AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That caught his attention. He certainly wasn’t above that kind of bribery, if it got Jeremy back to caring about his learning, as he once had.
“And just think what an inspiration it would be for him, to see her get out of her wheelchair and onto a horse.”
He blinked. Remembered the ramp and the pathway he’d seen, but it had never occurred to him that she could still mount a horse. “Her mother still rides?”
“She does, Nic says.”
“Wow.” He tried to ignore that the fact his sister was allowed to call her Nic ate at him a little.
“So you’ll talk to her about it?”
“I think I’ll talk to Jeremy first, but yes.”
“Good call,” Tris said with a wide smile.
He gathered up the empty ice cream bowls and carried them to the kitchen. He stood at the sink for a moment, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. Doubt flooded him, despite all his big promises. Was he really going to stay here long enough for all this?
“’Night, Dad.”
The words turned him around, and when he did, his son threw his arms around him in an almost fierce hug. Something he hadn’t really done on his own initiative in... two years.
The question that had been in his mind vanished. For this, he’d do anything.
Chapter Sixteen
“Iowe youan apology.”
The man’s eyes widened, as if those were words he’d never expected to hear. Or at least, never expected to hear from her. And that told her a little too much about how she’d been acting around him. It was embarrassing, how she’d let her presumptions dictate her actions, and she didn’t like having to admit she’d done it. But she had, and she needed to make what amends she could.
Not only that, she wanted to get this out of the way fast, because she hated lugging around this twinge of guilt. She wasn’t usually like this, and it was not a good feeling.
She heard a whoop from the boy riding the pony in the corral and glanced that way to be sure all was well. It was. Jeremy had really taken to riding and was learning fast. Even Pie acted as if he was having fun. The picture they made brought a smile back to her face and let her control those tangled emotions she was wrestling with.
When she looked back, she saw the man beside her had looked toward the sound as well. But she saw something else too. Saw that there’d been a relaxing of his tension as he watched his son. The love was still uppermost, but she hadn’t realized quite how wound up he’d been until it had eased up a little. There was absolutely no doubt that he was also worried.
“He’s a great kid,” she said.
“Yes.” It was barely a murmur, but she could still hear the emotion in it.
“And that’s why I should have known.”
He looked at her then. “Known what?”
“That a kid like that couldn’t have the kind of man I assumed you were as a father.”
He just stared at her, and suddenly she didn’t have a clue what he was thinking. And so she stumbled on.
“I also talked to my friend Hannah, who works at Yippee Ki Yay. She told me what you said. About not wearing a cowboy hat.” She smiled wryly. “One of my dad’s favorite sayings, that I’ve heard since I was his”—she nodded toward Jeremy—“age is, ‘The hat don’t make you a cowboy.’”
He laughed, and it somehow sounded as wry as her voice had. “Truer words,” he said.
“Hence the apology. I made some assumptions, including that you were the type who thought the opposite, that all you had to do was dress up and play the part, pretend to be a guy with a Texas name, to earn the title. And I’m sorry.”
There, it was done. She’d said what she had to say. And he was still smiling. Sort of, although it looked a bit rueful now.
“Believe me,” he said, “I know full well the difference between the fantasy and real ranch life, and that I’m ill-equipped to deal with the latter. I don’t have the knowledge. Or, I suspect, the endurance.”
That open, honest admission changed her relief after making the apology to gladness that she’d done it. In fact, if she were going to be honest with herself in turn, she’d admit that she found his openness about it rather... endearing. And that was something she never thought she’d be feeling about Jackson Thorpe, of all people.
