He shook his head.
“Well, come by the Kendall. We’ll be waiting for you.”
* * *
JACE LOOKED DOWN at Ari’s head resting on his chest. The boy had fallen asleep on him every night as he sat on the worn sofa in the motel room not five miles from the Kendall. Since they’d left the farm, Ari clung to him. He’d done that in Colombia, but since meeting Kelly he hadn’t felt the need.
Ari was unhappy. Jace knew how he felt. Jace must have glanced at the phone a hundred times since he’d driven away from the Kendall. He wanted to call Kelly. He wanted to hear the sound of her voice, smell her hair, hear her laugh and find out how she was doing.
He wanted to be able to explain to Ari why they were no longer at the farm. He wanted to tell him he could go and see Kelly. He wanted to make things right. But he couldn’t. He’d done everything he could to push her away. Now there was no going back.
There was one thing Jace wouldn’t do. He would not contest the Kendall’s sale. Kelly had put her life into its restoration. She hadn’t walked the floors or seen the inside of the building until two years ago, but the place was hers. She’d made it hers when she sat on the fence as a child and watched the horses exercising. Taking it away from her now would be the same as killing her. He understood that.
The day of the open house she was more alive than he’d ever seen her. She loved what she was doing. He and Ari would have to go someplace else. Their lives would begin anew, but not with the Kendall as their destination. It had been a stop along the trail, but they would settle someplace else.
Tomorrow Jace would begin to make plans for where they could go. Maybe he’d look up Sheldon in North Carolina. See if his brother had mellowed in the ensuing years. If he hadn’t, they’d move on, but they wouldn’t be wanderers. Jace peered down at Ari. His breathing was soft and steady. He pulled the blanket up and over his son and kissed his head. It was just the two of them, as it probably should be. Ari would begin school come September. They needed a place by then. A place far away from the Kendall and from Kelly.
Two days passed, but Jace hadn’t been able to find the right moment to talk to Kelly. To let her know his decision to not contest the sale of the Kendall, and that he and Ari were leaving Windsor Heights. He wanted to do all of that face-to-face, and yet whenever he was free, she was busy. He took that as a sign that he was doing the right thing, no matter how much it hurt to be away from Kelly.
* * *
FOR THE NEXT couple of days, Kelly worked nonstop. She knew it was too much and so after she returned several phone calls to schedule future events at the Kendall, she went to the barn. There were saddles, tack, harnesses, horse blankets, even names placed on the stable doors for each of the horses. The animals were quiet, but curious. Every horse looked over the open part of its stall door, checking her out. They wanted to know her smell, her attitude. Was she a friendly human or not? They seemed as if they wanted to know if she had treats for them or if she would walk from entrance to exit and ignore their presence.
Horse sense wasn’t just a cliche to Kelly. They were smart beasts, strong, loyal and intelligent. She went from one to the other providing carrot sticks and rubbing their noses. Stopping at a stall with the name tag of Stout’s Honor written on the placard, she hugged the horse’s face and took in the rich, pungent smell.
“So you’re a race horse?” she said.
“Yep, I’m a race horse.”
Kelly jumped. The sun was behind the man in the doorway, but she’d recognize Emmett’s voice anywhere.
“Emmett,” she called, already walking toward him.
He caught her in a bear hug and let loose a hearty chuckle. She felt like a kid again.
“I know you’ve been busy,” he said, releasing her. “But I hope to see more of you now that I’ll be here.”
“You bet you will.”
Kelly hugged him again, before standing back and looking at him. “Emmett, I am so glad you’re here.”
Emmett had to be in his sixties, but he looked twenty years younger. His face had few lines, some around his eyes and the parenthesis markings that framed his mouth.
“Where am I staying?” he asked, using the no-nonsense tone that was his trademark.
“You know where you’re staying. And I moved any female trappings.” Those were Emmett’s words for anything related to women. He’d been married once, had a daughter who was now living in Seattle. After his wife died, he said he could finally remove all the pink and lavender from his life. But Kelly remembered he always had a purple scarf in his pocket at races. A tribute to his late wife.
Arm in arm they strolled through the barn. Emmett already knew the horses, so they didn’t give him the same perusal they’d given her.
She opened the door to the cabin and laid the keys in a dish just inside.
“You’re perfectly capable of making your own meals, but if you want, breakfast is at seven, lunch at noon and dinner at six. There’s hot coffee, cold water in bottles and soft drinks all day. You’re always welcome at the main house even if it’s outside of those hours.”
Emmett nodded.
Kelly turned to go, then recalled something. She turned back. “We have a day when we allow the public to tour the place.”
“For a fee?”
“For a fee.”
“Good,” he approved. “I heard about your first try at that. Susan Johnson came to see me before she went back to Kentucky. Told me you’d done the house proud and made it better, in fact.”
Kelly thought of the woman who’d known her father.
“It’s open every week on Tuesday. There will be those who want to see the horses. Would you like to handle that or should I hire someone?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Emmett said.
Kelly was glad it was a job she could delegate to someone else.
“Has Jace not been back?” he asked.
Kelly looked at the floor. “No. He hasn’t been back.”
Kelly stared at Emmett for a long moment. This was a small town. Emmett must have heard something. “You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?”
Emmett shook his head. “The rumor mill hadn’t coughed him up yet, but it won’t be long. As you said, he’s got the kid, and someone is bound to see him. You want me to tell Jace you asked when I find out?”
Kelly’s head snapped up. She did, but she couldn’t say that. “I want to thank him. Having the other horses here will help a lot with the finances and with bringing the Kendall back to where it was.”
“Is that all?”
The way he asked the question said he knew there was something between her and Jace. It wasn’t exactly true.
But it wasn’t false, either.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SHELDON KNOCKED OFF for the day. Going back to his bungalow, he took a long, hot shower and dressed in clean shorts and a shirt. It was wash day, so he gathered his clothing, stuffed it in a canvas bag and headed to the Laundromat. Not far from the marina was a place where the sailboat owners could wash towels and the various items that proved sea duty was a dirty business. Christian fell in step with him as he headed toward it. The marina was in the opposite direction of where he lived.
“Hi,” he said. The boy was carrying a book.
“Where are your friends?” Sheldon asked.
He knew he went to camp each weekday and that he often played with some of the kids farther up the beach.
“My best friend went away last night to visit his father. His parents are divorced.” He said it with an authority beyond his years.
“He’s not your only friend. Where are the others?”
“Most are playing video games. They say it’s too hot to do anything but swim and play games.”
“Swimming is good. Why aren’t you doing that?”
“Too many grown-ups in the pool.” Christian frowned.
“What have you got there?” Sheldon referred to the book in the boy’s hand.
Christian, never breaking stride, held it out so Sheldon could read the cover. “Chet, the Cowboy,” Sheldon said out loud.
“They make us read at least a book every two weeks at camp.”
Sheldon nodded. He was impressed and thought that was a good idea. “What else do you do at camp?”
“Most of it is fun. We go to a park and play baseball and basketball. We swim, watch movies. I take a class on how to use my camera.”
“That does sound like fun. Where’s the camera?”
Christian pulled a small digital camera from his back pocket and held it up for Sheldon to see.
“Have you learned how to use it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “All you have to do is look through here.” He indicated the viewfinder. “And press this button.”
“I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”
“There is, but I haven’t learned it yet.”
“So you’re reading and taking pictures?”
“I have to bring the pictures to camp. I take the camera and they use the card inside to get the pictures off. Can I take one of you?”
Sheldon grinned. “Sure,” he said.
Christian was already moving the camera up to look at the small screen. Sheldon stood still. He was considerably taller than his photographer. Changing his mind, he sat on the ground and crossed his long legs, and looked straight at the camera.