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hold it down, not when she’d been eating so little for so long.
    What the heck, she thought, feeling suddenly reckless. It tasted good. If she got sick... Well, she’d already freaked on Jake. If he could handle that, he could handle her getting sick.
    She ate slowly, though, taking only tiny bits onto her fork, awaiting any warning sign that she was making a mistake.
    Finally she had to put her fork down and look sorrowfully at the plate, which was nearly three-quarters full. Jake had cleaned his plate and sat back.
    “Want to go meet the horses now?”
    At least he didn’t try to encourage her to eat more. Her friends back in Minneapolis had driven her nearly crazy by urging her to eat just one more mouthful.
    “Yes,” she said promptly and rose. When she reached for her plate, Jake stopped her. “Don’t offend Rosa.”
    Offend her by clearing the table? Nora found it hard to imagine, but Jake would know.
    Jake grabbed a pair of leather cowboy boots from the hall closet. “Put these on.”
    So she eased out of her running shoes and shoved her feet into the boots. They were an almost perfect fit, finely tooled leather. “Your mom didn’t wear these out in the yard,” she protested.
    “Actually, she did. She reserved Wellingtons for mucking out the stalls.”
    So many things she didn’t know about ranch life. At the moment, though, that didn’t seem terribly important. As they passed through the kitchen, she thanked Rosa for a wonderful meal. The woman beamed at her. “There’s more. You eat some later, okay?”
    “Okay,” Nora agreed, not sure whether she’d be around later or back at home with her father. As soon as they stepped outside, she was grateful for the jacket she’d worn through so many Minnesota winters. It seemed to have grown a lot colder in just the short time they’d been eating.
    She half expected to meet Al when they went out to the paddock, especially when she saw that a horse had been saddled. He was nowhere to be seen, however.
    “I want you to try riding on a lead at first,” Jake said. “I don’t know how strong you are.”
    “Not very,” she admitted. And the closer she got, the bigger the horses looked. How could she have forgotten that part? “Maybe I shouldn’t do this.”
    “You can try it. Daisy over here is as gentle as they come. She won’t give you any trouble, and if you start to feel tired, just say the word.”
    “Daisy? Really?”
    “Mom liked to name the mares after flowers. Dad drew the line at Begonia.”
    An unexpected laugh escaped Nora and she felt her spirits beginning to rise. The nightmare seemed so far away right now; it was a beautiful day, and the scents of the horses called to her as they always had.
    “Where are your parents now?”
    “Can you believe they turned into traitors and moved to Florida? To a condo?”
    That drew another small laugh from her. “Less work,” she suggested.
    “And warmer. Plus, according to my dad, he gets to play golf all year. Mom swears she can’t get him out of the house in the summer to play, but he denies it.”
    Jake climbed the paddock fence, pulling a long leather lead from where it was wound around a fence pole. He clucked quietly, and called, “Daisy... Here, girl.”
    To Nora’s surprise, the saddled horse, a spotted gray with huge, soft brown eyes, responded promptly. The mare stood patiently while Jake clipped the lead to her halter.
    Then he turned back to her. “Now comes the hard part. I doubt you’re strong enough to mount by yourself.”
    She eyed the distance between the ground and stirrup and shook her head slowly. “I could try.”
    “Or you can just sit on the top of the fence and I can help you. But I’ll have to touch you to do that, Nora. Will that be okay?”
    He probably hadn’t imagined that difficulty when he invited her out here. But then neither had she. She closed her eyes a moment, waging an internal struggle. This was Jake, not him.
    When she opened her eyes, Jake