“Thank you for letting me ride him, Mr. Bronson,” Avery said as she turned to Callan.
“Of course, Avery. And you can call me Callan, okay?”
“Okay,” she responded.
“What day do you want to come back?” I asked Avery, leaving it up to her.
Her jaw dropped as she gasped, like she couldn’t contain her excitement at the thought of coming back. “I get to ride again?”
I nodded.
She squealed and charged me, wrapping her arms around my waist. I stumbled back a step, a light laugh escaping me. “Tomorrow!” she shouted, her voice muffled against my lightweight flannel.
“We have to go to the cafe tomorrow, but how about the next day?”
Avery looked up at me. “Yes!” She turned to Callan, her arms still wrapped around me. “Can we come the day after tomorrow?”
I knew that giving her the option would lead to this, but he didn’t seem to mind at all.
He smiled at her and it was like everything in the universe stopped and narrowed down on that look alone. “That sounds perfect to me.”
It sounded perfect to me, too.
6
Callan
Lennon sat in the wood chair beside me, his legs kicked out in front of him as he sipped his whiskey. I’d opted for a cold beer—perfect for this warm night. We’d been on my porch for about twenty minutes now. Lennon told me all about his day at work and how a pipe broke in the bathroom, flooding the back of Tumbleweed Feed.
“Sage came by today with Avery,” I told Len after he was done ranting.
His gaze moved from the field to me. “No shit?”
I took a sip from the long neck, hoping the cool liquid would keep my cheeks from heating at the thought of Sage and her ponytail. “You sound surprised.”
He propped an elbow on the arm of the chair. “I just didn’t expect her to come.”
That got my attention. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I’ve known Sage for quite some time now, given she’s usually at the cafe in the mornings, and typically, she never seems to let the stress get to her. But lately, she’s seemed a bit…frazzled?”
Frazzled? What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
“Maybe she’s got something going on at home,” I guessed.
Lennon frowned at me. “With Avery? I don’t know about that.”
“Doesn’t she have a husband or something?” I asked, though after our conversation at dinner, I knew it was a foolish thing to ask. Lennon wouldn’t try to set me up with a married woman.
Lennon’s look deepened, his brows pulling lower. “Did you see a damn ring on her finger?”
“No.” And yeah, I’d admit, I looked. Just because I wasn’t really wanting a relationship right now didn’t mean I couldn’t be curious.
He looked back out at the field. “I don’t know the story there.”
“Maybe it’s just the stress of being a single mom, then.” Because I was guessing she didn’t have a boyfriend, either. Though I couldn’t say for sure. Someone as pretty as Sage was bound to have a man in her life.
He shook his head. “She’s had it pretty under control as long as I’ve known her.”
“Every day is different, Len. Especially with a child. If teaching lessons has taught me anything, it’s that kids fluctuate day to day. They’re growing, physically and mentally, which means they can be moody.”
Len arched a brow, swirling his whiskey in his glass. “Moody, huh? That’s what you got from Avery?”
“No. Moody was the last thing I got from Avery. She was so damn excited, she couldn’t stop talking.” A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth at the memory. That girl was the spitting image of her mother.
“Avery’s a little chatterbox, that’s for sure.”
It was adorable.
I shook the thoughts from my head. They were just clients. Every kid was adorable.
But Avery had that little spark to her, and if I had to guess, it was her mom that kept that spark lit. You didn’t see so much joy in life without being unconditionally loved. I’d seen it on Sage’s face as she watched Avery ride today. She was so happy for her, but through it, worry still shone on her face. I just couldn’t tell if it was worry for Avery on the horse, or something else.
“I offered her more lessons,” I told Len.
He looked shocked as he turned to me again. “For free?”
“Well, I tried. Sage insisted she had to do something in return for them, so I told her to bring pastries for the ranch.”
