A door on the side of the trailer opened, and Megan stepped out, holding little Jackson, Emily darting out behind her. Jack and Janet followed with their baby.
“Good to see you, Jesse.” Jack wore a cowboy hat on his head and a big sheepskin barn coat, his face a wide grin. “You’ve been busy. Thank God for you, son.”
“Where are the twins?” Emily asked.
“They’re home with Ellie taking a nap right now.”
“How is Daisy?” Megan asked.
“You’d never know that she went for an hour without a pulse yesterday.”
“Thank God,” Megan said. “I watched the footage. I felt sick for Ellie. I’m so glad you were there.”
“So am I.”
“Do you have time to come in and warm up?” Janet set Lily on the ground and zipped her coat.
Come in? Into where?
Then Jesse realized that they had all stepped out of the trailer. It wasn’t just a horse trailer. There was living space inside.
Nate glanced at his watch. “We need to get a look at the course. The race starts in about fifteen minutes.”
Jesse thanked Jack, Megan, and Janet and walked with Nate along the length of the course, getting a feel for it.
Nate pointed. “It’s different than what I set out.”
There were three jumps and three gates as there’d been on his practice course at the Cimarron, but there were also three sets of rings to catch rather than one.
“This is going to be a little tougher.” The rings hadn’t been Jesse’s strength.
“Just remember what we practiced. Keep your mouth shut. No slack. Land the jumps. Don’t miss the gates. And get all the rings. You ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” He glanced around hoping to see Ellie with the kids, but she wasn’t there.
*
Ellie made her way down the crowded sidewalk, the twins tucked beneath blankets in their stroller. There were a lot of people from out of town who’d come for the race, and some of them weren’t kind enough to step aside for her. But there were lots of locals, too, people she’d known all of her life. They said hello when they saw her, told her how happy they were that Daisy was okay.
When a couple of young men almost knocked her over, Harrison Conrad from the Team grabbed them both by their collars and jerked them to a stop. “Apologize to the woman here. Do you see she has two small children?”
They looked sheepishly at Ellie. “Sorry.”
Harrison let them go, shook his head. “Flatlanders. Good to see you, Ellie.”
When Ellie finally reached the skijoring course, there was almost nowhere to stand, especially not with such a wide stroller. She’d just found a spot where she could almost see the street when she heard someone call her name.
Megan waved. “Ellie! We saved a spot for you over here.”
Ellie made her way through the crowd to find the West clan except for Nate sitting together on folding chairs with one chair left for her. “Thanks so much. It took me so long to find parking, I was afraid I was going to miss it.”
“They’re just about to start.” Megan helped her move the stroller to a good spot. “Hi, there, Daniel. Hi, Daisy. She looks so healthy and happy.”
“We are very lucky.”
Megan gave Ellie a hug. “We saw the news coverage. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”
Then a man’s voice boomed over the speakers welcoming everyone and telling the first competitor to come to the starting line. Then he gave the crowd the rundown on the rules. Each skier got one chance to complete the course with added time penalties for anyone who missed a gate or a jump or dropped or missed a ring. The skier-rider team that finished the course with the fastest time got to split a prize of five thousand dollars.
Ellie willed herself to stay calm. “After Dan, I made a promise to myself not to get together with any man who enjoyed taking risks, and look at me now.”
Janet leaned closer. “That recklessness is probably why you’re attracted to Jesse in the first place.”
Ellie thought about that for a moment. “You’re right. I’m drawn to the part of him that rushes in when other men are afraid.”
That’s why Daisy was alive today.
The announcer’s voice ended their conversation. “First up are Carina Johnson and Billy Springer riding Thor. Is the team ready? They are ready.”
A pistol shot sent the horse galloping forward, hooves churning up clods of snow. The skier was promptly jerked off her skis and dragged a short distance down the street.
It was hard to watch, and Ellie had to remember that she wasn’t here as a first responder or an RN today.
God, she hoped Jesse wouldn’t be hurt.
The next pair had trouble when the horse, spooked by the pistol shot, reared rather than ran, and then stomped in nervous circles. The next finished the course, but missed one of the gates and failed to catch most of the rings.
“They’re racing in the order they signed up, so Jesse and Nate are going to be one of the last teams,” Megan told her, shouting to be heard above the cheers. She patted Ellie’s arm. “He’s going to be okay. Nate said he was a natural.”
Ellie drew a deep breath and did her best to get into the spirit and enjoy the show.
*