Chapter Seven
She was staring at him in such stunned surprise that Miles felt as if he had to explain. “That painting inspired Stonewall. And actually, it’s what brought Jeremy and Jackson here.”
“What…how…?”
She sounded like he felt, a little stunned.
What were the odds that he would have somehow ended up standing in the very place the artist behind the painting he’d bought on impulse, because he liked the blue of the flowers and the expansive roll of the hills, had painted it?
The painting that had indeed inspired his most successful project yet, despite its rather chaotic end.
“It is,” Jeremy said now, as solemnly as a nearly eight-year-old could. “I used to look at it, a lot. And one day I told my dad I wished it was real so we could go there. An’ he said it was. So we came here.”
“Who was the artist?” Riley asked, sounding still a bit doubtful.
“His initials are K.R.,” Jeremy answered before Miles could speak. “I saw ’em in the corner and Dad told me.”
He wasn’t sure, out here on this sunny almost winter day, but he thought she went slightly pale.
“I’ve got the paperwork filed away,” Miles said. “But I bought it a very long time ago. Before I bought that house it’s in.” Long before I could afford that house on the beach.
“Kyle Rafferty,” she whispered, and he had no doubts now. This had struck hard.
And he knew the name. Rafferty, at least. He’d heard it most recently about the new photos in the Thorpe’s Therapy Horses office. The photographer had been a Rafferty. And the guy who had gotten Jeremy his dog, he’d been a Rafferty as well.
Jeremy was looking at her now. “Rafferty? Like Mr. Chance, and Mr. Keller? Lucas’s dad now?” he asked.
He’d forgotten that one, that one of the Raffertys had adopted a boy whose parents had been killed, and that boy had talked to Jeremy early on about the pain of it, and Miles remembered Jackson saying it had really seemed to help.
“Just like,” she answered Jeremy quietly. “He was their father. A brilliant artist. But his first calling was the military, and he was killed overseas many years ago.”
Miles thought he remembered Jackson telling him something about that, too, that when it had happened Keller Rafferty had stepped up to become a father figure to his younger siblings, much as Shane Highwater had for his.
Must be something in the water here. All this taking responsibility.
But all he could think of to say, and that wonderingly, was, “What are the odds I’d end up with one of his paintings?”
“I was about to ask the same thing. I know he painted a lot out here when he was home on leave. There are several folks here in Last Stand who have them—I have a couple—and a few more across Texas, but I hadn’t heard he’d ever expanded to California.”
“I didn’t buy it there. I bought it in an art gallery in Seattle.”
Her expression cleared a little. “Oh. That makes a little sense then. If I remember right, he was stationed at an army base near there for a while.” She tilted her head slightly, and there was an intensity in her dark blue eyes that had him a little on edge. “Why did you buy it?”
That caught him a little off guard. “I liked it.”
Well, that was lame, Mr. Convincer.
He knew about the nickname some in Hollywood had given him, but he didn’t feel it particularly fitting right now.
“It…spoke to me. A cliché, I know, but it did. It looks endless and made me think about…possibilities. In a way it reminded me of the way the ocean rolls on and on, endlessly. So it seemed to fit.”
“Huh,” Jeremy said, his brow furrowed. “It does kinda look like the ocean outside your house.”
Miles smiled and reached out to tousle the boy’s hair. He’d always wondered why people seemed to want to do that, but now he understood it must be built into humans when around their young.
“Beach house, huh?”
He looked at Riley when she spoke. Her tone had been neutral. A little too neutral? He shrugged. “Depends who you ask. Some would say shack.”
“I like your house,” Jeremy said. “People at least have to climb over rocks to look at you.”
“Exactly why I bought that one, buddy,” he said, smiling at the boy. He looked back at Riley. “It’s pretty hidden, and too much of a pain for most people.”
“Dad says most people want to show off that they c’n buy a house there.”
Jeremy said it solemnly, so Miles stifled his smile. “Your dad’s a really smart guy.”
“I know,” Jeremy said simply. Then he shifted his gaze to Riley. “C’n we see yours?”
Miles’s first thought was how much different that might have sounded if he’d said it. But he trusted this woman to see the child’s earnestness and knew when she smiled sweetly at him that she had.
“I think we can arrange that, Jeremy.” The sweet smile suddenly turned to a grin. “That is, if you can keep up with me getting back to the house.”
Jeremy frowned. “That’s not fair. We have a car.”
“I have King,” she said. “And,” she added, the grin widening, “I don’t need a road.”
She took off at a run for the horse that was ground-tied at the bottom of the slope. For a moment Miles just stared at her, at the agile way she dodged boulders and never missed a step.
“C’mon, Uncle Miles,” Jeremy yelped. “She’s gonna beat us!”
He wasn’t quite sure when or how this had become a race, but apparently it had. The boy had scrambled into the SUV and had the door shut before Miles even had his open.
“Belt up,” he said when he got into the driver’s seat. “This could get bumpy.”
Jeremy was grinning now as he watched the woman run.
And then she reached the horse, who seemed to have realized something was up.
He’d lifted his head and was watching, even shifted slightly so he was sideways to her approach, which puzzled Miles…
until he saw her take what looked like the proverbial flying leap and land neatly in the saddle.
He thought he saw one hand take the saddle horn, but she’d never even touched the stirrups.
She leaned down and grabbed the reins—two separate, split reins, not the loop kind—pulling them up with care not to pull on his mouth, Miles noticed.
And then, before he even had the engine started—maybe because he’d been too busy watching her—and the SUV turned around, she was heading full tilt down the hill toward the ranch house they’d stopped at.
He’d heard the old phrase “born to the saddle” a few times. Being a bit of a word purist, he’d thought it must be different than just experienced, competent, or even expert.
He’d been right. Because even as good as Nic was, she’d never made it look like this.
Never made it look as if horse and rider were one being, with no visible commands needed because they were so melded, mind and body.
With Nic there was no doubt who was in charge, who was giving the orders.
With Riley Garrett, it seemed like no orders were needed.
She beat them by a good minute. By the time they pulled to a halt, she had already dismounted and was walking the horse toward them. Jeremy scrambled out of the car again and ran over to them. And immediately began patting the horse’s nose.
“Wow, he’s fast!”
“He is,” she agreed, smiling proudly now.
Jeremy’s head tilted in that way Miles knew meant he was trying to figure something out. “You said he was retired. That’s what my dad says about my grandpa and grandma. But doesn’t that mean you’re old?”
“Barrel racing is pretty hard on a horse. I retired him at five, after we broke fourteen seconds on a run. I retired from the circuit then, too. Figured we’d never top that.”
“I remember, in that video Nic showed me,” the boy said, a touch of awe in his voice. “She said that was a record.”
“It was. Still is, in a lot of places. So now he’s ten. That’s a bit old for a barrel racer, but not that bad for a horse. And as you saw, he can still turn it on.” Riley looked for all the world as if she were enjoying this greatly. “I told you his official name,” she began.
“An’ that you just call him King,” Jeremy said with a nod.
“Yes. But do you know what the people on the circuit, the ones we competed against, used to call him?”
“What?”
“King Kong.”
Miles guessed the reference was a bit lost on the soon-to-be eight-year-old, but it wasn’t lost on him, and he let out a full-on laugh. She gave him a sideways glance, as if the joke had been intended for him anyway.
“It’s an old movie about a giant ape on a destroying rampage,” he explained to Jeremy. “A film some people feel compelled to remake every few decades,” he added, rather dryly.
“Oh.” Jeremy shrugged and went back to petting the horse’s nose.
“You don’t sound happy about that,” Riley said.
He shrugged in turn. “I miss originality these days.”
She seemed to hesitate, then said, “I’m not surprised, given your choice of projects.” He blinked. She grimaced. “Nic told me, so I’m not completely oblivious.”
“I never, ever would have thought you were,” he said.
And he meant it. He might think her many, many things—gorgeous, smart, fearless—but not oblivious.
He had the feeling being around her might be a bit easier if she was.