Cowboy for Keeps by Cathy McDavid Page B

fifteen minutes.”
    “Is Sage around? I could visit the baby.”
    “She’s with Sierra. They took the kids on a play date.” Gavin
looked bemused. “As if my two-year-old nephew is interested in his
three-month-old cousin.”
    “Not yet. But one day those two boys will be close as brothers
and getting into the same kind of trouble you and Ethan did.”
    “God help us all.”
    “Gavin!” A man holding a handsome Thoroughbred hollered and
waved him over. “Got a second to look at this fella’s limp?”
    “Be right back,” Gavin told Dallas.
    “No rush. I’ll just wander.”
    She didn’t get too far before Gavin’s stepdaughter plodded up
on a swaybacked gelding.
    “Hello, Mizz Sorz-son,” she said, butchering Dallas’s last
name.
    “Hello to you, too, Miss Isa. And don’t you think you should
call me Dallas? We’ve been friends awhile.”
    “Gavin says I’m supposed to be polite.”
    Dallas went over and stroked the horse’s velvety nose. “You
have my permission to call me that.”
    “Really?” The girl grinned, leaned down and wrapped her arms
around the horse’s neck. “But I might have to call you Mizz Sorz-son in front of
Gavin.”
    “Is he strict with you and Cassie?” Dallas wondered if his
parenting style was more like Hank’s than she’d initially thought. If strictness
was typical of all stepfathers.
    “Kinda.” Isa straightened, her mouth scrunched to one side as
she pondered Dallas’s question. “Not like my mom. Cassie and I have sooo many
chores.” She expelled a tired breath, as if the burden placed on her was
unbearable. “Gavin just wants us to use manners with anyone who comes to the
ranch. Always say Mister and Mizz because we rep-per-sent the Powells.”
    Dallas had to laugh. Isa’s impersonation of Gavin was spot on.
“You’re doing a fine job.”
    “Why ya here? You taking more pictures?”
    “Of Prince. I’m waiting on your uncle Conner.”
    “You wannna ride Chico?” She patted the horse’s neck.
    The old gelding had been standing patiently, head hanging and
eyes drifting close. He completely ignored his young rider, who constantly
wiggled and jiggled and fidgeted, standing up in the stirrups, only to plop back
down.
    Dallas was convinced a giant crack in the earth could open up
in front of the horse and he’d sleep through it.
    She did miss riding. Her doctor had advised she could continue
with her normal activities at this stage of her pregnancy as long as she was
careful. What better horse to ride than one entrusted with an unsupervised
seven-year-old?
    “Only if you watch me,” Dallas said. “And we ride in the round
pen.”
    “Yay! You hear that, Chico?”
    Dallas walked alongside Isa and Chico to the pen, which had
been recently vacated by the man with the limping Thoroughbred. Slinging her
camera bag over a fence post, she watched as Isa hopped from the saddle and,
holding on to the horn, dropped the last two feet to the ground. Chico didn’t
move, reassuring Dallas that riding him would be completely safe.
    “Here.” Isa tossed Dallas the reins and scrambled up the fence,
where she perched on the top rung.
    Dallas mounted Chico, who remained completely disinterested in
the change of riders. She nudged him into a walk, her hands relaxed as she
guided him in a circle. Not that the old horse needed much guiding. He knew his
job.
    The sun on her face, the breeze tickling her hair, the sound of
Chico’s hooves tromping through the soft dirt, the McDowell Mountains standing
tall and proud to the south—it was an absolutely perfect experience.
    “Make him trot,” Isa called out. “He’ll do it. He’s just
lazy.”
    “Lazy is the right speed. Besides, I’m not sure trotting would
be good for me.”
    “Why?” Isa wrinkled her small brow in puzzlement.
    “Because I’m having a baby.”
    “You are?” The girl’s mouth fell open. “Seriously?”
    “Didn’t your parents tell you?”
    She shook her head, and then announced proudly,