“Nice to meet you,” she said, sounding as if it really wasn’t.
“You, too, Miss Scout.”
“It’s Stella.”
“Her name means star,” Buster explained. His chest puffed out and he gave her a little pat on the back.
Stella the Pretty Star tossed her short gold hair, turned on the heel of her boot and headed into the house, letting the screen door slam behind her.
“IGNORE HER,” BUSTER SAID, rubbing his hands together. “You want to go for a little ride out on the range?”
“Sure, sounds great.”
“You take these coffee cups in, if you don’t mind, and I’ll go get the pumpkin.”
Joiner wondered why in the world Buster would be getting a pumpkin and how it related to their ride on the property, but he did as he was told. He was disappointed that there was no sign of Stella in the house when he set the coffee cups in the kitchen sink.
Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t run into her again. She seemed to harbor some underlying hostility toward him, although he couldn’t imagine why. It was as if he reminded her of the high school boyfriend who left her to dance with another girl at the prom.
He was sitting on the porch steps when Buster roared up on an orange Kubota ATV with Mugsy and Mitzi sitting beside him.
“Pumpkin orange,” Joiner mused aloud as he took his seat beside Mugsy on the passenger’s side. It was the same color as his Texas Longhorns.
“Stella named it.”
Buster lurched forward and soon they were bumping at full throttle across a cattle guard and out into open pasture. There were groves of loblolly pines, pencil cedars and live oaks interspersed with vast acres of grass for grazing cattle. Joiner counted five ponds as they passed, one as big as a small lake—about twenty acres—and it was on the north-forty. It would work perfectly for Joiner’s plans, and he told Buster so. The older man just nodded.
After several minutes, Buster pulled up to the edge of the spring-fed creek and cut the motor of the Kubota. The dogs jumped out to get a drink. Buster leaned back, crossing his boots on the dashboard in front of him, just to the right of the steering wheel. He gazed out across the creek. He closed his eyes and slowly breathed in and out a few times. Joiner wondered if he was praying. Then Buster turned to look at Joiner.
“Son, I’m afraid I’ve wasted your time. I can’t sell this place. Not any part of it.”
After Buster’s tour and description of this part of the property, Joiner had begun to doubt he’d be able to afford it, but he’d wanted to make an offer anyway. It was perfect for him and Pistol, whatever they decided to do. He could train and board horses, breed Pistol, teach riding; the possibilities were endless. And that was something Joiner liked—keeping his options open.
“Why not? Why did you place the ad, then?”
Buster adjusted his cowboy hat. “I can answer both of your questions with one word—Love.”
“Something tells me there’s more to it than that.” Joiner leaned closer, prompting the older man to continue.
“Son, if you think love ain’t enough, you got a lot to learn.”
Joiner could only imagine his brothers’ responses when he recounted this story. It seemed straight out of a dime-store novel about some dying breed of cowboy-philosophers. The hooting and hollering among the Temple brothers would be abundant.
Still, in the short time he’d spent with Buster, Joiner had become somewhat impressed with the older man. No one could be more outwardly different from Joiner’s own father, who’d been a doctor, even though his dad and Buster would be about the same age if Dr. Temple had still been alive. But there was a quality there that felt familiar, a certain wisdom. Joiner wondered if there were ghosts that haunted Buster, as his grandfather’s tarnished reputation had haunted his father for years.
“Love?”
“I lost my wife—Stella’s mama—when she was thirty-six years old. She was a rodeo queen who became a hands-on mother after we had Stella. Then one day she got on a horse like she did every other day, only this time she fell off and died. It was a freak accident. She was gone from us, just like that.”
Joiner shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Lily was also a naturalist, loved everything homegrown. She adored this place. It belonged to her family. She rode horses all over it, had her a garden. It was her sanctuary. I was gone all the time, but I like to think because of this land she wasn’t lonely.” Buster sighed. The water rolling over the rocks in front of them seemed to sigh with him.
“She taught Stella at home. Not for religious reasons, like a lot of people around here. With her it was more for personal freedom and what she called ‘independence of thought’.” Buster smiled as he made quotation marks in the air, and then continued, “They were always into these experiments and things Stella never would have done in public school. Lily, that’s my wife, she would take her to the creek here and they’d collect jars of water and come home and identify all of the little creatures under a microscope. They’d go on walks and look up wildflowers in a book to learn their names. They hung artwork all over the house, even painted constellations on the ceiling of Stella’s room. They milked goats and made their own cheese.”
“Wow. That’s neat. And I can vouch for the fact we did not do that kind of stuff at Kilgore High School.”
“Well, I’m not knocking the school. Stella ended up graduating from there and the teachers were good to her. She was only sixteen when her mother passed.”
Joiner felt a pang, remembering how painful it had been to lose his own parents at a young age. “Is that when you retired from the rodeo?”
“Yes. I was fifty, and twenty years past a bronc rider’s prime. It was time for me to hang it up, and Stella needed the stability of a home. I couldn’t take her riding around Texas with me in that RV.”
Joiner swallowed hard. The story was a lot to take in. Finally, he said, “But what about my second question? What did love have to do with putting the land up for sale?”
“Stella. She has this dream and I wanted to make it come true. But I’m not exactly high on funds.”
“What does she want to do?”
“She wants to open a place here where kids with problems can come be with horses. ‘Equestrian therapy’ she calls it.” Buster made quote marks in the air again. “I don’t know about the fancy name, but I am a firm believer that spending time with horses is good for you. I’ve had a couple horses I like better than most people.”
“I can relate to that.” Joiner laughed. “Right now Pistol is pretty much my guiding star. Well, he and my brothers. Since my polo funds dried up, I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the rest of my life. I can’t say I’ll settle down in Kilgore for good, but I’d prefer to be near my brothers while
