s good about it.”
The one hope she clung to was that a small part of him must have wanted to be here, must have wanted to improve, or he wouldn’t have gotten in the car in the first place. Some things were better off ignored. “Patience is all ready to give you a ride today. She’s my personal horse. Brought her here from my family’s ranch in Hill Country. I think you’ll like her.”
Clark looked from Hannah to his mother and back. “Let’s go home. This is stupid.”
“The only way to find out is to give it a try.” Hannah tapped lightly on the car door and took a step back. “Come with me and let’s give the horse a test run.”
“I want to go home.”
Clearly coaxing him wasn’t going to get her any further than it had gotten his mother. Now she was especially glad to have the championship carrot of the Houston horse show to wave in front of him. “It’s my understanding you have the fine motor skills of an athlete.”
That remark earned her a dirty look.
“I could use a good horseman on our team.” As she’d hoped, his gaze met hers with the last word. “This will be the first competition for our stables and it would be fun to come home a champion.” Now she had his full attention. “If you’d like to come in I can tell you more about it.” He didn’t move. “Of course, if you want to go home…” She let her words hang and said a silent prayer.
The way his gaze skipped from the car door to the front of the office, she thought for sure he was going to accept the challenge and come inside, until she saw the exact moment his fear triumphed over his curiosity. “I want to go home.”
“Officer on deck!” Dale shouted from behind her. The sound was so gruff, she actually took a step back. “Miss Farraday is the high man on the totem pole around here. She deserves the respect due an officer.”
Clark stared at him. The only sign she had that he’d even heard was the muscle tick at his jaw line.
Damn, Dale. Shifting left to cut him off, she was all set to undo the damage when Dale repositioned himself in front of Clark.
“Did you hear me, midshipman?”
Clark’s eyes popped. “I’m not—”
“I don’t want excuses,” Dale roared. “Either you have the heart of a warrior or you didn’t deserve the honor of attending Annapolis. On your feet. Now!”
Hannah almost stopped breathing when Dale ordered Clark on his feet. Of all the…She didn’t know where to turn to first. She could see Mrs. Hampton bug-eyed on her left and Dale, arms crossed and breathing fire, to her right. What she almost missed was Clark pushing the door open and the rubber-clad bottom tip of a crutch easing out.
Mrs. Hampton must have been as surprised as Hannah the way her jaw nearly hit the floor.
“Sir, yes, sir.” Clark stood stiffly in front of Dale, the effort at balancing himself on the crutches obvious.
For a second she thought she saw a flash of concern, or perhaps remorse, spark in Dale’s eyes, but just as quickly the growling drill sergeant was back. “We don’t have all day.”
Clark nodded and swung forward on the crutch.
“I didn’t hear you,” Dale bellowed.
Stunned, it took everyone a moment to follow the thread of the comment, including Clark. He figured it out a beat before she did. “Yes, sir.”
“And…” Dale urged.
Another second of confusion passed and Clark turned to Hannah. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
Single file, Clark led the parade to the arena. She followed after Dale, literally biting her tongue. What the hell just happened?
****
Keeping a careful eye on Clark’s center of gravity, Dale was far enough back to give the kid space and yet close enough to step up if he lost his footing. He could also feel Hannah’s eyes drilling an angry hole in his back. He might find himself on the road out of town sooner than his doctor expected.
“Have a seat while we get Patience.” Hannah gestured to a line of chairs along the wall at the head of the stalls. “It will only take a minute.”
“I’ll get her.” Dale took one step when he spotted the sharp glare Hannah tossed his way and cut a wide berth to his right. He had a feeling the next hour might very well be the longest of his life.
From what Mrs. Hampton mentioned, Clark had been fitted for a prosthetic but refused to wear it. It was almost as if the kid was trying to sabotage his own recovery. Then again, he was only a kid.
The horse ready and Clark in the saddle, Hannah unbuckled a strap. “Let’s tighten your girth. There. Are you ready?”
Clark gave a curt nod and then quickly looking over his shoulder to Dale, spun back to Hannah. “Yes, ma’am.”
Kid was a fast learner, but if the icy glare Hannah shot Dale’s way was any indication, she wasn’t impressed.
“Okay, tell Patience to walk on.”
The student did as he was told and the horse proceeded out of the mounting block and into the arena, Dale to one side of the horse, Hannah at the other.
Settled by the large square to the south side of the arena, Hannah stepped back. “What do you like to do to warm up?”
Dale stood aside while the young man rolled his arms as well as a few other exercises much like what he’d done the other day. Except he could see Hannah evaluating Clark’s strength and skills.
“All right, what would you like to do today?”
For most of the next hour Clark went from one exercise to another, showing off his strengths and weaknesses. Hannah’s face was unreadable, though she showered the young man with praise. Pretty much every exercise was followed by “good, well done, excellent, looking good.” After the hour, he had hoped to see a more enthusiastic participant, but frankly the kid’s expression held the same blank angry stare, though he did see a hint of regret when it was time to dismount. Maybe there was hope.
For the last few minutes of the session, Catherine had stood on the other side of the gate watching. While Dale took the horse back to his stall to remove the saddle, Catherine and Hannah escorted their newest student out of the building. Dale hadn’t gotten very far when he could hear the excited chatter of the two women returning.
“This is going to be so exciting,” Catherine said.
“Now you know why I do it.”
“Yeah. I felt it before. But now it all seems so very real. There is a heady rush that comes with winning an important case. With doing the right thing for someone who can’t defend themselves. I always thought nothing could top that. Now I’m not so sure.”
“All I know is I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.”
“Amen sister.” Catherine gave Hannah a big hug. “I better get to work if we are going to set this thing up in only a few weeks. Wait till Grace gets back and finds out all the work we’ll have piled up for her.”
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To Dale’s surprise Hannah entered the stall and standing on the opposite side of the horse, worked with him to take care of Patience. He hadn’t expected to get off the hook so easily. He’d been bracing for a major tongue thrashing. Though everything she had done until now displayed nothing but a sweet, pleasant woman, the fire in those glares told him all hell would break loose when she was angry. And right now he thought she was pretty angry. But then again, understanding women was never a man’s gift. Maybe he’d gotten it all wrong.
They worked in silence until they were all done. Hannah walked Patience to the barn doors and with a slap on her rump sent the animal off to play in the fields.
The stomp in Hannah’s step as they walked through the stable and turned to exit the building made it clear to anybody watching that she was not happy. On the other hand, she was a therapist, so maybe that made her one of those who stewed on her anger until she’d sorted her own feelings out and then would talk about things in a calm and rational way.
The office doors closed shut behind her. They’d made it all the way to the side of the truck when Hannah spun about with the force of gale wind. “What the hell were you thinking?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Her blood boiling, it had taken everything Hannah had in her not to explode all over her volunteer. The last thing she needed to do was upset the horses. As it was she was pretty damn sure that Patience could sense her anger even though she’d tried to hide it. Most horses were incredibly sensitive animals which is what made them such great therapy aids. Some were even too sensitive. So much so that they would try to compensate for the student’s shortfalls, which of course wasn’t doing the student any good at all. Hannah hadn’t wanted to upset Patience or any of the other horses in the stable with a temper tantrum.
But now, out here in the parking lot, all bets were off. She’d held her anger in for about as long as she could before spinning around and stabbing a finger at Dale’s chest. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
A solid wall of muscle stood firm. “Someone who cares.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to use do-it-yourself psychoanalysis on my students. You could have pushed that kid completely over the edge. Could’ve sent him to places none of us could pull him back from. Could’ve made his situation a whole hell of a lot worse. And it all would’ve been sitting in my hands.”
“But I didn’t.” His eyes remained trained on her. “He did what you wanted him to do. He got up, he got inside, and he got on the horse. And unlike a lot of men I’ve known, he’s going to get better.”
“Great.” She flung her arms in the air and took a step back, sucking in a calming breath. “All’s well that ends well. That won’t cut it, not in my stable, and sure as hell not with my patients.” Her hands fisted at her side. There weren’t enough words to express how furious she was. “You have the unmitigated gall to ride in here off the street on your metallic steed and your do-gooder’s sense of honor, and think you have all the answers. I’m the one with the training in psychology. I’m the one who does this for a living. I’m the one who was raised around horses, and I was scared shitless I could screw this up.”
“You don’t think I was scared?” Dale shortened the distance between them. His voice rougher, deeper. “I don’t have a psych degree, I don’t have a therapy license, but I know people. If you don’t have someone’s respect then you won’t get anything done. You think your blood is boiling now? It’s exactly how I felt watching that kid disregard you, ignore you, disrespect you. You could’ve stood here from now till next Thursday and you wouldn’t have talked him into going inside. The kid’s got an anger chip on his shoulder as big as the state of Texas.”
“He’s not the first or last angry kid I’m going to deal with. These things do not get cured overnight, and especially not with a lot of yelling and browbeating. It takes time, it takes patience, and it takes understanding for things to happen.”
“That’s right. And sometimes those things that happen are bad things. The entire world is not your Pollyanna Farraday country. Damn it Hannah, I couldn’t do a damn thing to save Peter from himself, but I can sure as hell do something to help this kid!”
“What?” Now he was talking nonsense.
Sucking in a deep breath, he took a half step back, ran his hand across the back of his neck, and stepped up close to her again. “Not everything is won over with friendly loves and hugs and pats on the back. Sometimes you have to fight for what you want. And fight hard. Sometimes, it gets down dirty and nasty. The kid has been blanketed with love and kindness and people tiptoeing around the problem long enough. It was time for some tough love.”
“And here we are again. Who the hell are you to make that kind of a judgment call?”
“A man who spent eight years in the United States Marine Corps. A man who understands what Semper Fi means. A man who understands the meaning of no man left behind. It’s not just in physical battle. That kid’s eyes are filled with hunger to be one of us. And today I gave that to him. For the first time in a long time, he had a choice to act like a warrior or wallow at being a victim.”
“He’s just a kid. What would you have done if he had not stood up? How would you have handled a more broken child?”
Dale leaned forward, their faces only inches apart. “I would have counted on you.”
The shift from macho man know-it-all to expecting her to have his back threw her momentarily off stride. “So you go in willy-nilly breathing fire, and expect me to come in behind you and clean up the debris?”
“I see it more as hard meets soft. I have the roar of a lion and you have a heart of gold.”
“That’s it? That’s your defense?” Once again she jabbed his chest with her finger. “I have news for you. Bark loud now and think it through later is not going to work for me.”
Dale closed the last sliver of gap between them. “I don’t know about that.”
She sucked in a startled breath at his nearness, then held onto it as his mouth came crashing down on hers. Strong hands pulled her tightly against him, leaving no choice but to wrap her arms around him for balance.
Except the last thing she felt was balance. Stars danced before her eyes and she could swear she heard music in the background. Soft sweet music. Knowing she should pull back, step away, break the contact, didn’t matter. Her lips tingled, her fingertips were eager to roam, and her toes curled in her boots. Wow. If this is what kissing was all about, then she’d never been kissed before.
****
Somewhere in the back of Dale’s mind, a still small voice desperately tried to make him stop. He needed to back up, back away, back off, and yet, right now he wasn’t sure he cared. Everything about Hannah in his arms felt right. Her mouth under his was the perfect mix of sweet and soft and hard and hungry. All the more reason why he had to stop, like it or not.
Letting his hands fall to his side, he managed a small step back. Still close enough to feel the heat between them, he sucked in a breath and retreated another step. He needed some distance. Thinking was not an option at the moment. At least not with the head on his shoulders. “I’m sorry.” The words tumbled easily.
Eyes closed even after he’d put some distance between them, Hannah slowly lifted her chin. Leveling her gaze with his, he was delighted to see the same yearning inside him reflected in her eyes.
“Car won’t start?” Catherine came out of the building. “Do you need me to give you a lift home?”
Hannah sprang backward. She had that same frightened look as a deer caught in bright lights. “Uh, no.”
Scanning the car and then Hannah, Catherine’s brows knit together in confusion. “Did you forget something?”
“No,” Dale answered. “We were just discussing Clark.”
Still frowning, Catherine looked from Dale back to Hannah.
“How to handle his sessions,” Hannah said.
Catherine nodded slowly, then shrugged. “Well, if you don’t need my help, I
’ll get back to work.”
“Thanks,” Hannah and Dale echoed. The two remained standing in place until Catherine had disappeared.
Hannah didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected the kiss, and she certainly hadn’t expected to respond the way she had. This was a guy she’d only known a few days, and she melted into his arms like butter in a frying pan. “We better get back to the ranch.”
Dale merely nodded, then scurried around her to open the driver door.
“Thanks.” What she really wanted to do was toss him the car keys and walk back to the ranch. Fresh air would go a long way to clear her thoughts. Sitting in an enclosed space only a couple of feet away from the man who had just kissed her socks off wasn’t going to do much to help sort out the rush of emotions surging inside her.
Keeping her eyes on the road, she was thankful that at least the short distance made for a quick drive home. Pulling in front of the house, she turned the engine off and quickly hopped out of the car.
“Listen,” Dale grabbed hold of her hand before she could step onto the porch, “I need to say something before we go inside and extend this awkward silence for the rest the night.”
Hannah nodded. She briefly considered insisting there was nothing to be awkward about, but that would’ve been an outright lie and they both knew it.
“I’m sorry.” Dale hung onto her hand. “About a lot of things. I’m sorry I overstepped my bounds, even though I believe I was right. I should have spoken to you first, told you what I was thinking. Let you decide how you wanted to handle it.”
She hadn’t expected that. His words did as much to warm her heart as his hand did to warm her blood. “Thank you.”
“And about that kiss.”
The mere mention of it had her lips tingling again.
“I should apologize for that.” He shook his head. “Wait, let me rephrase. I’m not sorry that I kissed you. I’m only sorry about the timing. Besides the fact that you deserve to be kissed in the sunshine, or under the stars, with roses and music, and not in the heat of battle, there are a lot of things going on in my life right now that I’m not at liberty to share. That, more than anything, is why I had no right to kiss you.”
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