“Yes, it is,” Daniel answered. His voice sounded even more formal to her than it usually did.
“I didn’t want to come,” Elena told her teacher. And then a shy expression emerged on her face. “I wanted to stay in bed, but my brother thought the fresh air would do me some good.”
“Smart man, your brother,” Shania commented. Deftly, she turned Butterscotch around so that all three horses and riders were facing in the same direction. “So, did you have any particular destination in mind?” she asked the pair, her eyes moving from Elena to the teenager’s brother.
Instead of answering, Elena turned in her saddle and looked toward her brother, waiting for him to say something.
Put on the spot, Daniel shrugged. “Wherever you’re going is fine with us.”
Now that he was up closer to her, he saw that Shania had no makeup on whatsoever. Another woman would have looked plain or washed out, he thought. But Elena’s teacher looked positively radiant and glowing. She made him think of one of those flowers that unexpectedly pop up on a cactus, blooming against all odds and ultimately drawing all attention to itself without actually meaning to.
And then, almost as an afterthought, Daniel’s eyes were drawn to something else. Shania had a picnic basket tied against her horse’s saddle horn.
She was meeting someone, he thought, raising his eyes to hers.
“Won’t Elena and I be interrupting something?” he asked her, not even sure he should be saying that.
Shania looked at him, a bemused expression on her face. “Interrupting?” she repeated, waiting for him to explain.
Daniel nodded at the picnic basket. “Looks like you packed for a picnic,” he pointed out.
She’d completely forgotten about that. Glancing down at the basket, she realized how that had to look. “Oh, right. I thought eating out in the open instead of huddled over paperwork at my desk might be a nice change,” she told the deputy. “But I have a habit of always packing more than I need in case my appetite suddenly gets out of hand because of the invigorating ride—or I run into someone I know,” she added with a grin, looking at Elena. “There’s more than enough to share if you two get hungry,” she promised them.
Daniel glanced at his sister. Judging by Elena’s expression, she looked totally open to the idea of joining up and going riding with her teacher. And, he supposed if he was being completely honest about it, the idea of sharing a ride and some lunch with the beautiful teacher was not without its appeal.
“I guess you’ve twisted my arm,” Daniel told Elena’s teacher.
“My brother means yes,” Elena told Shania. The girl looked really pleased about the whole thing.
“You two up for a brisk canter or would you rather just go slow?” Shania asked them, looking from one to the other.
Daniel’s eyes met hers. “I never go slow,” he informed her.
He saw amusement curve the corners of her generous mouth. Something within him responded, but he shut it down.
Been there, done that. Won’t go there again, Daniel thought.
“A brisk canter it is,” Shania agreed.
Then, as her eyes met Elena’s, Shania kicked her heels in Butterscotch’s flanks. Instantly, horse and rider took off.
Elena made a gleeful sound as she quickly joined her teacher.
Daniel lost no time keeping pace.
* * *
“Wow, you really kept up,” Elena cried in admiration when all three of them finally reined in their horses to a full stop an hour later.
Winded, the girl slid off her pinto and sank straight down to the ground.
She appeared surprised and pleased when Shania did the same, sitting down right beside her.
“Were you expecting me to fall off?” Shania asked her with a breathless laugh.
“My sister might have had some doubts, but I knew you wouldn’t,” Daniel told her, his voice rumbling from deep within his muscular chest.
Holding on to his horse’s reins, the deputy joined the other two already on the ground, sitting down cross-legged.
Shania regarded the deputy, wondering if he was pulling her leg or if he was being serious with her. For now, she gave him the benefit of the doubt.
“And why were you so sure I wouldn’t fall off?” she asked Daniel.
“Your form,” the deputy said simply. “You look like you were born riding,” he told her, recalling what she’d said when they first came up to her.
“It was my first memory,” she admitted. “My dad put me on a horse before I could walk.”
“By yourself?” Elena asked her, surprised that a parent would do something so careless.
Shania laughed, but it wasn’t a belittling sound. “No, he got on right behind me. My dad didn’t let me sit on a horse by myself until I was three, even though I begged him, telling him I could do it and pouting when he didn’t trust me.
“And even when he did put me on the horse by myself, he walked right next to the horse, holding on to me until he felt confident that I was old enough to do it all by myself.” She grinned, remembering. “I was so excited,” she confided.
Her eyes were sparkling, Daniel noticed, intrigued and mesmerized by the sight. Again, he forced himself to mentally pull back.
“So, do you come out often, Ms. Stewart?” Elena asked.
Shania smiled. “Whenever I get the chance—which lately winds up being about once a week—if I’m lucky. Usually on Sunday morning,” she told the teen. Her smile turned nostalgic as she recalled another time. “I used to go riding with my cousin.”
“Why did you stop riding with her?” Daniel asked, curious.
“Wynona got married and now she has other priorities.” Her cousin had promised to go riding with her again, but somehow it never worked out and after a while, they stopped making arrangements that wound up falling through. “After a while, horseback riding kind of fell by the wayside.”
Sharing something so personal made her feel a little uncomfortable. Looking toward the picnic basket, Shania changed the subject.
“So, is anyone hungry?” she asked Elena and the deputy.
“Yes,” Elena said with enthusiasm. Then, self-conscious, she toned it down a little. “I guess.” Pausing, the teen asked, “What do you have?”
“Well, why don’t we see?” Shania suggested with a grin.
She rose to her feet and began to remove the ropes that held the picnic basket in place against the saddle horn.
“How about you, Deputy?” Shania asked, putting the basket down on the ground. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m fine,” he demurred.
Daniel assumed that while whatever Elena’s teacher had packed might be enough to split between two people as long as neither was very hungry, he sincerely doubted that she could have packed enough to adequately feed three people.
“Yes,” Shania murmured, her eyes meeting his. “I know that. But are you hungry?”
Her unexpected teasing response caught him completely off guard. The next second, Daniel cleared his throat as if that could somehow negate the entire exchange, making it unnecessary for him to address it at all.
When he finally did speak, it was in reference to Shania’s inquiry about his appetite. “No, thanks,” he answered.
She pretended not to hear him. “I’ve got a small tablecloth in here,” she told Elena. “Want to help me spread it out?”
“Sure!”
Elena was already peering into the basket, ready to take the tablecloth out and spread it on the ground the second that her teacher nodded.
Once the tablecloth was taken out and spread on the ground, Daniel casually glanced inside the basket to see just how much Shania had—or hadn’t—brought.
He was surprised to see that the basket was filled to the top with wrapped sandwiches, several cans of root beer and, when those were taken out,
what looked like a covered tray of brownies on the bottom. The brownies, judging by the aroma, appeared to have been baked fresh early that morning.
As Shania took out the brownies, he raised a quizzical eyebrow in her direction.
It wasn’t all that difficult to guess his unspoken question.
“Yes, I’m a closet baker,” she admitted. “It relaxes me.”
She didn’t bother preparing anything out of the ordinary for herself because she felt her time could be better spent otherwise. But today, she had a hunch, would be different.
“I don’t usually get a chance to indulge in my passion, but I decided that there was no reason not to go all out today, so I decided to make my mint chip brownies. You don’t have to eat them if you don’t want to,” she added. “I promise you won’t hurt my feelings,” she assured them.
“I love mint chip.” Elena took a deep breath. “They smell absolutely heavenly,” she told her teacher, then asked hopefully, “Can I have the brownies first?”
“You’re welcome to the whole tray if you want it,” Shania told the teenager. “But I suggest you have one of the sandwiches first.”
She noticed that Daniel had quietly reached for one of the sandwiches and was carefully unwrapping it now. Good, she’d won him over. The man was much too rigid. He needed to unwind, not just for Elena’s sake, but for his own.
“I think the root beer is probably still cold,” she said by way of inviting him to indulge himself.
“It can be warm,” Daniel replied. “As long as it’s wet, that’s my only requirement.”
“Then I’d say you’re in luck,” Shania answered with a warm laugh.
She took a sandwich herself and proceeded to unwrap it.
He waited until the woman had taken a bite of her sandwich before he finally ventured to ask her a question that had occurred to him the moment the tablecloth had been taken out.
“What made you pack so much food in the basket if you were just going to go riding by yourself?” he asked.
Shania regarded him quietly for a moment. He noticed that although she didn’t speak, the woman’s eyes said volumes.
“Let’s just say I had a premonition,” she finally admitted.
Still eating, Elena looked at her teacher, clearly surprised. “You knew we were coming?”
That sounded a little too pompous and self-assured, Shania thought. “Let’s just say that I hoped you and your brother were going for a ride this morning.”
Finished with his sandwich, Daniel picked up a napkin and wiped his fingers. “What if we didn’t come?” he asked.
She glanced at the food that still remained next to the basket. Picking up another sandwich, she quietly pushed it toward Daniel. She was certain that the man had room for more.
“Then I wouldn’t have to make dinner,” she answered with a smile.
Daniel shook his head. “Got an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“I’m a high school teacher,” she answered simply. “I’m supposed to have an answer for everything.”
There was humor in her eyes as she responded to his statement.
Daniel laughed softly to himself, then let her answer go. Instead, he changed the subject just as she had done earlier.
“So, how do you like being back?” he asked. “You originally came from here, didn’t you?” he asked, making sure that he had gotten his facts straight.
“I did and to answer your question, I like it very much,” she replied.
“You’re going to stay, right?” Elena asked, trying not to appear apprehensive. She’d decided that she had grown to like this unusual teacher, so much so that she didn’t want to see her leave.
“Barring something earth-shattering happening,” Shania answered whimsically, “I think so.”
“Something earth-shattering?” Daniel questioned. What did she mean by that? He felt it was an odd choice of words.
“You can’t count on things being written in stone,” Shania explained. “Things have a way of changing. I never thought I’d wind up in Houston to begin with. I had a home, parents who loved me and a cousin who lived with us who was more like a sister. Everything was wonderful,” she said. “Until it wasn’t,” she concluded philosophically. “That’s when I learned that nothing was forever—no matter what the town was named,” she added with an ironic smile.
“Why did you come back?” Daniel asked.
“Trying to get rid of me?” she asked him, amused.
“Trying to understand why you’d leave Houston,” he countered. He opened another can of root beer. “There’re more opportunities there.”
“Agreed. But not the one I was looking for,” Shania told him, looking at his sister. “Let’s just say that Wynona and I wanted to pay it forward. Brownies?” she asked brightly, holding the tray up to Elena and her brother and once more changing the subject.
Chapter Ten
“This was fun,” Elena announced out of the blue.
Daniel had to admit that he was totally surprised by his sister’s reaction. The impatient, hostile teenager he had been living with for the last few months had suddenly receded into the shadows and the sister he loved and would have willingly done absolutely anything for had, at least for the moment, made a reappearance in his life.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Daniel told her as they helped finish cleaning up the picnic they’d shared with Elena’s teacher and got ready to return to the stable.
Elena cocked her head to get a better view of her brother’s expression. “Can we do it again?” she asked.
That question was an even bigger surprise in his estimation.
“Sure.” Having packed away the tablecloth, leftover wrappers and cans into Shania’s basket, he handed it back to the woman. The latter proceeded to tie the basket to the saddle horn again. Turning toward his sister, Daniel told her, “Next Sunday.”
Smiling broadly, Elena barely contained herself as, eyes dancing, she in turn faced her teacher. “Will you come, too?”
Observing this from the sidelines, it was difficult to say which of them was more stunned by Elena’s question, her teacher or him.
Probably him, Daniel thought. Now that he took a closer look at the woman, aside from being stunning, Elena’s teacher didn’t look as if anything could really faze her.
“Don’t put Ms. Stewart on the spot, Ellie,” he cautioned his sister. Though Shania looked as if everything just rolled off her back, Daniel didn’t want to take a chance that Elena’s request might cause waves.
Shania put a stop to it before it went too far—the “it” being Daniel’s misunderstanding of how she’d react to his sister’s question.
It was sweet of the deputy to come to her aid, Shania thought, but it really wasn’t necessary.
“She’s not putting me on the spot, Deputy,” Shania told him. “And if you don’t mind my company,” she continued, then turned toward Elena to complete what she was saying, “I’d love to come. Riding out here at this time by myself is peaceful, but I have to admit that there’s such a thing as too peaceful,” she confided, lowering her voice as if she was sharing a secret with the girl. And then she really smiled broadly at her student. “I would love some company.”
“Great!” Elena declared like a proud arbitrator who had just negotiated a new treaty acceptable to all parties involved.
But Shania didn’t see this as a done deal—not just yet.
“It is all right with you, isn’t it?” she asked Daniel in a low voice when Elena doubled back to get her hat before they rode back. “I didn’t hear you agree,” she explained. Then, because he seemed to hesitate, she came to the conclusion that he was looking for a way out. “I can make up an excuse to beg off. Heaven knows I’ve got enough work to do to make it sound believable.”
For just a single second, Daniel wavered. But by t
he end of that split second, he realized that he liked the idea of going out like this again with Elena and her teacher. It was casual. It was safe. And he got to be around Shania without any accompanying awkwardness—or any expectations on either one of their parts.
“No need to tell her anything,” he replied, keeping his voice as low as hers. “Going out for a ride again’ll be nice.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Elena asked as she rejoined them, her hat firmly planted on her head.
Shania never missed a beat as she replied, “Your brother expressed his doubts about my having made those mint brownies from scratch, so I recited the recipe I used.”
It amazed Daniel how quick Shania was on her feet and how easily she came up with a believable lie. He wondered if it was a skill that came from practice and if she did that with any sort of regularity.
There were layers to this woman that bore looking into.
The next moment Daniel reminded himself that he had a lot of responsibilities. The last thing he needed was to take on a new “hobby” that had no future to it and that could only lead him down a path he shouldn’t have a reason to follow.
“Daniel’s not very trusting,” Elena said, referring to Shania’s narrative about telling Daniel what ingredients were in the brownies she had made. Elena swung herself into the pinto’s saddle.
Responding to what his sister had just said, Daniel couldn’t resist saying, “It runs in the family.”
Elena’s eyes briefly met his. She sniffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she informed Daniel, then turned her attention back to her teacher. “Home, Ms. Stewart?”
“Home, Ms. Tallchief,” Shania responded, doing her best to suppress a grin.
A gleeful laugh escaped her lips as Elena kicked her heels into the Pinto’s flanks.
Her horse took off. Shania was right beside her, riding as fast as she could go.
Elena pouted a little because she couldn’t seem to pass her teacher by. But on the other hand, she was pleased that the woman had turned out to be so skilled and capable on—and off—a horse. That meant, Elena thought, that her brother had probably met his match.
The Lawman's Romance Lesson (Forever, Tx. Series Book 20) Page 9