15. Beau #2
“You did great,” Daisy tells him when we’re standing together between the horses.
Ollie’s eyes shine. “Do you mean it?”
“I do. That may be the best I’ve seen a kid ride for his first time.”
“Did you see me, Uncle Beau?” Ollie asks. “How did I look?”
“Like a real cowboy,” I reply. “But much more important than how you looked—how did you feel?”
He takes off his helmet, and his flushed cheeks puff out with a smile. “Really good!”
I set a hand on his slender shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”
His joy lights him up like I’ve never seen, and I glance at Daisy, who watches Ollie with a surprising mix of pride and pleasure.
“He’s a natural,” she says.
“Yeah. He is.”
Our eyes meet and hold for a half dozen beats of my racing heart.
The gold flecks in her hazel eyes are exactly as I remember them, and the instinct to move closer still exists in my body.
It hurts to ignore it, but I do. All this pretending like we don’t know each other, never loved each other, is harder than I thought it would be.
I’m the first to look away. “Let’s take care of the horses,” I say.
Daisy and Izzy help untack, pulling off the leather and hosing away the sweat, brushing coats and checking hooves.
Izzy twitters beside Ollie the entire time, and my nephew seems a little dazzled by her energy.
I’m grateful for it, because it keeps Daisy’s attention on the kids.
We work side by side in silence, with the kind of affinity that proves we’ve done this before, and the process takes less time than it would without them.
There’s always more work to be done in a stable, but Daisy has no trail rides this afternoon, so there’s no reason for her to linger, and it’s a relief. I want to be near her so badly that I need space to get my head on straight again.
“We’re going into the house for ice cream,” Izzy announces, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s talking to me. “Do you want some?”
“Uh.” I look at Daisy, her face smooth, then at Ollie, who stands beside Izzy with hope clutched between his clasped hands.
“Your Aunt Daisy doesn’t have a refrigerator,” I say stupidly.
“It was delivered yesterday,” Daisy replies.
“Right.”
“Can we?” Ollie begs. “Please?”
“I don’t know, buddy,” I say carefully. “There’s still work to do.”
His face falls, and Daisy jumps in. “Boss says you’ve earned a break,” she says. “Come on. I’ve got chocolate sauce and marshmallows too.”
Daisy walks ahead with the kids, and I follow, feeling like an interloper. Inside the house, Izzy bolts for the kitchen, and Ollie runs after her.
“Wash your hands!” Daisy calls after them, and almost instantly, the water runs at full force in the next room.
The clink and clatter of silverware against ceramic bowls comes next, and I watch from the living room as Daisy helps the kids scoop balls of vanilla ice cream, which they top with sauce and candy.
“Still don’t have a dining table,” Daisy says. She hasn’t looked directly at me since that moment in the paddock. “So how about you kids eat this out on the porch steps? If you make a mess, I can hose you down like the horses.”
Izzy giggles first, then Ollie follows with an uncertain chuckle, and the pair balance their bowls and spoons as Daisy ushers them onto the back porch.
They sit side by side on the top step, close enough that their shoulders press together, and I wish Ollie had been given a life like this from the start.
If I let myself think about it, the outrage that his childhood has been anything but easy grows too great to bear.
Daisy hangs back in the kitchen, putting away the ice cream before it melts.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I say.
“Ollie’s a good kid,” she replies, busying herself with a wet sponge and wiping away the drips of sugar on the counter. “I like him.”
“Yeah, he is.” I pull the credit card from my back pocket, then the bundle of receipts, and set it all on the counter. “It might take me some time to pay it back, but I’ll send checks from Kismet Creek.”
Daisy stops wiping and stares at the card. “You’re different.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Well, I do. In the entire time I’ve known you, you never once asked for a favor.
You never asked for help or admitted you couldn’t do something on your own.
You were proud to the point of painful. If someone said you couldn’t, you’d do it just to prove them wrong.
You’d break before you bent. And now…” She glances once at Ollie. “You’re different.”
Daisy’s description of me pokes at old wounds of worthlessness.
I was only ever proud and stubborn and so fucking selfish because I had something to prove, and that began to crumble when Daisy came into my life.
It fell apart altogether when I was made provider and protector of a little boy who needs me.
Ollie suddenly laughs, and Izzy giggles along with him. Their bowls sit empty on the porch boards alongside them.
“I’ve got work to finish before we head home,” I say roughly. “I’ll get Ollie cleaned up and head out.”
Daisy glares at me, and it seems like she’s going to push it, and for a moment, I want her to. There’s so much boiling inside me, and so much between us we haven’t said, that I’d jump at the chance to argue, but in the end, she shakes her head and throws the sponge into the sink.
“Have you changed?” she asks, her back turned. “Or was I too oblivious to notice you were always scared of your own shadow?”
I blink at how close she comes to the truth. “I was always scared,” I say. “Just not in the way you think.”
I step outside before she can answer and leave her staring out the kitchen window behind me.