Читать книгу Her Sure Thing - Helen Brenna - Страница 12

“SEE YOU TWO IN THE MORNING.” Sean walked through his clinic waiting room after his last appointment of the day.

“Have a good afternoon, Doctor,” replied Donna, his office manager.

“See you later, Dr. Griffin,” his nurse, Kelly, said, smiling.

No matter how many times he asked them, he couldn’t get those two to refer to him as Sean. Donna, a stout woman in her late fifties, had insisted it wasn’t proper in a medical clinic to call the doctor anything except doctor, and Kelly, a pretty young—too young for Sean—redhead who’d moved to Mirabelle only last summer, wasn’t about to cross Donna no matter how much she wanted to flirt with Sean.

Sean left the clinic and headed toward home. Although being the only physician on the island also meant being on call 24/7, limiting his clinic hours to mornings during the summer tourist season left him afternoons and evenings for his new business venture.

He reached the top of Mirabelle’s hill and headed straight through the residential section toward the outer edge of town. After walking through the main gate to his property, Sean nodded at Eric, his stable manager who, along with a couple other wranglers, was taking a group of tourists out on trail ride through Mirabelle’s state park land.

“Everything going okay?” Sean asked, stepping onto his front porch.

“Yes, sir,” Eric answered. “Had two full groups this morning and have another two scheduled this afternoon.”

“Great.” As the line of horses left the main yard, Sean opened his front door, stepped inside and immediately stumbled over a pair of shoes left smack-dab in the middle of the hall. Austin’s shoes.

He glanced around. It’d taken him several months to get this house exactly the way he’d wanted it, updated and refreshed, neat and ordered, but he’d finally managed. It had taken Austin less than a week to wreak havoc.

The kid was like a tornado. He’d thrown his sweatshirt over a chair. A pair of his socks were lying on the floor in the family room. An empty pop can sat on an end table, along with several sweat rings from other drinks. A cell phone, personal music device and both chargers were strewn across one of the kitchen counters. An empty milk carton sat next to the kitchen sink along with several dirty dishes and the jar of peanut butter and there were bread crumbs scattered everywhere.

Only three months. You can do it.

After changing out of his doctor garb for his preferred mode of dress—jeans and a T-shirt—he rapped on Austin’s closed bedroom door. “Austin, time to get up.”

No response.

“Austin?”

Still nothing.

“Austin.”

“What?” came the surly response.

Sean took a deep breath and tried to let it slide. “It’s after noon. You can’t sleep the entire day away.”

There was a long moment of silence. “I’ll get up in a minute.”

Sean went to the kitchen and set about making himself a sandwich for lunch. Once he pulled out the bread, he realized it’d be just as easy to make two sandwiches. A few minutes later, as he was sitting down at the table, Austin shuffled into the room. “I made you some lunch,” Sean said, nodding at the plate opposite him.

Austin glanced from Sean to the plate and back again. “I’m not hungry.”

Seemed like this kid was bound and determined to make this difficult no matter what Sean did or didn’t do. “Suit yourself.”

Austin opened the refrigerator door and searched around. Then he poured himself a glass of milk. A moment later, he reached for the plate. “I guess I’ll just take this to my bedroom.”

“Nuh-uh.” Sean held down the edge of the plate. “If you’re going to eat, eat here.”

Austin sighed and shook his head. “Whatever.” Reluctantly, he sat and started to eat.

They sat in awkward, uncomfortable silence. Sean racked his brain for some way to make a connection to this young man. His son. How weird was that? Surreptitiously, he watched Austin. The kid propped one elbow on the table, tilted his head to the left and used a napkin in a side-swiping motion. His mannerisms were too similar to Sean’s to be coincidence. This kid was a Griffin, through and through. Somehow, someway, he had to make a connection.

“Look, Austin, I don’t know what Denise told you about me, but, for what it’s worth, I didn’t know you existed until she called me a couple weeks ago.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know you existed, either,” he said. “So that makes us even.”

“You don’t need to be such an—”

“Is this what you woke me for? To talk?” He rolled his eyes and pushed away from the table. “Get real, okay? You’re not my dad. I don’t have a dad. I don’t want a dad. And if I ever did want a dad, I sure as hell wouldn’t want you.” With that, Austin stalked off toward the front door. “I’ll meet you outside.”

No longer hungry, Sean threw away what was left of his sandwich. Then he put their dishes in the sink and tried to recall what Arlo had said that first day about Austin. The kid had a right to be angry, and Sean needed to be patient. Unfortunately, patience had never been his strong suit. He took a long, deep breath, went outside and found Austin waiting for him on the porch.

The kid glared at him. “So now what?”

This was going to be a damned long summer.

“So now we find out what you can do around here,” Sean said as cheerfully as he could manage.

The crew was out on the first of the afternoon trail rides, so for now it was relatively quiet in the yard. The only activity amounted to Arlo rigging a carriage until Grace walked into the yard and headed for the barn.

Suddenly, Austin’s demeanor changed. “Who’s that?”

“Grace Kahill. She’s visiting for the summer and boarding her horse here.”

“Damn.”

You could say that again.

Dressed in tight, low-slung jeans, a straw cowboy hat and tall riding boots, she looked good. The bandanna around her neck was a nice touch, too. She went into the barn, came back outside with her horse and started brushing him.

Sean cleared his throat and, pulling his gaze away from Grace, pointed to the row of saddles hanging in the back. “Okay, Austin. Let’s see what you got. Saddle this bay.”

The sullen, obstinate teen suddenly turned nervous and unsure. “I don’t know to saddle a horse.”

That didn’t make any sense. “But you can ride, right?”

“Sure. Been on plenty of trail rides and stuff on family vacations.”

Family vacations? In other words, he didn’t know diddly about diddly squat with regard to horses. “Your mom said you knew horses.”

“What can I say? She lied. So what else is new?”

Shit. “I don’t have time to teach you. And neither does Arlo or any of the rest of the crew.”

“Well, good news for you,” Austin said. “Now you have an excuse to send me home.”

“I didn’t say I was going to send you home.”

“That’s what you want though, isn’t it?”

Sean had had about all he could take. “Look. There’s enough to do around here to keep you plenty busy.” He pointed to one of the barns. “Take that wheelbarrow and shovel over there and muck out all the stalls in the livery barn.”

“Are you serious?”

“Very. Dump your loads into the manure spreader.”

“Yes, sir.” Austin mock-saluted and took off for the barn.

Arlo shook his head as he came toward Sean.

“Might as well spit it out,” Sean said.

“Seems to me you’re setting up one helluva confrontational relationship with that boy,” Arlo said under his breath. “You sure that’s what you want?”

“What I want is to not be a father.”

“Too late for that.”

“Dammit!” Denise had said he was a chip off the old block. “When I was his age I was running a trail riding operation, not working at one.”

“But is that what you want for your son?”

“He could do worse,” he said, watching Grace bring a pad and saddle outside and setting them over the nearest rail fence.

“I raised two boys here on Mirabelle,” Arlo said. “Made ’em work here at the stables every summer. They helped take care of the horses every winter. And you know what?”

Sean waited.

“Neither one of ’em ever comes to the island to visit. Oh, they came down to Florida last winter. Couldn’t wait to see me and Lynnie once we were off the island. But Mirabelle? They don’t want anything to do with this place.” Arlo started heading toward the livery barn. “Seems to me there’s an opportunity here for you two. What’s made of it is entirely up to you. Not that young man.”

Sean stood alone in the yard. Arlo was right, of course. It was up to Sean to take the first step in forging a relationship with Austin and to make whatever relationship they developed worthwhile. Still, he didn’t know where to start. How the hell could you forge a relationship with someone who didn’t want anything to do with you?

SO THE KID WAS SEAN’S SON. Interesting.

Grace had tried not to eavesdrop while she was brushing Louie, but with the rising voices, it had been difficult not to absorb a few of the somewhat startling bits of information.

She set Louie’s pad on his back, getting ready to saddle him for a ride and watched the boy attempting to muck out a stall. He’d stalked past her a few minutes earlier without the slightest acknowledgment of her presence and went into the first stall with an empty wheelbarrow and a shovel.

“How you doing, Grace?” Arlo said, his tall, bony frame ambling by her. Other than the fact that his short beard was much more gray than she remembered, he’d barely changed all these years.

“I’m fine. You, Arlo?”

“Good.” He grinned. “I’m always good. You should know that.”

Arlo went into the massive livery barn, took two of his Percherons—a matching pair of dappled grays—out of their stalls and brought them outside. Then he started prepping one to be hitched to a shuttle carriage that took groups of passengers around the island, most often from the Rock Pointe Lodge or Mirabelle Island Inn into town, or vice versa.

“Need some help?” she asked.

“If you’re offering.” He cocked his head toward one of the horses. “I got Pat here, if you can take Mike.”

“Sure.” Holding off on saddling Louie for the moment, she led him into the stall Austin had already mucked out. Then she came out to the yard, patted Mike’s neck and whispered a few words to him as she attached his bridle and collar. Spreading the leather traces along his back, she was careful not to entangle them. It was a good thing she was tall. They were big horses.

“I want to thank you for sticking your neck out with Sean and agreeing to board Louie,” she said as she adjusted the crouper. It’d been so long since someone had her back that she’d almost forgotten what it felt like, but Arlo had always been that way. Ready to stick up for her at a moment’s notice.

“Ah. No worries,” he said. “Sean might seem a bit gruff, but he’s all bark and no bite.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?”

“And the boy,” she said softly. “Sean’s son?”

“Ayep.”

“Came to work here for the summer, but he doesn’t know a thing about horses?”

“That so surprising?” Arlo considered the boy as he straightened Pat’s traces. “I seem to recall a certain young gal who once upon a time didn’t know her bits from her reins.”

She chuckled. “Too true.”

She and Arlo hitched Mike and Pat to the carriage, and he climbed into the driver’s seat. They both glanced at Austin. He’d dumped his first load into the spreader and was working on his second. The way he tried to keep from stepping in anything was like a poorly written comedy sketch. Either he had no clue what he was doing or he had an extreme aversion to horse manure, possibly both.

“The way I see it, somebody around here oughta take that boy under his—or her—wing,” Arlo said. “Lord knows I don’t have the time.”

“Subtle, Arlo.” She smiled. “Real subtle.”

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it quick, huh?” He made a clicking noise and tapped the reins, setting Pat and Mike off and out of the yard.

Grace glanced at Austin. He was sidestepping the manure as if it were acid. She couldn’t help laughing.

The kid glanced at her and scowled. “Oh, that’s real mature.”

“It’s just horse shit. It’s not going to jump up and bite you.”

“Easy for you to say. You like horses.”

“What are you doing here, then, if you don’t like horses?”

“Like I had a choice.”

Man, did he look like a younger version of his dad. “My name’s Grace.”

“Austin.”

“So, Austin, you’ve never mucked out a stall before, have you?”

“No.” He looked angry, frustrated and in need of a friend.

Funny, that’s exactly the way she felt these days.

Before thinking better of it, she opened the stall door. “Well, first off you need to change shoes.” She pointed to a pair of rubber boots by the barn door. “Wear a pair of those and then you don’t need to worry about stepping in anything.”

He glanced toward the door. “Whose are those?”

“Probably Arlo’s, but he won’t mind.”

Grudgingly, Austin pulled on the barn boots.

“While you’re over there grab those gloves.” She indicated the pair on the shelf above the boots. “So you don’t get blisters.”

He came toward her, looking at least a little bit better prepared.

“Now you’re ready to get to work.”

She showed him a better way to hold the shovel and before she knew what she was getting herself into she’d changed out of her riding boots and into her Wellingtons and was helping him take another load out to the spreader. In no time, they’d finished mucking out all the stalls in the livery stable and she’d shown him how to use the spreader in the back pasture.

On their way to the barn, she said, “So you really don’t know anything about horses?”

“Nope.”

“Bet your dad took that real well.”

“He’s not my dad.” Austin frowned. “Technically, I guess he is my dad, but I didn’t know it until a couple weeks ago. I thought my mom’s husband was my real dad. Turns out he’s not.”

Unbelievable. “So Griffin deserted you and your mom?”

“No. He never knew she was pregnant. She’s got all kinds of excuses for keeping that a secret. They were splitting, and he never wanted to have kids. I guess she thought she was doing them both a favor.”

“So Griffin just now found out you’re his son?”

“Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“What are you doing here now?”

He looked away. “My mom and…Glen are getting divorced. She’s got enough on her hands with my younger brother and sister.”

“She sent you here?” To get rid of him. That had to have hurt.

“Yeah. For the summer. Just for the summer.” He sounded as if he was making excuses for her. “So now Sean’s mad at me. Sent me in here to muck out the stalls.”

Some small part of her took perverse pleasure in this upset to Sean’s life. Why, she had no clue. The man simply drove her crazy. Then there was the fact that she felt a kind of affinity toward the kid, an outsider, like her. “How ’bout I teach you to ride?” Grace offered.

“Can you?”

“I can try. I grew up here on Mirabelle. Used to work for Arlo. I can teach you how to saddle a horse, how to feed them, brush them. You name it.”

“Why do you want to help me?”

“Because I have a feeling it’ll bug your dad,” she said, grinning. Any enemy of Sean’s was a friend of Grace’s. “Time to teach you everything you never wanted to know about horses.”