put him in his stall without further incident. It was then that the carrots came out, and Blake laughed as he showed them how to hold out their hands flat. Jennie giggled as her horse’s fuzzy nose touched her hand. Blake spoke for a few minutes with the mothers.
Hope had been thinking a lot about what Blake had said last night about her expecting people to be perfect. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. She liked things a certain way. Didn’t everyone? But it had made her think about growing up, and how many times she’d wished her parents had been different—wished they’d stop fighting, stop getting on and off the merry-go-round of their marriage.
That was what had kept her awake late into the night last night. She’d remembered how for a while things would be good, but then the arguing would start again, and then Dad would have had enough, and Mom would decide to take the girls on a new adventure. It hadn’t always felt very adventurous. Hope and her sisters had had little stability through those years. Gram had been it.
Hope had tried her best for her sisters. She’d tried to hold it all together by getting perfect grades and trying to fill the gaps that their mother had left in her wake. She’d always felt like a failure, though. Every time Grace got in trouble or Faith got tears in her eyes from having her feelings hurt. Hope, being the oldest, had always felt she understood more about what was happening than the other two. Faith, the tenderhearted one, and Grace, the defensive one. It had been Hope who’d had to step in to dry tears or fix what was broken. Hope who had made sure everyone had a packed lunch and their homework completed.
And now the sisters hardly spoke. How was it she had messed it all up despite trying so hard, and Blake seemed to manage to put pieces back together so naturally?
A more grounded man she’d never met. He seemed comfortable in any situation, didn’t he? He had his place in the world and was secure in it. It was evident in his business, his house, the way he grabbed a dish towel and washed dishes or shoveled a walk. This was his corner of the world. And, while Hope loved her life in Sydney, she’d never quite called it home. Home was Beckett’s Run, and even then it had never had the permanence that she craved.
She turned away from the cozy scene with the kids and bit her lip. She’d been here two whole days and already it was bringing back things she didn’t like to think about. What was the use of dredging up past mistakes? She couldn’t change the past. And the truth was she couldn’t make everyone fit into the ordered existence she wanted—she needed. They’d all left her anyway. Every single one. She’d given up trying so she could save her own sanity.
It was time she got out of her own head and back to work. She went back into the ring and walked around the edge, snapping different angles. If she could get a good picture of the barn—despite the snow—and a long shot of the stable area, she could probably put together a good spread featuring the main facilities. It wasn’t exactly art, but that wasn’t what Blake was looking for, was it?
He found her standing in the middle of the dirt floor, much in the same way she’d found him standing only an hour before. “Hey.”
She turned and watched him stride across the loam, his long legs eating up the distance. He moved purposefully, with a loose-hipped grace that was sexy as all get out. His cowboy hat shadowed his face, but she could see his lips were set. Her fingers tightened around the camera and without thinking twice she began snapping—rapid shots, one after the other.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Trying some things out. Do you think I could get up there somehow? It’d be cool to get a bird’s-eye view of the ring from above.”
His eyes opened wide and there was a long pause. Then, “I could get a block and tackle,” he mused, rubbing his hand along his chin.
“Really?” She stared up at the beams and then heard his low chuckle. He was making fun of her. “Ha, ha.”
“You took off before you could meet the moms.”
“I didn’t realize you wanted me to.”
He frowned. “I wanted you to talk to them about including Riley and Jennie in your pictures. They’ll be back next week for the Christmas party. You could get shots then, I suppose. But we won’t have a regular session with them again while you’re here. You missed the opportunity.”
“I didn’t know you were serious about that.” She looked up at him and felt a little spiral of guilt as she offered the teensy white lie. “I thought it would just be easier if I took pictures of the rig empty.”
“Shouldn’t your pictures include what we do, not just where we do it?”
She bit her lip, unwilling to confess that she’d had to escape the corridor because she’d gotten emotional. “But those pictures are harder to get right. Do you really think Jennie and Riley would take to being positioned and posed, and all that goes into a photo like the ones we’re looking for?”
“Why would they have to pose? Can’t you just snap as we’re working? You’re a pro, Hope. You’ll come up with something that’ll work.”
Her lips dropped open as he unwittingly brushed aside all the hard work that went into her job, treating it as if it were nothing. “Something that will work? You’re right about one thing, Blake. I am a pro. And if I’m going to put my name on something it’s not going to be merely adequate. It has to be the best.”
He stepped closer and she felt the proximity of his body practically vibrating against her. She had to tip her chin up to meet his gaze, and for one delicious moment his eyes dropped to her lips before moving back up to her eyes again.
“I’m not interested in perfection.” His voice was an intense rumble in the quiet of the riding ring.
“And I never settle for anything less,” she retorted.
“I bet you don’t,” he replied.
His voice was so knowing that she wanted to smack the snide smile off his perfectly shaped lips.
“How about compassion, Hope? Do you have any of that?”
If he’d reached out and slapped her it wouldn’t have stung more. “Ouch,” she said quietly. “You do know how to aim, don’t you?”
He glowered at her. “Me with my scar. Jennie and Riley with their issues. Cate with her deformity. All of us—we come as a package deal. That’s what Bighorn Therapeutic Riding is about. That’s what you’re hired to take pictures of. Not an empty barn.”
Could he insult her any further? Goodness, she hadn’t meant him—or the children. She’d meant perfection in herself.
She ignored the tiny voice that said he might be a little bit right and let her anger build up a head of steam. “Hired? I wasn’t hired. I’m doing this for free, remember? You couldn’t possibly afford what I charge an hour.”
The indignant light in his eye dimmed and she felt like an utter heel for bringing money into it. He was doing a good thing here, and she knew his operating budget was probably a precise work of art from year to year. It had been a low blow. Maybe even lower than his dig about compassion.
It was only remembering his low opinion of her that kept her from apologizing—again.
“You’re right, of course,” he replied, his voice dangerously low.
