Sarah's Legacy

“They’re cookies,” Trent said as Bailey stared down at the flat, rectangular alfalfa pellets.

“Not chocolate chip, I’d wager,” Bailey quipped.

He fought a smile. “Some people call them cake. Take your pick, but you’ll need them to get close enough to catch any of the horses.”

Bailey crooked her mouth and arched one eyebrow. “Spoiled, huh?” Her words should have sounded accusatory, but somehow they didn’t. Her whiskey voice seemed to carry indulgence.

“No,” Trent said defensively. Then he lost his battle with the smile that kept tugging at his mouth. “Well, maybe just a little.”

Bailey drew back and gazed solidly at him. Then her own lips curved. “You should do that more often. Smile, I mean. Looks better on you than that scowl you usually wear.”

Trent grunted and let the smile disappear. “I thought we were catching horses.”

“Okay, okay.” Bailey shook her head and gave her attention to Dokina once more. Trent watched as she crooned to the little mare and held out a cookie. Dokina perked her ears and stretched out her neck to investigate, taking a tentative step in Bailey’s direction. Two other mares came forward in response to the proffered treat. Immediately, Dokina pinned her ears and drove them away, teeth bared. The mares parted company with a volley of squeals and a show of back hooves, and all the while, Bailey stood her ground.

Trent shook his head and haltered Shafana, his favorite gray. He would have expected Bailey to run at the possibility of being smack-dab in the middle of a horse fight. But she only took a cautious step out of the way, then held the horse cookie out to Dokina once more. Though she fumbled with the halter a bit, she managed to slip it over the mare’s head and get it buckled into place.

Bailey looked at him, a triumphant grin spreading across her pretty face, and Trent’s heart did more than give a little jump. It was the first time he’d seen her smile with anything other than polite reserve, the first time he’d seen such an expression of pure, childlike joy on her face. He liked it, and that bothered him.

“Nothing to it,” Bailey said, walking toward him, leading Dokina.

Trent fell into step beside her with Shafana. The other mares followed, as he’d known they would. Some had marks from the wire on their legs and chests, but fortunately none was hurt beyond those few minor scrapes, which hadn’t done more than skin off small spots of hair and hide. A little nitrofurazone ointment would have them good as new.

Bailey’s eyes sparkled. “They’re beautiful.” She nodded toward a golden-red chestnut with flaxen mane and tail. “I love that one. What’s her name?”

“Bint Sihanna Bronnz.”

“Quite a mouthful,” Bailey said. “Is she for sale?”

He shook his head. “No. These are some of my broodmares. I raise and sell foals. I also travel around the show circuit, pick up horses here and there, then resell them.”

“I see. Well, I hadn’t planned on looking at your horses this way, but since I’m already here…”

He was quiet for a moment. And he hadn’t planned on being with her this way. Hell, he hadn’t really wanted to hang around her at all. Business was business and he’d agreed to show her what he had for sale, but he’d had every intention of doing so on his own terms, in his own time. Now, with Bailey walking toward the barn, leading Dokina and chatting with him as though she belonged right here, he felt confused and off balance. He’d tried hard to keep everything in his life orderly and mapped out since Amy had left him—since he’d lost Sarah. It was the only way he could deal with his emotions, the only way he seemed able to get through each day.

Bailey and her damn stray dog had upset all that.

“I’ve got time to show them to you now if you want,” he heard himself saying.

She turned that blasted heart-stopping smile on him once more. “That would be wonderful. Where would you like Dokina?”

AFTER HELPING TRENT put ointment on the mares that had gotten scraped, Bailey assisted him in turning them out in a paddock behind the barn and tried to pretend he had no effect on her whatsoever. It had to be the horses that had her stomach in knots…that was it. She hadn’t been around them much, and finding herself right in the middle of the group of mares was a little more than she’d bargained for, especially when they started to squabble over the horse cookies.

She hoped Trent hadn’t noticed the momentary scare Dokina gave her when the mare pinned her ears, bared her teeth and charged. But then Bailey realized the horse wasn’t after her at all—she was simply defending what she felt belonged to her. That Bailey could also relate to, and she’d immediately felt calm.

Now her heart was doing a little skip-hop. Damn it, why did Trent have to look so much better in blue jeans than any man she’d seen lately?

“So, are you ready for the grand tour?” Trent asked, pulling her from her musings.

“Sure.” She handed him the purple halter and lead rope, and he hung it on the fence and shouldered the one he’d removed from the gray mare.

“The saddle horses I have for sale are in the upper pasture,” he said.

“You’ve got a beautiful place here.” Bailey’s gaze swept Windsong Ranch. An adobe-style house, looking like something from a western movie, sprawled not far from the barn, beneath the shade of massive cottonwoods that circled the well-kept lawn. The pasture, fenced in either wire or white rail, stretched as far as the eye could see. The scent of horses, hay and wildflowers caught on the breeze and surrounded her, leaving Bailey with the impression that everything was neat, clean and in its proper place.

She wondered if that was the way Trent laid out his life day by day—nothing out of place, most especially his emotions. Telling herself she had no business analyzing the man, she turned her thoughts back to the ranch. “How many acres do you have here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Two hundred and fifty.”

“Wow. And I thought eighty was a lot.” She smiled. “It’s nice the way you put your house at the very back. Gives you some privacy.”

Trent didn’t smile. He shot her a funny look, then clamped his mouth shut as though he’d been going to say something but had decided not to at the last minute.

What was his problem?

He closed up more and more as they walked along, restricting his comments to information about the horses he had for sale. Bailey felt that he’d suddenly thrown a wall up between them, and she wondered why. Sure, he’d been angry at what the dog had done, and she’d acted a little defensive in return. But he’d seemed to warm to her while they worked to bring the horses in.

It was just as well that she keep her distance from him, Bailey decided as she followed Trent into the pasture, where a dozen-odd horses grazed.

“How experienced a rider are you?” Trent asked.

“Not very,” Bailey admitted. “I’ve taken some riding lessons, and I’ve been reading up on owning a horse.”

He grunted. “So that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you seem to know something about horses, yet don’t appear totally comfortable around them.”

She bristled. “I’ve learned a lot over the past few months, Mr. Murdock. I can assure you I plan to continue that route.”

“No need to get your back up,” he said. “I was just making an observation. And like I said at the bank, it’s Trent. Mr. Murdock is my father.”

“Only if you call me Bailey,” she said. Just because they kept their distance didn’t mean they had to be formal. After all, they were neighbors.

“Okay, Bailey. Let me tell you a little more about these horses.”

She walked beside him, listening as he went into detail about the good points—and bad—of each horse. His knowledge impressed her and his honesty took her by surprise. “I thought people who sold horses were only supposed to mention their good qualities and hide their bad,” she said. She’d recently read an article in Western Horseman entitled “Buyer Beware.”

“There are a lot of disreputable people in the horse business,” Trent agreed, “just as there are in any business. But I don’t work that way, Bailey. I want my customers to be satisfied and my horses to have a good home. They can’t have that unless I’m up-front in the first place.”

“Good point.”

“Not to say any of these horses are bad animals,” he went on. “I wouldn’t have them for sale if that was the case. But no horse is perfect.”

In her experience, animals were usually far more perfect than people, but she didn’t argue. “So, the little gray mare is hard to catch,” Bailey said. “But she’s a good solid riding mount.”

“The best,” Trent said. “She’s bombproof.”