Free Summer at Mustang Ridge by Jesse Hayworth Page B

she’d keep telling herself that until it sank in.
    Focusing on that—and ready to admit that his suggestion was a decent one—she said, “At least let me pay for my lessons.”
    “Not happening. You’ll be doing me a favor.”
    “How do you figure?”
    “I’ve got an older gelding who could use some work outside of the dude string.”
    “Let me guess. Another one of Krista’s rescues?” It hadn’t taken her long to see that the ranch was sprinkled with three-legged cats and geriatric cows. A retired horse or two wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest. It also wouldn’t shock her to find that it was missing an ear or something, which in a way made her feel better about the whole thing. They would be a couple of charity cases helping each other out.
    “Is that a yes?”
    Still not sure how to take him, or his interest in Lizzie, she nodded. “Yeah. Okay. And, Foster, seriously. Thank you.”
    “No biggie.”
    “It’s a biggie to me.” If he’d been Krista or one of the others, she would’ve reached out for a handclasp or one-armed hug of thanks. As it was, she gripped the edge of the dock. “You don’t know me or Lizzie except in passing, but you’ve given this more thought than most of my friends back home ever have, you came up with a new suggestion that nobody else had thought of, and you came out here to talk to me about it. That’s . . . it’s not what I’m used to. So thank you.”
    He shrugged. “Things work different out here.”
    “I guess they do.” Different from the people she knew in Boston, different from her family, different from everything she was used to.
    “So . . . come to the barn around ten tomorrow morning, after the airport shuttle heads out and things get quiet. And bring Lizzie.”
    A smile tugged. Apparently, he’d been confident enough in his plan that he’d already set things up for Stace to come in on her day off. Mentally promising to pay the instructor for the lesson, she nodded. “Okay, ten tomorrow. And again, thanks.”
    He just nodded and stood. “I’ll leave you to your alone time.”
    “Actually, I think I’ve had about enough. My feet are freezing.” In fact, they were full-on numb, as if her legs ended at the ankle. “I think I’ll pull myself together and hobble over to the bonfire. You headed that way?”
    “Not tonight. Enjoy yourself, though.” He melted back into the darkness, until all that was left of him was a low whistle and a call of “Come on, Vader.”
    A patter of paws on the pebbly shore was the only sign that his constant shadow had been waiting patiently for him. And then they were both gone, disappearing as quietly as they had come.
    Shelby stared after them for a long moment, then shook her head. “Gift horse. Mouth. Don’t do it.” She’d be grateful, instead, and find some way to repay the head wrangler for his kindness, whether he liked it or not.
    Retrieving her iceberg tootsies from the water, she rubbed some warmth back into them with her socks, then put her boots back on. A look across the lake said that the dancers had given up on the line and were doing the boogie-woogie, though the numbers had thinned. Ty was still strumming his guitar, though, and the fire was still going strong.
    An hour ago, she had been tempted to head for the hills. Now she headed for the party.
    •   •   •
     
    “Shelby!” Krista waved her into the firelight. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it!”
    The bonfire, which had started the night as a huge pile of logs and pallets, was halfway burned down, and threw off enough heat that most of the plastic chairs had been pulled back to a safe distance. Twenty or so people were left, some guests, some employees. Ty had just set aside his guitar in favor of a beer, and the others were sitting around in twos and threes, rocking conversation and marshmallows with equal enthusiasm.
    Krista and Gran were sitting a little apart from the others, near a folding table that was