I carried my plate down to the kitchen. Coco was sitting at her massive kitchen island writing on a recipe card. She glanced up over a small pair of spectacles, once again making her look older. But her young smile wiped away the illusion.

“I thought I’d write down the recipe for the mocha latte cupcakes before it flitted away through my Swiss cheese brain. Thanks for the flavor idea. I think they turned out great.”

I froze halfway to lowering my plate into the sink. My face flashed her direction. “What do you mean? How could I have given you the idea? You had them baked before I reached the inn, an inn that I hadn’t planned on stopping at.”

“Really? Huh. I guess you’re right.” With an innocent blink of her lashes, she looked back through her wire rimmed glasses and moved her pen again.

“Is the barn through that back door?” I asked, remembering that my handsome cupcake eating audience had left through it.

“Yes.” She pointed with her pen. “Through that door and then travel the path along the rose bushes until you get to a wide green pasture. You can’t miss the barn. It’s big and red, and it looks, ironically enough, like a barn.”

“Great. I’ll see you later then.”

“Have fun,” she said, without looking up from her recipe.

I pushed through the screen door. A warm breeze carried the familiar scent of fresh grass and horses my direction. It was home. I was home . . . almost. Grandpa’s booming laugh and the pungent scent of his tobacco pipe were, of course, noticeably absent.

The full moon showered the path with its eerie glow. The roses lent their fragrance to the already sweet smelling night air. Unlike the dead rose vines clinging to the facade of the inn, the bushes bloomed with buoyant clusters of pink and yellow petals.

I meandered along the path, suddenly feeling a bit nervous about seeing Jackson again. The few moments in the bakery had been the first time I’d flirted overtly with a man since I’d met Nate. Mentally, I’d blamed it on the sugar rush I was experiencing from the cupcake. But in truth, it was as if the man, the exact man who had often traipsed into one of my romantic dreams, had landed in my path. I was instantly attracted to him. And after spending the last three weeks in near social seclusion, other than my nightly threesome with Ben and Jerry, it had felt good to act a little wanton with a man.

As promised, the big red barn loomed in the distance. I picked up my pace, suddenly feeling like a carefree teen again. I was nearly running by the time I reached the two round pens in front of the barn. The soft snorts of horses, who were happily grazing on dinner, rolled out from the building. The warm earthy scent that followed made me grin with anticipation. I was transported back in time again.

I stepped inside the well-lit barn and walked right up to the first stall. A thick, stout draft horse with a feathery white mane looked up from his dinner. Concluding that I hadn’t brought anything better than his mound of hay, he dropped his muzzle back into his feeder.

I turned and saw a wheelbarrow standing in the breezeway, sitting right outside of the end stall. I combed my fingers through my shoulder length hair and headed toward it with the tender nerves of a girl working up the courage to talk to the boy she’d been crushing on.

Jackson stepped out of the stall just as I reached it. I ran smack into his hard chest. I bounced back with a gasp.

“Sorry. Bad timing,” I said, taking another step back.

“And here I was thinking just the opposite.” His green eyes flickered under the barn lights. He’d left his hat off for mucking. As hot as he looked with the black hat, my heart was racing just fine looking at him without it.

“If you get me a fork and a wheelbarrow, I can shovel some manure for you. Used to be pretty good at it,” I boasted and then realized how silly it sounded. “Real poop, I mean. Not bull shit. I’m actually really bad at that. Lying, that is.”

He lifted his arm and leaned it up against the stall door. “I see you decided against the skirt. But the jeans work too.” He lowered the tip of the fork to the ground with his other arm. “This is the last stall.”

“I guess I wasn’t much help then. Sorry about that. I sort of got lost in a plate of fried chicken. Almost brought tears to my eyes, it was so good.”

He laughed as he turned and lifted the wheelbarrow. “Yep, Coco’s food will do that to ya.”

I followed him out into the summery night. We walked across the yard to the manure pile, and he dumped the barrow.

“It sure is nice out here.” The only lights on the horizon were the tiny twinkling porch lights, front and back, on the inn. The old house looked taller and more majestic from a distance, as if it had stood proudly in the same spot for a century. Which, no doubt, it had.

“Want to take a ride?”

I looked at him. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing strong forearms. I hadn’t seen a pair of arms, muscular and powerful from hard work, in a long time. Something about his caused a flutter in my belly.

“At night? It’s been awhile since I’ve ridden.”

“Like riding a bicycle.” He shrugged and turned the wheelbarrow around. “The way you went at that cupcake, just took you as a woman with a bit of spunk.” He rolled the barrow back toward the barn. I stomped after him.

“I’ve got spunk. Damn it. You know what? Let’s ride. Saddle me your fiercest stallion, and I’ll show you spunk.”

He stopped without warning. I ran into his back and bounced back, just as I’d done in the barn. He turned around with a laugh. “Looks like you need a new set of brakes, Spunky. I’ll saddle a horse for you.” His dark brow arched. “You sure you want a stallion?”

“Well, maybe one of your bomb-proof geldings for this first initiation back in the saddle.”

“Right. We’ll save Thunderstorm for your second ride.”

His long legs made his stride impossibly fast to keep up with, but I managed to hurry along next to him to avoid any more collisions. Not that I minded it. If I was going to crash into something, a hunky cowboy built like a brick wall was a good choice.

“Do you really have a stallion named Thunderstorm?” I asked as we reached the barn.

“Don’t even have a stallion. I’d just as soon have a fire breathing dragon inside one of those stalls.”

The down-home way he spoke put a smile on my face. “My grandpa used to say ‘if you’re not breeding mares then keeping a stallion is just plain foolhardy’.”

“Smart man, your grandpa.”

We reached a stall door, and he slid it open. The inside had been transformed into a tack room. The smell of worn leather and saddle blankets coasted out. An array of western saddles were draped over wall racks. Long leather reins and silver bridles dangled along hooks on the adjacent wall.

Jackson stopped in front of the wall of saddles. “Let’s see which of these will work for you.”

There was an odd, almost antique looking saddle on a saw horse in the corner.

I walked over and fingered the well-oiled leather. “Is this a sidesaddle?”

“Yep. That’s the one Coco uses. She claims it’s the way she learned to ride.”

“Really? I know sometimes women ride sidesaddle just for novelty and to show how skilled they are, but I didn’t think anyone from this century would ever have learned it from the start.”

“Sometimes, I think Coco has seen as much of history as that old house of hers.” He reached up and yanked down a simple, lightweight looking saddle. “You’re going to ride Archie. This saddle fits him best. It’ll work for you too.”

He held the saddle against his hip, looking every bit as cowboy as possible. “You ready to ride, Spunky?”

I smiled. “Why do I get the feeling that I just earned myself a nickname?”

He stepped closer, close enough that I could nearly count every one of his long black eyelashes. “I kind of like it, myself.” He stared pointedly down at my lips. For a brief second, I was sure he’d kiss me. And I would have been just fine with that.

A long, warmly tense moment followed and my lips nearly tingled with the notion of his kiss, a tingle that drifted down through my body, stopping between my thighs. He was a ten, a massive, rugged, oozing manliness ten and briefly I wondered what the heck I’d ever seen in Nate.

Jackson smiled and I was fairly certain my heart melted just a bit. “Well, damn. I think this is going to be a good weekend.”