Coming Home to You by Fay Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

those words, Hayes.”
    “Yeah? Well, you have to ride over here first,” he pointed out.
    “Come on, Miss Kate,” Shondra yelled. “You can do it.” She started clapping and chanting, “Go…go…go…” The others quickly joined in.
    She touched her heels to the horse’s sides and loosened the tension on the reins. The horse began to move. When it tried to break into a trot, she pulled back gently and it slowed to a walk. When she reached Bret, still mounted and still holding the reins, the children whooped their delight. Even those who’d bet against her clapped.
    “Well, it’s about time,” he said. “At least you didn’t fall on your—” he remembered the kids were listening “—backside.”
    “Gee, Hayes, watch out. All that lavish praise might go to my head.”
    “You did okay.”
    “Okay? Is that the best compliment you can come up with?” She looked to the children for help. “Was it just okay ?” she asked them.
    “You were super-endous,” one child yelled.
    “Outta sight,” said another.
    “See,” Morgan told him smugly. “I was superendous.”
    Bret smiled. He couldn’t help himself. She was so damn outrageous at times.
    She gasped. “Well, I’ll be… You actually have teeth!”
    His brow wrinkled in confusion. “Wh-what?”
    “You hardly ever smile. You always look like you’ve gotten a whiff of something foul. I was beginning to think your teeth were bad, or maybe you’dirritated the wrong person and he—or she—knocked them out.”
    “I’ve occasionally had people threaten to knock them out, but I assure you they’re intact.” He gave her his best fake smile.
    “Oh, very nice. Perfect, as a matter of fact.”
    “Thanks. My stepfather would be overjoyed to hear you say that, considering how much work he did on them.”
    “Oh, that’s right, he’s a dentist, isn’t he?”
    “Uh, yeah. Retired now.” He cleared his throat with nervousness. That was a stupid mistake. “You have a nice smile, too.”
    She cocked her head and grinned. “Why, thank you.”
    The children giggled and made smooching sounds.
    “All right, cut it out,” he warned them good-naturedly. He steered the conversation toward a more comfortable topic, patting the horse and telling Kate they’d ride out so he could show her the rest of the ranch.
    “Am I ready for that?” she asked.
    “Yeah, but listen to what I tell you and do exactly as I say. Exactly . No goofing off for the kids.”
    “Okay. You’re the boss.”
    He lifted a dark eyebrow at the comment.
    “A mere slip of the tongue,” she said quickly.
    T OM OPENED the gate and the “wagon train,” as one of the kids called it, began its journey. Hayes went out first, with Henry sitting on the horse in front of him. Kate moved to his left side, wanting him close in case her horse decided to act up.
    “Don’t go too fast,” he warned as the other children passed them and took off at breakneck speed.
    The road wound through pastures where round bales of freshly cut hay dotted the ground, and more hay, waiting to be cut, rippled in the wind. Henry, Kate quickly discovered, could be counted on to fill the brief moments of silence. His fascination with the scenery exceeded his vocabulary. He entertained them by periodically calling out the names of things he saw.
    “Burrrd,” he said when a colorful bird flew past and landed on the barbed-wire fence.
    “Eastern bluebird,” Hayes said. “And what sound does a bird make?”
    “Tweee,” Henry answered.
    Farther down the road Hayes motioned to the right. “We lease the hay fields to a cattle farm nearby, and, over that rise, is a pecan orchard that produces a good crop and income for the ranch each year.”
    “I’m impressed,” she told him, a major understatement. From everything she’d seen, the ranch ran efficiently and utilized its natural resources. The administrator, Jane Logan, had given Kate a tour, and she appeared competent and genuinely enthusiastic about her