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determined that he’d be able to ride “just like the other kids” eventually, and join one of Sally’s regular classes. Sally had said that she believed the goal was achievable.
    Although Lark tried to focus on her son in the ring, her gaze kept straying toward the new student. The guy with a sharp-planed face and short-cropped dark brown hair under his riding helmet. The one who looked mouthwateringly hot, even better up close than when she’d seen him out running. The man who’d almost bit her head off when she called him a civilian.
    There was indeed something soldierlike about him. While Jayden had to work hard to keep his back moderately straight, Eric, atop a bay gelding named Celebration, went to the extreme. His rigid posture would be more suited to a dress uniform than to the faded jeans and tee he wore. Sally had twice told him to relax a little, to be more flexible and to let his body feel the motion of the horse and to harmonize with it rather than fight against it. Each time, he’d nodded and made a visible effort to obey, but when Lark glanced back at him a few minutes later, his muscles were tight again.
    Was the tension a result of concentration as he figured out how to ride with one real leg and one partially prosthetic one, or was it a soldier thing? Or was it just a characteristic of Eric himself? She remembered thinking, back in Monique’s office, that maybe the therapist hoped to get Eric to lighten up. It might take a small miracle.
    Think positive, she reminded herself. And in fact, she had seen a glimmer of light on Eric’s face when they’d first met and he’d been talking to Jayden. Monique had commented that Jayden and Eric might be able to help each other. Lark was beginning to see how that might work, in terms of her son being a positive influence on the soldier. But what did the soldier have to offer her son? Hopefully, she would find out. If there was one thing she’d learned, first from the long journey to realize her childhood dream of being a firefighter, and then from having a child with CP, it was patience.
    She studied the two students again. They were both in Western saddles, which had a big horn—a convenient handhold when needed. Jayden was making less and less use of the horn with each lesson. As for Eric, aside from gripping the horn when he’d mounted rather awkwardly, Lark didn’t think he’d touched it. She wasn’t sure if he honestly didn’t need it, or if it was a point of macho pride.
    Where Jayden held a rein in each hand to better assist with balance and the development of both sides of his body, Eric rode the typical Western way, with both reins held in one hand. Sally hadn’t started him out on a lead rein either, and he certainly seemed to have no problem maintaining his seat and controlling the horse, whatever effort it might be costing him.
    Sally was now talking to both riders about how to use multiple cues to tell their horses what they wanted, explaining that it was a complex kind of body language. She asked Jayden to use that language to take Pookie out of the circle and walk him across the ring to the opposite side while Eric kept Celebration from following.
    Lark was proud of her son when he followed the instructions flawlessly without any help from Corrie and the lead rein.
    Sally took the riders through a few similar maneuvers, and also had them do exercises in the saddle with their horses standing still. For these, Lark and Corrie stood on either side of Jayden as he leaned forward, leaned back, stretched his arms up high, touched one foot in its quick release stirrup, and then touched the other. For the latter, Sally told Jayden to hang on to the horn with one hand while he reached down with his free hand. He performed all the maneuvers without needing assistance.
    Eric executed the exercises briskly, seeming impatient. Lark hadn’t once seen him stroke his horse’s neck or