“Come down now, boys. It’s time for lunch.”

The boys dismounted just like he taught them, with an assist from Sarah.

Luke wanted to put a stop to this, but didn’t know what to say.

She tied the horses’ reins to the arena fence, grabbed both boys by the hands, and turned them to face him. “Thank Luke for the riding lesson.”

“Thank you, Luke.” Nick looked downright sad about cutting the day short.

“Thank you,” Jack said to the ground, then turned his disappointed gaze to Sarah. “Mom, I thought we were going to see the whole ranch and have lunch with Luke.”

“It’s time to go. No arguments.”

The disappointment on the boys’ faces cut Luke deep.

Before he could say anything else, Sarah turned her back on him, and took the boys with her. He should go after her and apologize for yelling and . . . and what? Being stupid. The truth was he had no idea why he was mad, except that ever since he’d seen her yesterday, he couldn’t stop analyzing his life. And he didn’t like what he was thinking.

Ace fussed again, so Luke turned his back on Sarah and the boys to calm the horse. He ignored the sound of their car driving away and the loneliness that settled over him.

“Where’d they all go?” Jerry asked, coming up behind him.

“They left.” Luke’s tone and stance should have warned Jerry he didn’t want to talk and was working on a good mad.

Jerry ignored the danger signs. “Well, I hope you thanked Sarah for what she did. She was amazing with Ace. She sings like an angel, too.”

“Yeah, she does.” He feared her voice would haunt him forever. “She told me I should fire the doc. Can you believe that? She’s not here more than an hour and she’s telling me what to do, like she runs the place.”

Jerry stuffed his hands in his front pockets. “I agree with her. I don’t know what the doc was thinking, but every time she told him to stay back he’d get closer to Ace, agitating him. She’d calm Ace all over again. When she gave Ace his shots, he didn’t even flinch. He just moved closer to her, so that he could touch her. Besides all that, she had to clean several pieces of Doc’s equipment before she used them on Ace.”

“I thought Ace just got nervous around the vet because he knew there’d be a poke or pain.” Luke rubbed his hand down Ace’s nose. “You really stood still for her?” He spoke to the horse, but Jerry answered for him.

“Yep. He didn’t even try to nip her all the while she checked every inch of him, nose to tail. Ask me, he’d have never cut himself if the doc showed any patience toward him. Doc hated that you asked Sarah to tend to Ace and did nothing but cause trouble the whole time she was working on him. Doc treated her downright rude.”