Not a day passed Gavin didn’t stare his many failures as a father square in the face and wish circumstances were different.
Picking up the stuffed cat, he set it on top of the coloring book. “Cassie’s kind of a neat freak. Always has been.”
His explanation appeared to appease Sage for her features softened. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”
Except he did know. This six-month trial he had with Cassie had been an unexpected gift. The result of her mother’s recent remarriage and pregnancy. He hated that he hadn’t immediately formed a close bond with Cassie, one like Sage and her daughter obviously shared. And he worried constantly that he’d lose Cassie before he ever really had her.
“Pull into the barn,” he told Sage. “That way, you can park in the shade.”
“Wow. You really did have some cattle operation.” Her gaze roamed the interior of the large barn. “I’m impressed.”
“Most of the equipment’s gone.” They’d sold it off piece by piece over the years.
“Yeah, but it wouldn’t take much to start up again.” Sage rotated the crank on the hitch, lowering the trailer’s front end.
Gavin went around to the rear of the trailer and placed the blocks of wood she’d given him behind the tires. “My plans are to turn it into a mare motel.”
“Really?” He could see she’d deduced his plans for the wild mustang. “It would make a good one.”
Gavin wondered if he should be less leery of Sage. She seemed genuinely nice and willing to make their agreement work.
“What time tomorrow are we starting?” She shut and locked the trailer’s storage compartment.
“We can’t head out until Saturday.”
“Oh.”
“I wasn’t expecting you. My day’s full.”
“Okay.” Disappointment showed in her face.
“I do have a free hour in the afternoon. Maybe you can come by. We’ll go over the maps and logs and decide on the best area to start looking.”
“Sounds good. Any chance I can bring my daughter? She loves horses. I keep promising to buy her a pony of her own and teach her to ride one of these days but just haven’t had the time.”
“We’ve got a dead broke horse we use for beginner students. She can ride him if she wants.” Gavin had no idea why he made the offer.
“Thank you. That’s very nice of you.” Her smile returned, brighter than before.
Maybe that was why.
As they were climbing back into the truck, her cell phone rang. She lifted it out of the cup holder and, with only a cursory glance at the screen, answered.
“Hi. I just finished parking my trailer.” A long pause followed during which she listened intently, her mouth pursed in concentration. “Yeah, hold on a second.” She dug through the pile in the middle of the seat, locating a notebook. “Go ahead.” She wrote something down that appeared to be directions, though Gavin couldn’t see clearly from where he sat in the passenger seat. “Great. Meet you in fifteen minutes.”
Snapping the notebook closed, she started the truck. “I’m sorry to be so abrupt, but I have to leave.”
“No problem. Three o’clock tomorrow okay? To meet here,” he added when she didn’t immediately respond.
“Oh, yeah.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Three o’clock.”
After she dropped Gavin off in front of the house, he stood for a moment watching her truck bump down the long sloping driveway leading to the main road.
Apparently she knew someone in Mustang Village.
He didn’t like that his curiosity was piqued. He liked the anticipation he felt at seeing her again tomorrow even less.
SAGE REACHED THE BASE of the mountain and merged with the light traffic traveling east. A quarter mile up the road, she spotted a stone sign marking the main entrance to Mustang Village. Next to the sign stood a life-size and very realistic bronze statue of a rearing horse.
Just inside the entrance was a modest shopping plaza with retail stores, a bank, fresh food market, urgent care center and two restaurants, one fast-food, one sit-down. Situated behind the shopping plaza was a commercial building with offices on the first floor and apartments on the second. Stretching beyond that were acres and acres of houses as far as she could see.
What had it been like when all this was once an endless rolling valley at the base of a scenic mountain range? She could almost envision it in her mind’s eye.
Gavin’s family had probably made a killing when they sold the land, but Sage wasn’t sure she could have traded glorious and primitive desert for a sea of commercial and residential development.
A second sign directed her to the visitors’ center. She turned into the parking lot, shut off the ignition and, as instructed, waited for her cousin’s husband.
As the minutes dragged by, Sage’s nervousness increased. She tried distracting herself by observing life at midafternoon in Mustang Village.
It was, she had to agree, a unique and almost genius blending of country life and town life. Cars drove by at a very safe fifteen miles per hour while an empty school bus returned from delivering children home. Exercise enthusiasts walked or jogged or biked along the sidewalks, and people on horseback rode the designated bridle paths networking the community. As the warning signs posted everywhere stated, horses had the right of way in Mustang Village.
Finally, just when Sage was ready to get out of her truck and start pacing, her cousin’s husband arrived, his SUV slipping into the space beside hers.
She greeted him with a relieved hug. He’d been at work when she stopped by their house earlier to drop off Isa, so she’d yet to see him.
“Thank you, Roberto,” she told him when they broke apart. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”
“Happy to help, primita.”
Calling her “little cousin” always made Sage smile. At five-eight, he was no more than an inch taller than her. When she wore boots, like today, they stood nose to nose.
Not so with Gavin Powell. Even in boots, she’d had to tilt her head back in order to meet those vivid blue eyes of his.
Why had she thought of him all of a sudden?
“We’d better get a move on,” Roberto said. “Before he figures out you’re in the area and takes off.”
“You have the paperwork?” she asked, hopping in the passenger side of his SUV.
“Right here.” Roberto tapped the front of his suit jacket.
He’d used his firm’s resources to locate Sage’s ex—again. This time, she assured herself, would be different. Dan wouldn’t be able to disappear before they had a chance to personally serve him with the child support demand papers.
She marveled at his ability to jump from place to place, always one step ahead of her. As a horse trainer, a good one, he easily found work all over the Southwest. He was also often paid in cash or by personal check, which had made garnishing his wages nearly impossible.
To her knowledge, this was the first time he’d returned to Arizona in two years.
“He sure picked a nice spot,” she observed, taking in the attractive houses with their tidy front yards, each landscaped with natural desert fauna to conserve water. The homes sat on three-quarter acre lots, with small corrals and shaded pens visible in the spacious backyards.
“Very