“I can feel him,” she said. “Ohmygosh, he’s breathing right down my neck. Is he following me?”
“Like a dog.”
She moved a little faster. She slowed down. She turned, she doubled back on herself. The horse stayed right with her, taking her cues effortlessly, devoted to her as his new leader.
Finally, Ty allowed her to turn and pet Ben some more.
“You were right,” she breathed. “Oh, Ty, that was the most fun ever.”
“Actually, the most fun is still to come. You think you might like to ride him?”
“Oh,” she said, “I don’t know.”
“I’ll ride him, and then you can decide.”
He went into the barn and retrieved the tack. He showed her how to brush the horse, was aware of how intent her attention was on him as he saddled and bridled the young colt.
He got on in an easy swing. Now Ty was completely in his world. He felt his own energy and the energy of the colt merging. He felt the balance between them.
He didn’t so much ride the horse as dance with him. A few gentle laps around the paddock at a walk, and reversing direction, at a trot. And then, he let the rein loose, gave the slightest pressure with his knees.
The colt moved into an easy lope. He slid him to a halt with pressure and signals that no one could see, that were strictly between him and the horse. They loped the other way.
He glanced at Amy. She was awestruck.
He’d done enough for one day. But what guy didn’t love a girl looking at him like that?
He nudged Ben forward, toward the place of freedom. The horse moved out of a lope into a hard gallop. Ty leaned forward, drinking in the air and the scent of the colt. Peripherally he was aware of Amy and the baby in the center.
And it was all one.
A wonderful blur of oneness.
It was a vulnerable moment of choice. He could show her all of who he was, or he could hold back something.
But wasn’t the purpose to make her want to be who she truly was?
He dropped the loop of the reins over the saddle horn, and spread his arms wide and tilted his chin up, closing his eyes against the falling snow.
It was complete trust.
Not just in himself. Not just in the horse. Not just in her reaction to all this.
It was complete trust in life.
He lost himself in it, came back only reluctantly. He took up the reins again, and then he stopped and rode the horse into the center, where she was staring at him.
“I have never seen anything like that,” she said. “Not ever. I will never forget it as long as I live.”
It was like a promise, and he knew he had succeeded in giving her something.
He was aware he had taken a giant risk. He had shown her exactly who he was, and then he knew it had been worth it.
“I want that,” she said. “I want to go to that place, be in that place, live in that place.”
He bent down and brushed her curls from her face with a gloved fingertip. He realized the baby was probably getting very heavy for her to manage with one arm. He took the baby from her arms and set him in the saddle in front of him. They took a few turns around, and Ty thought of his father again, how some of his earliest memories were of this.
Sitting in the saddle in front of his dad, beginning to understand the language not just of horses, but of his life.
Was it the first time he had consciously realized the gift his father had given him?
What was it about her that was making him see his life in different ways?
He reminded himself of the goal. For her to see her life in a different way. He rode back to her, pulled his leg out of the far stirrup, slid out of the saddle with the baby still in his arms.
“Well, I guess if that’s what you want,” he said, “you better get on. Because you can’t start the trip without finding your ride.”
“I don’t think I could get on with two good arms,” she said doubtfully. “We should wait until I can use both arms. We should wait until it’s not snowing. We should—”
“You can always wait. You can always wait until everything is perfect and all the stars line up. But you’re going to miss a whole lot of what life is trying to give you right now.”
“What if I fall? What if I wreck my other arm. What if—”
He put his finger gently to her lips, and then he set the baby down. He picked her up, two hands around her waist, and lifted.
She was so light that he held her for a moment, like a dancer, or a pairs skater starting a lift.
And then he twisted ever so slightly and put her in the saddle.
“Pick up Jamey,” she said. She was clinging to the saddle horn with her visible hand. “He could get stepped on!”
He picked him up, but not before giving her a look that let her know it was his watch, and no babies were getting stepped on on his watch. That horse would not move a muscle without Ty’s okay, or some instruction from her.
“I don’t want you to be afraid anymore. That’s what I want you to take from this. That’s what I want you to remember forever. Now pick up the rein with your good hand. Attagirl. Just squeeze him ever so gently with your legs and then release.”
The horse walked out. And in front of his eyes, Ty watched as Amy’s fear dissolved into something else.
And this time Ty knew he was going to be the one never to forget.
“Whoa, boy,” she said a while later as he helped her down, and she watched him strip the saddle and blanket off the horse. “Baking bread is not going to be able to compete with this in the fun department.”
“It’s going to be whatever we make it,” he told her.
And then he looked at the sky. There was no sign of the snow letting up. None. If anything, it seemed to be snowing harder than when they had first come out.
And so there was no sign of their forced togetherness coming to an end.
And that, too, would be whatever they made it.
Ty’s house still smelled of fresh-baked bread, even though it had been more than twenty-four hours since they had made it.
The smell alone made his mouth water.
“Do you want some toast,” he said, “and jam?”
The baby was bathed and in bed. Ty sprawled out on the couch, his arm thrown up over his forehead, his eyes closed.
Amy turned from the window. “You have not stopped eating since I got here!”
“You have not stopped cooking since you got here.”
“We,” she reminded him.
“No man who has been cooking for himself as long as I have could resist that bread. Amy, it is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
That was not exactly true. The best thing he had ever tasted had been her lips, and after the best part of three days in each other’s company, he was fighting himself constantly.
“It’s all in the kneading,” she said, glanced again at him, something hot flashing through her eyes when he deliberately flexed his kneading muscles for her.
“How do you do this all by yourself?” he asked a few minutes later, coming back into the living room with a plate heaped with toast.