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"Yeah, we did," Josh said. "You're starting to fall in love with me."
"What makes you think that?"
"Are you?"
"Well, yes."
"Then the rest will work itself out."
It came to Genie that Josh was one of those eternal optimists who rolled with the punches and,
like rolling out of the way of a charging bull, trusted that Fate had nothing dire in store for him. But
she was a realist, and whereas contemplating the glory of the night sky while listening to Josh's
beautiful music might have worked its magic by having her fall in love with him, he'd still be going
back into the bull pen, and that issue was completely unresolved.
CHAPTER 11
The following morning the overnight campers returned to the ranch. As the riders who'd already
unsaddled their horse were turning them out, Abby, who was walking toward Genie and Josh while
holding Matt's hand, broke loose and rushed up to Josh, and said, in an excited voice, "The baby
horse was in a gweat big bubble. Me and Gwampa saw it!"
Matt laughed, and explained, "It happened while Ryan and Annie were in Burns for Cody's
checkup. One of their Kiger mares was due to foal so I took Abby with me to check on her and we got
there right after she'd dropped her foal, so now Abby's a real ranch girl who's seen her first foaling."
Abby raised both hands for Josh to pick her up, and when he did, she sandwiched his face
between her hands so she had his full attention, and said, in an even more excited voice, "I got to
name the baby horse. I named her Zebwa Girl because she has stripes on her legs like the zebwas in
the book Gwampa wed to me."
"That's a good name," Josh said, while thinking he'd like to have been the one to read the book to
Abby and have her cuddle up against him and ask questions and shove the page aside so she could see
what was coming next, the way the kids did at home.
"I'll feed the horses," Matt said. "A reporter from the Pine Grove Gazette just showed up to
interview you. She said she's a half hour early because she has to get her questions together. She's in
the living room at the house."
"I totally forgot about that," Josh said. "You sure you're okay finishing things up here?"
"I'm fine." Matt looked at Abby. "Don't forget, bucko, Grandma's expecting you to go with her to
pick flowers. She's waiting at the playground."
"Yeah!" Abby wiggled out of Josh's arms and ran toward Ruth, who was standing across the way
in an area outfitted with swings and a slide.
Matt left to tend the horses, and Josh and Genie headed for the house. But as they were passing
the barn, Josh took Genie's hand and tugged her inside.
"What are you doing?" Genie asked. "There's a reporter waiting."
Josh glanced out the wide expanse of the open doors and pulled Genie toward the back of the
barn, while saying, "The reporter isn't expecting me for thirty minutes, which I want to spend with my
girl." He led her into the room where the horse sculpture stood and pulled her into his arms and
covered her mouth with his, and she responded with eagerness, moving her hands up and down Josh's
back. As the kiss held, he cupped her breast and she gave out a little moan of pleasure, inviting him to
unsnap her shirt, but when he started making his way down her chest, Genie said, in a ragged voice, "I
like what you're doing but this is going beyond what we've established."
"We can reset things later," Josh said.
"No, we can't." Genie replied. "Not only are there guests roaming around, but we're on the verge
of doing something untimely, so we need to reel things in." She moved his face away and re-snapped
her shirt and turned away from him, leaving Josh sucking in a long breath and combing his fingers
through his hair, and attempting to set aside what was going on below his belt.
As he tucked the loosened tails of his shirt back into his pants, he looked over to see Genie
running her hand over the horse's face and trailing her fingers along the interwoven horseshoe
segments of its mane, like she needed to put some distance between them, which worked for him too.
He was getting in way deeper with Genie than he'd expected, deeper in the sense that he was
beginning to justify things in ways that went against his long-range plan, which frustrated him, like
when he was a little kid and tried to shove square blocks through round holes. There was no way to
make it work.
"You have a gift you need to explore," Genie said. "You already have a commission for a bucking
bull, and this horse is a wonderful piece, but it's also a form of art whose time has come. Everyone is
into recycling. Scrap art is even attracting the notice of galleries and museums, so what you're doing
fits right in."
Josh found his mind divided between a very potent sexual need, and what Genie was saying.
Finding it hard to concentrate on the latter, but forcing himself to do so, he said, "I'm not interested in
selling to galleries and museums. I only do it because it gets rid of a pile of old horseshoes and I like
seeing what comes out."
"And what comes out is remarkable" Genie replied. "This will be a beautiful piece out on the
highway, and it will also attract attention. You've taken something that's common on ranches all over
the country, and instead of horseshoes ending up in a rusty pile outside an old barn they're transformed
into something that enriches other people's lives. It's also the perfect form of art to add to the
curriculum at universities and art schools."
"I'm a farrier and a bullfighter," Josh reminded her.
"And a musician and an artist," Genie added. "You told me you got the idea for the horse while
you were playing your harmonica, but you still had to be enthusiastic enough to carry it out. I don't
believe you just randomly started welding horseshoes together."
"Not randomly, but not planned either," Josh said. "I started with some hooves and made my way
up the legs and the horse started moving around on the way up and that's what came out."
Genie trailed the pads of her fingers over the horseshoe muzzle, like she was petting the horse,
and said, "But you still got a lot of joy out of doing it, didn't you?"
Josh eyed the horse. Yeah, he'd enjoyed putting the thing together, especially when what he'd
initially planned began to take a life of its own, like when he started to make the first welding of a
right front hoof to the platform that the horse was standing on and he got the feeling the horse wanted [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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