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West raised his hand. “They poop on us?”
Sarah covered a laugh. “I guess they might. But the answer I was looking for wasno one gets to ride.And we want to ride, don’t we?”
All the kids cheered.
“So you two shake hands, and we’ll have no more pushing.”
Tad found a hay bale and sat down. Sarah was absorbed with the kids, dividing her attention among them like she’d been teaching all her life. She guided West’s hand as he tried the currycomb, gave a short girl a boost so she could halter her pony. She kept the pushing boys busy and separated, and when one of them got rowdy, she was quick to intervene.
“Billy—hey, Billy.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I’ve got a job for you.” She held up a lead rope. “Do you know what this is?”
“It’s for walking your horse.”
A few giggles went up, but Sarah raised her hand for quiet. “That’s right,” she said. “We hook this to our halter ring andgentlyguide our ponies.” She demonstrated on the taller pony, attaching the lead rope with a quick, practiced motion. “Now, I’ll lead Sweetheart, and Billy, you lead Sugar, and everyone else, form a line. We’re going to ride two by two. Billy, I’m counting on you to show Sugar where to go.”
Billy swelled with pride. Tad watched, admiring. Sarah had to be tired—she got up before dawn, he knew, to muck out the stables and to do all the work required to keep the horse program going. She worked straight through till lunch, then lay down for a nap before her afternoon’s chores. She must’ve skipped that today to help out with the kids.
“Dad! Dad, look, I’m riding!” West trotted by, waving. Tad’s heart thumped in his chest.
“Both hands on the reins!”
“He’s fine,” said Sarah. She steadied West in the saddle. “You don’t need to watch, you know. This class is supposed to give you parents some time to yourselves.”
“I guess I could use a break,” said Tad. He got up, stretched, and felt his spine crackle. If he was honest, he could use a nap himself. He’d been working some long hours, fixing up the house. Not as long as Sarah’s, but the work was demanding, and…
And he’d been unfair. The realization hit him like a bolt from the blue. He hadn’t accused Sarah of taking handouts from Will, but he’d been thinking it—and based on her reaction, he was pretty sure she’d noticed. Yet here she was every day, doing her part on the ranch. Pitching in with a smile, even when she didn’t have to. She earned her keep and then some, and what had he been thinking?
He hurried off, embarrassed. “Foot-in-mouth disease,” he muttered. “That’s what I’ve got.” He made his way up the hill, past the big house, through the trees. The air smelled of pine, and faintly of cows. Tad breathed deep, in and out, letting the cold clear his head. He’d made a gaffe, it was true, but he could still make it right. Maybe at karaoke night. Karaoke was Will’s thing—he’d heard about the triple act he did with the twins—but Sarah could sing too. Tad had heard her at it as she puttered around the house. They’d just need a gimmick, something big and bold. Something unexpected, like their snowball fight coup.
Tad came to a halt, having circled back to the stables. The lesson was winding down, the tide of parents and grandparents rolling in to pick up their kids. Families were everywhere, reminding him that his own had shrunk to just two, and that his son longed for more. West was headed for the big house to play with Ann and Beth while a pair of old grandpas stood leaning on the fence.
“I remember old man Carson starting this class,” said the taller one. “I was practically young enough to take it myself.”
His companion chuckled into his beard. “If you think thirty’s young enough.”
“Thirty? I was twenty. How old do you think I am?”
Both of them laughed at that, then the taller one sighed. “Still, twenty and thirty are both far behind us. Whole lot has changed since then. Just look at little Chickadee, old enough to help out.”
Sarah paused and stiffened, but she didn’t turn around.
“She does more than help out,” said Tad. The old men turned to look at him, and he cleared his throat. He hadn’t meant to butt in, but the way they’d been talking, like Sarah was a little kid and not a grown woman, was a little more than he was willing to take. “She runs the whole breeding program. She took over last year.”
The old men exchanged glances.
“We didn’t realize,” one of them muttered.
“Time really does fly,” the other agreed. “Feels like just yesterday she was running around Main Street in those little red shoes.”
“So, I see you’ve met Tad.” Sarah leaned over the fence, smiling. “Mr. White, you should talk to him. Tad’s a fantastic carpenter, and you’ve been saying that you need a new deck.”
Mr. White stroked his beard, looking Tad up and down. “You do deck work?”
“I do all sorts of renovations. I’ve been fixing up Sarah’s house.”
