It was late and just getting dark when there was another knock on Aria’s front door. This place was like Grand Central Station lately with all of the people coming and going who had nothing to do with barn business! Aria approached this particular knock with caution. After Paul Weatherby’s visit earlier that day, she’d been jumpy. What if there really was something that could be done to her because she had violated the injunction that supposedly prevented her from teaching? What if this was a policeman coming to cart her off to jail?

Aria stood on her tiptoes to peer out the little square window set high into the front door. It had never made any sense to her why there was no peephole, but someone had put those transom windows in. She and her mother had once joked that previous generations of Callahans must have been giants to be able to see through those.

But it wasn’t a process server, a policeman, or some court official on Aria’s doorstep. It actually looked like a cab driver. In fact, Aria could see the yellow cab parked down by the white painted split rail fence that protected Aria’s front yard from nosy ponies looking for a grassy place to hang out.

Aria opened the door. “I’m sorry. Can I help you? I didn’t call for a cab, so I hope you didn’t drive all the way out here for nothing.”

“Ma’am,” the cab driver said very carefully. “I wanted to let you know that I picked up a very young passenger trying to pass herself off as a much older passenger, and brought her out here. She swears that her horse is here and that she comes here all the time, and that she’s perfectly welcome to be here.” The older man with the lined face held up his hands. “I don’t want to say that’s not true. I just want someone to know that she’s here.”

“You picked her up…” Aria was aghast. “How on earth does a kid catch a cab?”

“Actually, I was dispatched.” The cab driver bit his lip. “I couldn’t very well refuse to pick her up. The kid was standing on a corner in a downtown area of Denver all by herself.”

Aria was starting to have a very strong feeling she knew exactly who this child was. She smiled at the cab driver. “I think I know who your passenger was, and yes. She is welcome to be here. I am so very thankful that you brought her. And I will most certainly alert her family as to where she is and let them know she’s safe.” Aria started to reach for her purse.

“No, ma’am.” The cabbie held up his hand. “The little lady was obviously taught to tip well. The girl had a debit card with her name on it and everything.”

Aria sighed and rolled her eyes. “Can we just say rich people are very odd and leave it at that?”

“Yes, ma’am!” he laughed. Then he tipped his hat and whistled on his way back down to his still-running cab.

Aria sagged against the doorframe and tried to catch her breath. The enormity of what had just happened was barely beginning to sink in. She had a pretty damn good idea whom the young lady was, but it was going to take Aria a while to get over the thought of all the things that could have happened. If that cab driver had been just a little less fatherly or grandfatherly and a little more sleazy, something awful could have happened!

“Oh, God.” Aria pressed her hands to her chest. “He could have stolen her! Or he could have… Oh, I don’t even want to think about that!” Aria squeezed her eyes closed and tried to stop herself from letting her thoughts just whirl around and around inside her head. It wasn’t worth the heartache. Not when she had a guest in her barn to look after.

With that thought in her mind, Aria headed out of the house and down the front walk. The door slammed shut behind her. It didn’t matter. Aria was too focused on the barn. Smokey was in the boarder barn to the left of the main house. Aria passed the split rail fence and went right inside the barn.

It was cool and dim inside. The soothing sounds of horses munching on their evening hay filled the air. Somewhere beneath that noise, Aria could hear something else. It was a soft sound and one that Aria probably would have recognized no matter what. There were only so many years you could spend working with children before you learned what crying sounded like.

“Bella?” Aria ventured in a soft voice. “Are you back here?”

Aria went deeper into the barn. Smokey’s stall was near the center of the barn where two aisles came together. At the sound of Aria’s voice, almost every equine head in the barn popped out to hang over their stall doors. Every horse except Smokey, that is. Smokey’s little grey head remained behind closed doors, probably because there was a sobbing child in her stall keeping her occupied.

Going directly to Smokey’s stall, Aria very carefully approached. The last thing she wanted to do was to startle the little mare. The horse was pretty darn bombproof most days, but she was also distracted by Bella’s presence in her home. If Aria spooked her, Smokey was likely to trample Bella. Even if it was an accident, that would be an awful thing to happen.

Gradually, Smokey came into view. Aria sidestepped just a little further and then relaxed when she saw that the little mare was listening to Aria move around outside her stall. That meant Miss Smokey was very aware of what was going on. Good. That would keep things from becoming ugly.

Aria rested her arms on the top of Smokey’s half-door. “Hey, kiddo, might I ask what you’re doing bedding down in this poor horse’s stall?”

“I’m moving in with her.” Bella fluffed her little pink pony blanket and laid it over her legs.

The girl had piled up a bunch of shavings in the corner of Smokey’s stall. Then Bella had borrowed a bit of Smokey’s hay to put over the shavings. Now she was using this as a little bed. Her backpack was resting in the corner and would apparently be her pillow.

“I remember thinking that I would rather bed down in a stall than go up to the big house,” Aria mused. “I think my mom was mad at me. I’d done something maybe. I don’t know. It’s been so long I can’t remember.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Bella shot back defensively. Her little face was all defiance and hurt. What in the hell had happened?

“All right, then.” Aria shrugged. “I’m pretty sure that my parents did something stupid more than once too. Parents do that. Or rather we think they’re being boneheaded because they don’t do what we want.”

Bella licked her lips and stared up at Aria. “Do you think I act like my mom?”

Whoa. What in the hell had Laredo said to her? Aria had to think that one through. A lot. Talk about a parenting pitfall. And Aria wasn’t even the kid’s mom. She sucked in a deep breath. “You aren’t much like your mom. I’m sorry to say that, if you wanted it to be otherwise, but I’m not going to lie to you. There were lots of people who liked your mom. I remember that well enough. She was real popular in school. But we didn’t get along very well, and I thought she was kind of mean. So, no. I don’t think you’re like her.”

“Dad says if I ride horses, he thinks I’ll turn out like her.” Bella started crying. There were big fat alligator tears rolling down her cheeks. “Why does he think that?”

“Baby, I don’t think he actually does.” He had better not think that, because if Laredo Hernandez really believed that mess, then Aria was going to rip him a new one. She had never heard something so stupid in her life! “I think you either misunderstood or maybe even your dad doesn’t realize that he’s just afraid that he could lose you and that losing you would make him feel like when he lost your mom.”

The girl was still sobbing. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Can you please come out of Smokey’s stall so she can get some rest? We’ll let your dad know you’re safe, and then you and I can talk this through. I promise.”

“I’m not going home!” Bella said fiercely. All hint of softness and tears were gone. That girl was mad.

“Fine. You don’t have to go home. Just come inside.” Aria opened the stall door. “Smokey will sleep better if she doesn’t have to worry about stepping on you.”

“Oh.” Bella stood up and gathered her things. “I guess I didn’t think about it like that.”

The girl followed Aria out of the barn, up the front walk, and into Aria’s little house. Or actually, the house wasn’t really all that little. It was just oddly cramped and on the sprawling side. Aria watched Bella from the corner of her eye as they stepped inside the house.

The foyer was basically just a big square room that provided access to the various parts of the house. There was a hallway leading to the four tiny bedrooms and two bathrooms. There was another little walkthrough that led to the big eat-in kitchen. The living room was directly ahead. And then her great-grandmother’s little parlor lay to their immediate right.

“Are you hungry?” Aria asked Bella. In her experience, emotional angst always came complete with increased appetite.

Bella nodded her head, and her hair went flying. She was still dressed in her jeans and cowboy boots from earlier. “I’m starved. Uncle Darren just got us a snack after our lesson. Then he took us to Daddy’s office. We were supposed to get dinner after.”

“Hmm.” Aria looked in the fridge. “I think I can make you an omelet.”

“Yum!”

Of course the kid knew what an omelet was. She’d grown up in a household where Mrs. Naranjo fixed all her meals, and that woman made a mean Denver Omelet. Oh, the irony. Right?

Aria pulled out the ingredients she happened to have on hand. Eggs, cheese, ham, a touch of onion, a little tomato, and just a touch of green chili all went into the bowl together. In no time at all, Aria was swirling the contents of the omelet into the pan and the sizzle of the cooking eggs filled the house with the very friendly sound of food preparation.

There was just something about preparing food that made the big kitchen feel homey inside. So, with that in mind, Aria sent Laredo a very simple text and then began to attempt to unravel this bizarre circumstance.

“So,” Aria said with a pointed glance at Bella. “How about you climb up to my counter right there and talk to me about why you decided a cab ride away from your father and your uncle was the best way to go.”

“I didn’t mean to scare them,” Bella said immediately.

“Forget them.” Aria waved the spatula at the girl. “Tell me what you were feeling when you ran off.”

“Really sad.”

“Because you thought your dad was telling you that you would turn out like your mom?” Aria was going to kill him for that.

Two lines appeared between Bella’s eyebrows. “I don’t know if that’s all of it.” The expression of her face suggested she was really thinking this through. “It’s not fair that I can’t ride horses because of something my mom did! Why is that fair? It would be like me telling Daddy that he’s going to leave me because Mom did.”

That was some pretty damn clear logic for a nine-year-old. Although Bella was getting close to ten, it was obvious that she was extremely precocious and very smart. Did Laredo realize how much she really absorbed from the goings-on in her life? This was not a girl that you could just work around. She saw everything. She understood everything. And if you weren’t absolutely upfront with her, she was going to settle on a reason why all on her own.

“When I was a kid,” Aria spoke slowly as she dished up half the omelet onto Bella’s plate, and half onto her own. “My father had a really bad drinking problem.”

“Really?” Bella’s blue eyes went wide.

Aria handed the little girl a fork, and Bella dug into the omelet with gusto. Aria took her first bite and returned to her uncomfortable story. “We didn’t talk about my dad’s problem though. He only drank at night, and lots of times he wouldn’t remember what he had said or done when he was drinking.”

“So, he never said sorry,” Bella whispered. She took another big bite and shook her head. “That’s awful.”

“It was.” Aria was glad that she didn’t have to spell it out for Bella. “Your daddy loves you. He is trying to stop the drinking. He is trying to do this parent thing without your mom’s help, but truthfully, kiddo, he’s struggling because this wasn’t the way he intended for things to be.”

“But I think things are great!” Bella sat back suddenly and her expression grew serious. “I don’t want my mama to come back. I don’t remember her very much, and I don’t think Daddy was very happy with her anyway. I want him to find someone new, but he just works!”

“That’s rough, kid,” Aria whispered.

Bella pointed her fork at Aria. “You could make my daddy happy.”

“What?” Aria made it sound silly and sarcastic, but Bella’s words made Aria both excited and nervous at the same time. “I don’t know about that, kiddo. Your dad and I are friends. Being more than friends is hard work.”

“Have you ever been married?” Bella suddenly wanted to know.

“I have not.”

“So, then, you can marry Daddy!” Bella clapped her hands excitedly.

Aria pointed to the plate. “Eat your food. Matchmaking is a skill better left alone.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that people do better finding their own husbands and wives. It’s not an easy task to try and match someone up. People are not like horses. We can’t just look at someone’s parents and grandparents and see what they were like and then breed them together like we do horses and cattle.”

“It would be a lot easier,” Bella said stubbornly. “You do it just like a horse. This one is big. This one is little. This one is fast. And then after that, you put them together and you get a good-sized horse than can run!” Bella shoved a huge bite into her mouth with a very stubborn nod.

“Ha!” Aria pointed her fork at Bella and made her eyes squinty. “Stallions and mares don’t have to live together! They rarely have to get along. Have you ever seen a stallion and mare having a polite discussion about the progress of their kids?”

Bella started giggling. Soon her giggles turned into full-fledged howls of delighted laughter. Aria joined in because it was indeed a hilarious mental image. A stallion was often so volatile when a mare was around that he was incapable of focusing on anything but the urge to breed. The idea that he could have a polite conversation was ludicrous. Not unlike human men.

Aria sighed and tried to calm her down and go back to the topic at hand. “People have their own ideas, and they rarely just stumble into the right relationship. It takes time to find out if you can be friends with someone. Then you try for a little more, but that doesn’t always work either.”

Bella wrinkled her nose. “That sounds too complicated. Why do adults make everything so hard?”

“Because if it was all easy, it wouldn’t mean anything.” The words sort of slipped out before Aria could think them through very thoroughly. Once she’d said them though, she realized how right she was. “Things are only worth having if you work hard to get them, Bella. It’s like learning how to ride a horse. It’s one thing to have a natural talent. But if you never had to work hard, then it would never really be an accomplishment when you run a good barrel time, or when you win a ribbon. Trying hard and working hard makes all of that worthwhile.”

Bella made a face. “Then, why don’t you win a ribbon when you find the right person to marry? That would make you really sure. Right?”

“That’s a very good question,” Aria murmured. It was a hilarious notion. But there was something really appealing about the idea of having a blue ribbon to tell you beyond a doubt that you were choosing the right romantic partner. “When you figure that out, Bella, you let me know.”