McKettrick's Heart by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2007-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

10

MOLLY, STANDING in her borrowed boots, did her best to take Keegan’s advice and think about the trail ride instead of the imminent loss of Lucas, but it was hard going.

Keegan had exchanged his slacks and sports shirt for worn jeans and a blue cotton work shirt before feeding the donkey one last time, and that took some getting over, too.

Something Psyche had said popped into Molly’s mind as they drove across the creek bridge, toward the gathering of McKettricks.

Wait till you see him on a horse.

Molly’s stomach tightened at the prospect.

She tried to reason with herself. Keegan was Keegan, in a suit or in jeans and boots. Standing on the ground, or in the saddle.

He parked the Jag in an out-of-the-way place, which wasn’t easy, given the collection of trucks, horse trailers and cars already taking up much of the area surrounding the barn.

Devon shot out of the car and raced to join the two little girls Molly had met at the bookshop, glimpsed later at the Fourth of July celebration in the park.

Molly got out slowly, took her time freeing a squirming Lucas from the car seat in back. Keegan, meanwhile, transferred all the stuff in the trunk to a nearby pickup truck, tacitly designated, apparently, to haul extras.

Jesse McKettrick approached, grinning and leading a beautiful paint horse behind him. Molly remembered him, too, of course—he’d been at the picnic with his new bride, and she’d seen him again at the clinic when Psyche had taken a turn for the worse.

He grinned at Molly in a way that made her feel slightly less nervous and much less an outsider, and turned his gaze on Keegan, who had just returned from the truck.

“Let’s see if you remember how to ride,” Jesse said to Keegan.

Thus challenged, Keegan stepped up beside the paint, gripped the saddle horn with one hand, simultaneously putting a foot in the stirrup, and swung himself up with an easy grace that shouldn’t have taken Molly’s breath away—but did.

He sat with the westward sun for a backdrop.

Keegan on a horse.

Imagination hadn’t done it justice.

“Satisfied?” he asked Jesse.

“Maybe,” Jesse allowed. “It’s a fair distance up to the ridge, and we’re taking the long way. Could be, by the time we get to camp you’ll be whining for a hot tub.”

Keegan chuckled at that. Then he eased the horse closer to Molly and leaned down, reaching for Lucas.

She gripped her son tightly for a moment or two, then gave him up.

Lucas crowed with delight as Keegan set him gently in the saddle in front of him, waving his little arms and kicking his feet.

Keegan smiled down at Molly. “He won’t be sore by the end of this ride,” he said. “He’s got lots of padding.”

Molly was busy branding the sight of Keegan and Lucas, together on the back of a horse, into her memory. When she was back in Los Angeles living her old life, it might be—though painful—of some paradoxical comfort, too.

Jesse, meanwhile, produced another horse. A bay, already saddled, and a lot smaller than the one Keegan was riding.

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