Janet laughed. “He adores her. You want to know who runs this ranch? She’s eight and has big blue eyes and blond hair.”
Emily ran up to them. “Have the twins ever seen horses?”
“No, they haven’t. Would you like to show them?”
Emily’s face lit up. “Can we, Mommy?”
Megan stood. “Let’s bundle up. It’s cold out there.”
Ten minutes later, the small herd of children moved together through the house toward the back door, either in their mother’s arms or on their own feet, Emily leading the way, Jack promising to join them in a few minutes.
“Buckwheat is my horse. He’s a gelding. He’s with my daddy today, but we have other horses,” Emily told the twins.
“She’s been riding since she was four,” Megan explained. “That’s when I met Nate. He adopted her after we got married.”
A bittersweet longing washed through Ellie. “It must have meant so much to you—to give her a father, to have someone to raise her with you.”
“Nate has been wonderful for her.”
They stepped outside to find it snowing lightly, the sky overcast, the wind cold. Thankfully, it wasn’t a long walk to the barn.
Inside it was much warmer, the mingled odors of straw and manure tickling Ellie’s nose. They turned a corner and… “Oh! Look at them!”
The twins’ faces lit up.
Daisy pointed and looked up at Ellie as if to ask, “What is that, Mama?”
“That’s a horsie. Can you see the horsies, Daniel?”
A half-dozen palomino mares stood in their stalls, munching on hay. They whickered when they heard Emily’s voice and walked toward their gates, clearly familiar with her and happy to see her.
Emily introduced them to the horses. “This is Baby Doe. She’s my favorite mare. She’s going to foal in March. I hope it’s a filly because we might get to keep it.”
They met Molly Brown, Chipeta, Isabella Bird, Julia Greeley, and Clara Brown—all beautiful palominos named after famous women from Colorado’s history. All were in foal, which meant they were pregnant, Emily explained.
Ellie found herself laughing and in need of an extra pair of hands as the twins, curious and excited, stuck their hands in the stalls trying to touch the horses and ran every which way, chattering to one another. She finally picked Daisy up and did her best to hold onto the back of Daniel’s coat.
Jack walked up to her. “You look like you’ve got your hands full.”
He scooped up Daniel and helped him pet one of the mares. “Be gentle. There you go. See how soft her muzzle is? Can you say horsie?”
“Howsie.”
“Good enough.”
“Miss Emily, let’s tack up Baby Doe.” Jack took a lead rope from a nail on the wall and handed it to Emily, who entered Baby Doe’s stall, clipped it to the mare’s halter, and led the big animal out and down a walkway. “How old are your twins, Ellie?”
“They’ll be three in April.”
“Then it’s high time they learned to ride.” While Emily saddled the mare, Jack took a small riding helmet from a nearby shelf and put it on Daniel’s head, fixing the strap under his chin. “Are you ready to ride this horsie, young man?”
Ellie shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think—”
“This is what he does,” Megan said. “The twins will be safe. He’s ridden with kids with severe disabilities, kids who can’t even talk. When he was two, he was riding by himself. So was Nate. Crazy, isn’t it?”
It certainly seemed crazy to Ellie, who could imagine a dozen ways it could all go terribly wrong. Being a nurse meant having a vivid imagination where injury and catastrophe were concerned.
Emily rode the mare first under Jack’s watchful eye, the child looking like she’d been born on a horse.