Heartsong (Singing to the Heart Book 2) by Sara Walter Ellwood

barn. A cloudy haze muted the late morning sun.
    Michaela was coming out of the second turn around a barrel she had set up in the corral. She headed for the third and leaned sharply in the saddle as the horse took the turn at a full gallop, horse and rider working together as one beautiful, connected being.
    He glanced over his shoulder. “Michaela’s training?”
    Loretta whirled her wheelchair over to sit beside him. He dropped the lace curtain and met her troubled blue eyes.
    “She says she rides to keep her horse in shape, in case she decides to sell him. I know she’d never part with Beau. I think she’s got it in her head to go back out on the circuit. She wants to use any of the winnings she might get to pay for some fancy surgery the doc thinks will stop the pain in my face.” She averted her eyes to her knobby hands. “I wish she’d not worry so much about me. She should’ve never quit racing to begin with. I could’ve gone to a nursing home, then she wouldn’t have to be burdened with me.”
    “Michaela loves you, Loretta. She would never consider you a burden.” Gabe was no shrink, but he recognized depression when he saw it. But, then, if he’d lived the life Loretta had before the onset of her MS, he’d be disgruntled, too. She’d been a champion barrel racer in her younger days and as much a cowgirl as her daughter. Now, she couldn’t walk and lived in constant pain.
    When he and Michaela had dated, he’d become close to her mother and wished he could do something now to make things better for her. He forced a smile and gently touched her shoulder. “She only wants what’s best for you.”
    “She’s too stubborn for her own good sometimes.”
    He snorted and watched as Michaela put the horse through another cloverleaf pattern. “She is definitely that.” Resting a hand on Loretta’s frail shoulder, he said, “I have a plan. Can you trust me?”
    Loretta stared out the window through the lace curtain, then shook her head as if physically shaking off a thought. She looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “I don’t know. Are you gonna tell me why you are all geared up to take Jesse from Micki? You know damn well Sam and Frankie would’ve wanted you to share him.”
    “I don’t want to take Jesse from her or you.” He looked back out the window. In the corral, Micki led her horse toward the barn. “I need to talk to Michaela.” Leaning down, he kissed the older woman on the cheek, then headed out to the barn.
    * * * *
    No one else but Gabe would be parked out front of her home in some fancy luxury car. Was he here to gloat over his desire to adopt Jesse?
    The echo of footsteps filled the breezeway of the barn, and Micki sucked in a breath. The image of him and that stripper she’d seen on the computer last night flashed before her closed eyes. Why did it bother her so much? She didn’t care what Gabriel McKenna did. Nor should she have expected more from him.
    Gabe stopped on the other side of her horse, but she didn’t look at him. She continued stroking Beau’s neck with a currycomb as he slurped water. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    He stroked the other side of Beau’s neck. “I’m here because we need to talk about the ranch. Loretta said the owner offered you a management position.”
    “They did and I’m thinking I’ll tell them to go to hell.”
    With a sharp look, he said, “I wish you’d take the job. There’s something about this whole thing you don’t know.”
    She tossed the comb onto a shelf. “What isn’t there to know? One of those sleazy out-of-state agglomerates wants to destroy the ranch I love, and the man I should have known better than to trust is stabbing me in the back.”
    Gabe stiffened his stance and glared at her. “Damn it, Michaela, I’m not trying to take Jesse away from you. I want to keep him out of Lemont’s hands. I still want you to have guardianship of him.”
    She stepped away from the horse. “I thought only you were