Jake. At least a bit. And wondering if she should eat any more than she had. She didn’t trust her stomach to hold it down, not when she’d been eating so little for so long.
What the heck, she thought, feeling suddenly reckless. It tasted good. If she got sick... Well, she’d already freaked on Jake. If he could handle that, he could handle her getting sick.
She ate slowly, though, taking only tiny bits onto her fork, awaiting any warning sign that she was making a mistake.
Finally she had to put her fork down and look sorrowfully at the plate, which was nearly three-quarters full. Jake had cleaned his plate and sat back.
“Want to go meet the horses now?”
At least he didn’t try to encourage her to eat more. Her friends back in Minneapolis had driven her nearly crazy by urging her to eat just one more mouthful.
“Yes,” she said promptly and rose. When she reached for her plate, Jake stopped her. “Don’t offend Rosa.”
Offend her by clearing the table? Nora found it hard to imagine, but Jake would know.
Jake grabbed a pair of leather cowboy boots from the hall closet. “Put these on.”
So she eased out of her running shoes and shoved her feet into the boots. They were an almost perfect fit, finely tooled leather. “Your mom didn’t wear these out in the yard,” she protested.
“Actually, she did. She reserved Wellingtons for mucking out the stalls.”
So many things she didn’t know about ranch life. At the moment, though, that didn’t seem terribly important. As they passed through the kitchen, she thanked Rosa for a wonderful meal. The woman beamed at her. “There’s more. You eat some later, okay?”
“Okay,” Nora agreed, not sure whether she’d be around later or back at home with her father. As soon as they stepped outside, she was grateful for the jacket she’d worn through so many Minnesota winters. It seemed to have grown a lot colder in just the short time they’d been eating.
She half expected to meet Al when they went out to the paddock, especially when she saw that a horse had been saddled. He was nowhere to be seen, however.
“I want you to try riding on a lead at first,” Jake said. “I don’t know how strong you are.”
“Not very,” she admitted. And the closer she got, the bigger the horses looked. How could she have forgotten that part? “Maybe I shouldn’t do this.”
“You can try it. Daisy over here is as gentle as they come. She won’t give you any trouble, and if you start to feel tired, just say the word.”
“Daisy? Really?”
“Mom liked to name the mares after flowers. Dad drew the line at Begonia.”
An unexpected laugh escaped Nora and she felt her spirits beginning to rise. The nightmare seemed so far away right now; it was a beautiful day, and the scents of the horses called to her as they always had.
“Where are your parents now?”
“Can you believe they turned into traitors and moved to Florida? To a condo?”
That drew another small laugh from her. “Less work,” she suggested.
“And warmer. Plus, according to my dad, he gets to play golf all year. Mom swears she can’t get him out of the house in the summer to play, but he denies it.”
Jake climbed the paddock fence, pulling a long leather lead from where it was wound around a fence pole. He clucked quietly, and called, “Daisy... Here, girl.”
To Nora’s surprise, the saddled horse, a spotted gray with huge, soft brown eyes, responded promptly. The mare stood patiently while Jake clipped the lead to her halter.
Then he turned back to her. “Now comes the hard part. I doubt you’re strong enough to mount by yourself.”
She eyed the distance between the ground and stirrup and shook her head slowly. “I could try.”
“Or you can just sit on the top of the fence and I can help you. But I’ll have to touch you to do that, Nora. Will that be okay?”
He probably hadn’t imagined that difficulty when he invited her out here. But then neither had she. She closed her eyes a moment, waging an internal struggle. This was Jake, not him.
When she opened her eyes, Jake still waited patiently. “I want to try.” It was important in ways she felt deep inside but couldn’t have named. She knew a lot about psychology, but it didn’t seem to be applying to her own mess.
Determined, she climbed the fence rails and managed to reach the top one, legs inside the paddock, steadying herself. The effort left her feeling weak, and she hated it. Hated the weakness, the slowness of her recovery. She was breathing a little hard, too, and her heart was racing, although she wasn’t sure it was just from exertion.
“Give yourself a minute,” Jake said. He led Daisy closer and began to rub her neck. “Have you ever seen horses nuzzle each other, the way they wrap necks and rub?”
“In pictures or on TV, maybe.”
“They’re very social animals. But they have this spot right here where they nuzzle each other.” He patted and rubbed. “Someone finally got around to studying it. It’s like petting a dog or a cat. It calms them down, lowers their blood pressure, eases their stress. Wanna try?”
Daisy didn’t look stressed to Nora’s untutored eyes, but she wanted to touch the mare anyway. Jake eased her even closer so that Nora could reach out and pat the horse’s neck right where he’d showed her to. Daisy quivered slightly under her touch, then relaxed. The horsehair wasn’t soft like a dog’s or a cat’s; it was much tougher and more bristly. But it still felt good, and at the moment she suspected that petting Daisy was calming her at least as much as the horse.
She began to relax, felt her fears disappearing. “I could do this forever.”
“She’d almost let you, believe me. Unfortunately, like most of her kind, she needs to graze and move, so she doesn’t stand perfectly still for long. Ready?”
“I think so.” Although she still couldn’t imagine how they were going to do this.
But Daisy was now close enough that her side nearly brushed Nora’s knees.
“I’m going to guide your foot into the stirrup,” Jake said. Apparently to try to avoid surprising her by reaching out. The man figured out things quickly.
He told her each thing he was going to do before he did it. As soon as her foot was settled safely in the stirrup, he told her to grab the pommel and try to rise. “Let me know if you need a boost.”
She summoned every bit of strength and determination she had, and not only managed to stand in the stirrup but also to swing her leg over Daisy’s wide back. She had forgotten how wide a horse could be.
“Good job!” Jake said approvingly. Moving around to the other side, he guided her right foot into the stirrup.
“I’m
