Thrown By Love by Aares Pamela

Author:Aares, Pamela [Aares, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, woman's fiction, baseball, Contemporary, sports
Publisher: Pamela Aares
Published: 2014-03-05T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Chloe needed more than a walk to clear her head. Once again Scotty had shaken her world. She’d promised herself this would be a simple family visit, no shenanigans. But she was good at fooling herself, it seemed.

As she approached the barn, she saw a woman standing with her head up against a very handsome thoroughbred. The horse towered over her; it must’ve been sixteen hands high. But it nuzzled the woman and stood still and calm. Chloe stopped. She didn’t want to disturb them.

“You can come on over,” the woman said. Her voice had the same beautiful inflection as Scotty’s and his dad’s. But she couldn’t have seen Chloe; her back was turned.

Curious, Chloe approached slowly.

“This is Drake,” the woman said as she turned. “We’ve been discussing a few things.”

Chloe had never met a horse whisperer, but the woman with her sun-creased face fit her image of one by every measure.

“I’m Nanu,” she said. “Or, as Scotty calls me, G’maw. I know who you are.”

The horse nuzzled the woman again, and she said something Chloe couldn’t make out. The animal walked a few steps toward Chloe and stopped.

“You like horses?”

“I do,” Chloe said, reaching her hand to the horse’s soft muzzle. “But I haven’t had much time for them lately.”

“I can imagine,” G’maw said with a sly glint. “Does your family ride?”

The flip in Chloe’s stomach reminded her that she wasn’t on the other side of grief. The counselor she’d seen said moving through grief could take years. She hoped not. The bottomless sadness was an awful feeling.

“My parents—” She stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word dead. Not here. Not on this beautiful day. Not now. And she wasn’t going to cry. But a tear slipped out anyway. “My parents are no longer living.”

G’maw put her hands on her hips and faced Chloe. “Then you’ve come to the right place. There are no orphans around the Donovan clan.”

She took a step toward Chloe and folded her in her arms. A sense of safety and belonging washed through Chloe. Though she tried to swallow it, a sob rose up. She’d had more friendly hugs in one day here than in the past three or four months.

“Terrifying our guests again, G’maw?”

Scotty spoke from a few feet away, giving Chloe time to take a deep breath and step away from his grandmother. He enfolded G’maw in a tight hug and lifted a brow at Chloe before pulling a wadded paper towel from his pocket and holding it out to her. “Mom’s biscuits are the cure for everything. At least she thinks so. She’s usually right.”

Chloe accepted the biscuit and the crumpled paper towel, then used the towel to wipe at her cheeks. She should’ve felt embarrassed, but didn’t. Scotty shot her another questioning look. She shrugged, smiled at him and G’maw, and nibbled on the biscuit. Scotty pulled the apple from his other pocket and they watched Drake devour it.

“I’m pitching the pick-up game,” G’maw said with a chortle as she turned and walked away from them.

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