LITMIR.BIZ

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coming up her gravel driveway startled Phoebe, since the only guests she expected were already here. When she recognized Adam’s truck, she was doubly surprised.

      They’d had another intense session Friday night, with Adam getting increasingly frustrated over what he perceived as a lack of progress. She’d battled her own frustration, as well, trying to maintain complete objectivity when it would be so terribly easy to step over the line between therapist and friend.

      Or more. In fact, she’d been wondering if she should recommend that he see Jenna instead of herself for therapy. Happily married and the mother of a new baby, Jenna wouldn’t be so sensitive to her client’s every reaction.

      Adam got out of the truck, and Phoebe met him halfway between the drive and the riding ring. The dogs stayed behind, in the shade of an apple tree, instead of following her as they usually would. They knew they would not be wanted.

      “S-sorry t-to j-just d-d-drop in,” Adam said, before she could even say hello. “I-I-I d-d-didn’t r-realize y-you had c-c-company unt-til I-I’d almost r-reached th-the h-house.” His face was tight, his fist clenched.

      “I’m glad to see you, whether I have company or not.” Taking a risk, Phoebe put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “We’re just having fun with the horses. Come watch.” She caught his right fist with her left hand and led him toward the ring, hoping the physical contact would help him relax. Or so she told herself.

      As they got close, Dixon Bell eased Cristal to a halt in front of them. “Hey, DeVries, what brings you out? Good to see you.” He leaned down and reached out to shake Adam’s hand, which Phoebe reluctantly let go.

      “You t-two kn-know each other?” Adam glanced at her in question.

      “Cristal and Brady belong to Dixon. He boards them with me and comes out to ride most weekends.” She looked from one man to the other. “Now it’s my turn to ask…y’all are friends?”

      “Went to high school together,” Dixon explained, soothing Cristal as she protested having to stand still. “And every grade before that, come to think of it. Kate, too,” he said, referring to his fiancé, who was bringing Brady slowly around the ring toward them. “DeVries and I play basketball together Saturday mornings with some of the other guys from our class.”

      “I g-give him s-some help remodeling his house f-f-from time to time. And p-plan to d-dance at his w-wedding.” Adam nodded at Dixon. “F-from th-the way you handle th-that h-horse, I’d say you’ve sp-spent s-some t-time in th-the saddle in your day.” His stutter had diminished a bit as he became more relaxed.

      Dixon grinned. “An hour here and there.” He had, Phoebe knew from Kate, worked on a ranch out west for a number of years before coming back home to New Skye.

      Kate brought Brady to a stop nearby. “Hi, Adam, how are you? I’d lean down for a kiss, but I’m not sure my balance is that good.”

      He gave her his wonderful smile. “I’ll take a rain check. Sh-show m-me what y-you can d-do.”

      For another thirty minutes or so, Phoebe and Adam stood at the fence to watch Kate and Dixon work. To be accurate, Adam watched the riders and Phoebe divided her time between the horses and the man at her side. He was now more at ease than she’d ever seen him, which meant he felt very comfortable with Dixon and Kate.

      And me? Phoebe wondered, wishing she didn’t care quite so much. What trauma had brought him this far out of town on a Sunday evening? Why in the world had he come to her, of all people?

      She kept her questions to herself and the four of them chatted as Dixon and Kate untacked and cooled down their horses. The men brought flakes of alfalfa hay and buckets of grain rations to the pasture while Kate and Phoebe leaned on the fence to talk.

      “New Skye can be a very small world,” Kate said, watching Adam dump grain into the different feed dishes. “How did you meet Adam?”

      Phoebe hesitated. Did he want even his good friends to know he was undergoing speech therapy?

      Kate was quick enough to spare her the choice. “Ah…I understand. Never mind. I didn’t ask. I’m glad to see him out here, though. He works too hard and spends too much time alone. I think you and your farm could be really good for Adam.” Kate belonged to another of New Skye’s prominent families, the Bowdreys. The Bells held a similar position, and Dixon was also related to the Crawfords, including Tommy, who was a cousin. Kate had explained some of the connections to Phoebe, along with tidbits about the DeVries clan.

      “He does seem to relax when he comes out.” She felt better, having Kate’s approval. “Would you and Dixon mind if I invited him to join us for dinner?”

      Kate laughed. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

      When asked, Adam tried to beg off, of course. “I-I d-don’t want to intr-trude.”

      Dixon threw an arm around his shoulders. “Yeah, right. We’re all just putting up with you to be polite. And your punishment is rabbit food.”

      Adam looked at Phoebe. “R-rabbit food?”

      “Phoebe’s a vegetarian,” Kate said, with a severe frown in her fiancé’s direction. “This is the one meal in a week I can convince Dixon to forgo meat.”

      “And, man, it’s tough. But Phoebe fixes pretty good rabbit food, so I manage to make it all the way back to town before I need a burger.”

      Phoebe punched Dixon in the side as she stalked toward the house. “You’ll eat those words. I guarantee it.”

      “No way.”

      “Want to bet?”

      “Sure. What’re the stakes?”

      “If you aren’t stuffed to the gills after this dinner, I’ll grill you a two-pound steak next time you’re out here.”

      Dixon grinned. “And if I am?”

      “You have to sing for me after dessert.”

      He pretended to consider. “Mighty high stakes there, ma’am. But you’re on.”

      As they sat on the screened porch after the meal, with a warm breeze occasionally tilting the flames of the candles on the table, Dixon groaned. “I give in, Phoebe. You win. I didn’t know jambalaya could taste so good without meat.”

      She stuck her tongue out at him even as she reached to the floor beside her chair and handed him the guitar waiting there. “Told you so. Now, pay up.”

      Dixon looked over to Adam. “What’ll it be?”

      “It’s n-not m-my b-bet.”

      “Aw, come on, help me out here. How about ‘Crazy’?”

      Adam sighed and shook his head. “G-give m-me an intro.”

      Phoebe looked from one man to the other, not sure what was happening. Dixon played a jazzy set of chords, and Adam sat forward. The next thing she knew, Adam’s voice eased into the twilight, crooning the old country song in a smooth, stutter-free baritone. Adam DeVries could sing. Boy, could he sing. She felt like a puddle of melted chocolate by the time he’d reached the final phrase.

      Between them, the guys produced an amazing reel of tunes, from romantic to rowdy, while she sat and marveled at their combined talent. “You two are incredible,” she said when the music came to an end. “I had no idea either of you was this good.”

      Adam shrugged and Dixon grinned. “Just a couple of good ol’ boys, pickin’ and hummin’.”

      “Right.” Dixon wrote songs for a living, among them some of the most popular recordings on the charts. “Can I make a request?”

      “Do we know it?”

      “Doesn’t everybody? I’d like to hear ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.’”

      Dixon started the chords,

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