Smoky Mountain Home

“The board,” Jayne repeated firmly, “believes the current facility is unsafe for the students.”

Ruth Ann characterized that opinion with a single rude word.

“Maybe,” Jayne conceded with a tilt of her head. “We’ve never had an accident involving the building itself. And,” she said before Ruth Ann could, “we’ve never had a girl seriously hurt while riding. You’re a great trainer and instructor, Ruth Ann. You’re a terrific therapist—you and your horses have made a real difference for a number of girls the rest of us had just about given up on.” The Hawkridge School served as a refuge and, often, a last resort for girls whose emotional problems had driven them into troublesome, even dangerous, behavior.

Blinking hard, Ruth Ann said, “I’m glad. I love my job.”

“Good. What we’re going to have to do is find some way to compromise on the stable. I don’t know what that means, yet, except that you’ll need to cooperate with Jonah Granger as he works on the design.”

“Why can’t he design a renovation?” Ruth Ann sat forward in her chair. “The old barn needs some work, some updating, sure. Can’t Granger simply fix what’s wrong and leave what’s right?”

“That’s not what he does.”

“Then find someone who will.”

“The board wants Granger. He built a house and barn for Miriam’s sister up in Connecticut, and she’s just wild about his work.”

“So let him build something new for her. He can leave my barn alone.”

Jayne’s brown eyes were kind, but she said, “It’s not actually your barn, Ruth Ann.”

“My dad took care of it until the day he died. Literally—his heart stopped while he was sweeping the aisle that night.”

“I know.”

“My grandfather and his father before him worked in that barn taking care of the estate’s horses. How am I supposed to walk away from that?”

“It’s just stone and wood, sweetie. You and the horses are what matters. Those would be the same in a new stable.”

“I don’t think so.” Ruth Ann got to her feet. “Call me superstitious or just plain weird, but my barn is a special place. The horses know it and the girls know it—the ones who really care, anyway. Moving the equestrian program to a new stable would be a mistake.”

Jayne stood up. “As a friend, I’m asking you to cooperate. Please…for my sake?”

Ruth Ann frowned at her. “Unfair.” Then she sighed. “Okay. For your sake, I will listen to what he has to say. Are you going to ask him to do the same?”

“Of course.”

“For all the good that will do,” Ruth Ann muttered, once she’d closed the office door between herself and the headmistress. “I’ll bet my bottom dollar that Jonah Granger listens to no one’s opinion but his own!”

RUTH ANN BLAKELY was not what he’d anticipated.

Jonah admitted he’d been expecting someone like his ex-wife, Darcy’s mother—slim and neat, with polished boots, hair combed into a sleek ponytail and a lipstick smile. More, he’d expected to be listened to, consulted, and then given the go-ahead on the stable project.

Instead, she’d laughed at him, dammit. Made fun of his plans. He simply couldn’t believe it. What did she know about architecture, anyway? She spent her days mucking out stalls and teaching kids to ride. Who did she think she was, criticizing his work?

He’d known she was trouble as soon as she entered the conference room—late, to begin with—after Jayne Thomas had introduced him and he’d started his presentation. Her skepticism, her resistance to his project, had surrounded her like a force field. He doubted a word he’d said had gotten through.

She certainly hadn’t gone to any trouble to impress him. She’d stalked in wearing riding breeches, dusty boots and a T-shirt with a huge green smear across the front, as if some horse had used her for its napkin. Face shaded by the baseball cap she hadn’t taken off, her damp ponytail drooping through the hole in the back, she’d conveyed quite clearly that he was interrupting her important work. As she’d stomped out again, he’d noticed that she was tall, well built on generous lines, and furious.

Well, that made two of them.

Darcy stirred in the seat beside him, and Jonah realized he should be talking with her instead of silently venting his frustrations. “So what did you think of the school?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s okay.”

He refused to be daunted. “The Hawkridge estate was built in the early 1900s as a wealthy businessman’s personal home. His daughter turned it into a school in the 1960s.”

His stepdaughter yawned. “Looks like a castle. Maybe it’s haunted.”

Jonah chuckled. “Maybe.” When she didn’t say anything else, he tried again. “I thought the headmistress was pleasant. She doesn’t seem like the type to be hiding instruments of torture in her office.”

After a long silence, Darcy said, “The riding teacher was nice.”

So much for diverting his thoughts from the belligerent Ms. Blakely. “What did you talk about?”

“Riding. She said the right horse would make it less scary.”

Nice of her, giving an opinion on something she knew nothing about. On the other hand, Darcy needed all the encouragement she could get. “Maybe you can do some riding when you’re at school.”

“Mom told me I was useless around horses.”

“Your mother…” Jonah clamped down on the impulse to speak his mind concerning his ex-wife. “She was upset that day, Darcy. You’d just fallen off and broken your arm. The horse was still running loose. You know she didn’t mean what she said.”

He glanced over, and saw that Darcy’s long-fingered hands were clamped into fists in her lap. “She said it later, too. While they were putting the cast on my arm.”

“Damn her.” This time the curse erupted before he could stop it. He couldn’t believe even Brittany would be so cruel to her own daughter. Brittany, of course, hadn’t bothered to confess what she’d said until a month later, while they sat on opposite sides of the emergency room waiting for the doctors to pump half a bottle of pain pills out of Darcy’s stomach.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Obviously, I have some serious problems with your mother, or else I’d still be married to her.” He wanted to share a smile with Darcy, but she was staring out the window. “You’re with me now, so don’t worry about getting hassled like that anymore.”

She didn’t turn around. Finally, though, she murmured, “The teachers…”

“The teachers at Hawkridge are there to help you, and not just with schoolwork. They’re more like friends you can count on to listen and support you when you’re having problems.” He hoped so, anyway, for Darcy’s sake. No thirteen-year-old girl should be desperate enough to attempt suicide.

His stomach rumbled, and Jonah switched to a more cheerful topic. “It’s been a long afternoon and I’m starving. How do you feel about pizza for supper? I hear there’s a pretty good place in town. We could stop there before we go back to the hotel.”

Darcy gave him another of those defeated shrugs. “Pizza’s fattening.”

More of her mother’s wisdom, no doubt. “We’ll walk around town afterwards, look in the shop windows and work off the calories.” His stepdaughter didn’t answer. “Or we could go swimming in the hotel’s heated pool.”

“I can’t wear a swimsuit.”

“Darcy…” Jonah started to protest, but pulled himself up short. He wasn’t sure what the right response would be—as the only child of two only children, he lacked the sisters and female cousins who might have provided experience. His instincts about women were obviously lousy, otherwise he would never have gotten involved with Brittany…or Cindi or Annelise or Jacqueline…in the first place.

At least Brittany was the only mistake he’d married.

“Well,” he said, braking as they approached the town limit of Ridgeville, “most pizza restaurants offer salads, too. But I hope you’ll have a piece or two of the pizza. Otherwise, I’ll have to eat the whole thing myself. And then I’ll have to walk for hours to work it off. I might not get to sleep tonight.”

He thought he heard a snort of amusement from Darcy. He’d take that as progress.