next level, to raise the bar even further. My father and grandfather have done amazingly well and I feel it’s my duty to continue the tradition. I’ve already got my business plan in order.” He looked at her again and his eyes twinkled. “Would you like to see it?”
“No, thank you.” Marlo suddenly felt shy and prim, responses that were rare in her emotional vocabulary. “I was just making conversation. I didn’t expect you to write a treatise or anything.”
“It’s okay. I happen to like something more than casual conversation. I enjoy meaty topics. If you really want to know, my personal aspiration is to someday settle down, get married and have those grandchildren my father thinks he’s never going to get. Until then, I’m going to work at making my architectural firm one of the top in the city, and Hammond Farms recognized nationally.”
He pulled into the driveway of Marlo’s immaculate South Minneapolis bungalow. The darkness of the car’s interior felt uncomfortably intimate. To her surprise, Jake lifted her hand from her lap to his lips and kissed it. “And the wishes will have to wait for later.” He paused before continuing. “I overheard you and your partner talking back at the house. You said something that stuck with me. I wanted to know if you meant it.”
They had said a lot of things. That would teach her to keep her mouth shut while she was working. The easy, breezy conversation she and Lucy maintained was usually just mindless chatter—emphasis on mindless. What part of their empty-headed banter had he overheard? Hopefully he hadn’t heard them discussing the Cinderella List.
“You were discussing yourselves as children, as I recall,” Jake prodded. Marlo paged through her memory bank. She had no idea that Jake, on his trips in and out of the kitchen, had overheard them.
“I heard you say that you had a lot of compassion for children who struggled to learn, and that you wished you knew a way that you could help to make a difference for them.”
“I was a difficult child myself, according to my mother—at least until my parents discovered I was dyslexic. I transposed words and letters. My reading problems were mostly from seeing things backward.” Marlo smiled ruefully. “Even though I overcame it quickly in academics, my mother says it didn’t shake my penchant for doing other things in reverse order.”
She’d always believed that her dyslexia and proclivity to come at things from the wrong end had deepened the compassion she felt for her nephew, Brady.
“I thought you might be interested in something I’m doing at the stables…if my father doesn’t sink it before it starts.” Jake’s expression was cautiously neutral, as if he didn’t want Marlo to guess what he was thinking.
He chose his next words carefully. “The changes I’m currently making at the stable have my father and me at odds. He’s the opposite of calm and laid-back. He accuses me of being too easygoing and willing to go with the flow.” His eyes crinkled and a slow smile graced his lips. “I like to think I’m a lover, not a fighter, but my father is not always amused.”
“He doesn’t trust you?”
“The only person my father has ever accepted unconditionally is his friend Alfred. They were boys together, best friends. My father calls Alfred’s judgment ‘impeccable.’”
“What awful things are you doing? Insisting the horses have weekly pedicures? Wear diamond-encrusted saddles? Eat gourmet oats?”
Jake’s smile flashed in the dimness. “The show animals are practically doing that already—they have polished hooves, saddles and tack with bling, and highly regulated diets. That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
“I’m starting a hippotherapy program at Hammond Stables. Dad calls it a wild idea, a notion that I’ll lose interest in as soon as I find a high-rise to design.
“The program is designed for kids with special needs. And kids like you were—struggling with things beyond their control. Things like cerebral palsy, severe injury, mental and physical issues, strokes.”
Compassionate. Marlo liked that in a man. Check. “And your father disapproves of…what exactly?”
“Dad doesn’t feel disabled kids add to the ‘ambiance’ of the operation.” Jake’s expressive eyes darkened with anger. “He’s afraid potential buyers might not like competing with children for time in the arena.”
“What will you do?” she asked, feeling sympathy for his predicament.
“Ignore his protests for the time being. He hasn’t forbidden it entirely—yet. I plan to start small, but to try to grow it quickly. I’m looking for compassionate volunteers who are willing to help with the program. People who can withstand my father’s negativity.”
“And you think I can?” Marlo was surprised. “Although I adored them as a child, I don’t know a thing about horses. Not real ones. I fantasized about them, but the only ones I’m truly familiar with are of the Black Beauty and My Little Pony variety.”
“That can be learned. What I’m looking for, Marlo, are people who care.”
She took a deep breath. Here she was, backing into something once again. Volunteering to work with horses when she’d never even ridden one. But one look at Jake, and she couldn’t say no.
“When do we start?”
Chapter Three
Still giddy from the previous night, Marlo decided to stop at her sister’s house for a cup of coffee before heading to work. When she swung into the driveway of the tidy white bungalow not far from her own, respect for Jenny and Mike, who had worked so hard to make this a safe, loving home for Brady, always surfaced.
No one who had not experienced it for themselves understood the struggle and pain that had transpired behind these windows with their blue shutters and yellow trim. Yet flowerboxes filled with a madcap assortment of red flowers, mostly geraniums, made the house look as though it belonged in a lighthearted film.
It was a good house in a pleasant older neighborhood, but Marlo knew that Jenny longed for something bigger, for her day-care children, but she and Mike chose to spend every extra penny they earned seeking help for Brady, who had been oxygen deprived at birth. Marlo didn’t blame them. No one with a heart could resist Brady. He was certainly her own biggest weakness—he could reduce her to mush with one gleeful smile.
The day of his birth was still etched into her mind like carving in stone. A protective bond had formed between them that day that couldn’t be broken. Marlo knew she’d do just about anything for her little nephew—especially anything that would make his life simpler and more enjoyable.
She rang the doorbell, opened the door and walked inside knowing that her sister had already been up for hours. The day care she ran opened at 6:00 a.m. for early arrivals.
“I’m in the kitchen,” Jenny called. “You’re just in time to help me cut sugar cookies.”
Marlo kicked off her shoes—Jenny hated dirt on her carpet—and headed toward her sister’s voice. Jenny was at the large island rolling a sheet of cookie dough. Cookie cutters in the shapes of bucking broncos, cowboy hats and a cowboy on a horse littered the area. The sweet aroma of vanilla permeated the kitchen.
“Hey,
