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“But . . . there have to be contracts, right?”
He shrugged. “They could nail me for that,” he agreed. “At this point, to see Jeremy like he’s been since we came here, I don’t care.”
It was real. He really was this man, not some lightweight pretender. And for some reason that made her a little giddy. “There’s the start of a good, long, straight run just down this rise a bit. Want to give it a try?”
Those famous eyes brightened. He lifted the reins slightly and Shade’s head came up. “Maybe you should ask him.”
“Oh, he’s always ready,” she said with a grin.
She spun Sass around on his hind legs and started down the narrow track. When they reached the bottom, the wider trail rolled out in front of them.
“Now?” Jackson asked as Shade danced beneath him, knowing what was coming. He sat it easily, calmly.
“Now,” she agreed, and put her heels to the eager horse.
*
“You know, youcould teach Jeremy to ride yourself.”
Jackson paused in his brush down of Shade after the ride that had taken them twice as long as he’d expected, because she’d shown him most of the ranch. He knew she was unhappy that it was smaller than it had once been, but he laughed inwardly when he thought of the suburbs of L.A., where people bought a house on a couple of acres and called it a ranch. The romance of the lifestyle—or at least a pretense at it—was powerful even now, and even in places it was unsuited for.
He looked at Nic over the back of the gray. “No, I couldn’t.”
“You could,” she insisted. “You ride more than well enough. Better than I expected.”
“I get the feeling you didn’t expect much.”
“True,” she admitted, but with that flicker of a grin that made him feel... he wasn’t sure what to call the little jolt it gave him. “But it’s obvious now that I’ve seen you ride that you’re more than adequate. A lot more.”
“I think I’ll have that etched on a plaque for my desk. ‘More than adequate.’” He made sure he was grinning back at her when he said it.
She arched a brow at him, exaggeratedly. “You have a desk?”
He laughed, and the moment he did, so did she. He had to give her that much—when she changed her mind, she did it thoroughly. What would have been a genuine jab just a couple of days ago was now obviously a joke. This was the kind of lighthearted repartee he’d never thought to have with her.
Face it, you never thought you’d have it again with any woman, unless it was scripted for you both.
It was true he’d done scenes of this kind of teasing back and forth, sometimes with an actress who helped make it feel almost real, and sometimes with someone who made it a chore. But not since Leah had it come... naturally. Not from lines written on a page by someone else, but out of his own mind.
Maybe he was just relieved she wasn’t jabbing at him and meaning it anymore. It would be hard to bring Jeremy here every day and put up with that. Of course, he could just drop him off, but he didn’t want him out of his sight for that long just yet.
It occurred to him to wonder what he was going to do if this worked out. What was he going to do while Jeremy was with Mrs. Baylor? Not like he could expect Nic to go riding with him every day. She’d already arranged her schedule—she was quite in demand as a trainer, and obviously more than worth what he’d be paying her—so that she could teach Jeremy. Butthe appeal of even the thought of spending long rides with her startled him, and he had to rein it in harder than he had to rein Shade in all afternoon.
He’d been so focused on Jeremy, and once he’d seen how the boy seemed to blossom here, been determined to stay as long as necessary, that he hadn’t really thought much about what he himself was going to do here. He needed to think about that. He thought about how fascinated Jeremy had been by the statue at the library and by the saloon building. Maybe he should spend some time scouting out other places like that, with historical significance.
Wouldn’t hurt you to learn a bit either.
He’d thought he’d done that when he’d come to Texas twice before to get the feel for the show. But he’d been more focused on the people—how they acted, what their interests were—to try to bring life to the character of Austin Holt. But now, here in this small town, he was feeling the pull of the land itself, and the incredible things that had happened in this state that had once been a country of its own.
So he would learn. Not for the role or the show, but because now he wanted to. And he had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t only for Jeremy’s sake.
Chapter Nineteen
Jackson was havingtrouble deciding, as he walked down the main street of Last Stand, if people were looking at him because they knew who he was or simply because he was a stranger in their little town. Back in L.A.—funny, it had only been a week, but already he wasn’t thinking of it as “back home” anymore—he’d know, because they’d be all over him. Here, they looked, most even smiled, but nobody bothered him.
There was, of course, another possibility. That the Last Stand grapevine was not only efficient, but... kind. That seemed almost impossible to him, but then it had been the wife of the police chief who’d said she’d put the word out. Perhaps her word was law, as he suspected her husband’s was around here. After all, not every small town had a bona fide national hero working for them.
A real hero. Not an actor playing a heroic part, but the real deal. Maybe that’s why they left him alone. They knew the difference.
