“He’s a good horse.”

The words betrayed no overt sentiment, but Mari caught the carefully even tone and her gaze sharpened on the seemingly mindless pat on the shoulder he gave the horse as he caught his reins and hooked one loosely around a rail in the corral fence. The gelding wasn’t fooled either. He gave his master a hooded look and nipped at the flap on his shirt pocket. Grumbling, Rafferty fished a butter mint out and handed it over.

Some tough guy. Mari tried to steel herself against the insidious warmth curling around her heart. Just because the horse liked him didn’t mean he wasn’t a jerk.

“So what are you doing here anyway, Rafferty? Besides spoiling my fun.”

“I came to look after the stock,” he said, shooting her a sideways glance as he loosened the cinch on his saddle. “Nobody told me not to.”

Stock. She’d forgotten there were animals here, hadn’t given a thought to the fact that she owned them now too. In fact, she had yet to see them. She hadn’t gotten any farther than the corral in her exploration of the place. The burning of the business suits had demanded all her attention. She couldn’t have considered accepting Lucy’s bequest until she had officially broken that symbolic tie to her past. Now she thought of livestock and panicked.

“Stock?” she said, falling into step beside Rafferty as he headed toward the old barn. “What kind of stock? I’m not sure I’m ready to handle anything that could be considered ‘stock.’

“Come to think of it,” she went on, suddenly pensive, “I can’t see Lucy handling ‘stock’ either. Christ, she never even wanted to open her own beer cans for fear she’d chip a nail.” But then, there were a great many things about Lucy that suddenly made no sense. Mari bit her lip and cast a worried look down at the peanut tin in her arms.

“What is that thing?”

Mari blushed a little. She had almost gotten used to the idea of Mr. Peanut, but when she thought about it, it seemed too bizarre to share. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.”

J.D. let it go as unimportant. “You know how to ride?”

He led the way into the dim interior of the barn. The thin scent of dust and the sweet aroma of hay filled her head. Beneath it lay the earthy undertone of animals and their droppings, not exactly perfume, but real and natural. J.D. lifted a lid on a grain bin and scooped mixed feed into a coffee can. Mari dug a hand into the grain and sifted it through her fingers, fascinated by the strange shapes and textures. She could identify the kernels of corn and the slivers of oats, but the rest were a mystery.

“Yes, I can ride,” she answered absently. “My mother thought it sounded impressive to tell people I was taking riding lessons. Until I expressed an interest in learning to ride circus horses standing up on their backs. Really, I mainly wanted to wear a glittery leotard, but she wouldn’t go for that either.”

“Gee, you poor kid,” J.D. drawled sarcastically.

Mari gave him a sharp look. “Dreams don’t have to be practical. It still hurts when they get broken.”

Brushing the grain from her palm, she took the coffee can as he handed it to her. He moved to the next bin, lifted the lid, and started dumping brown pellets into several mismatched buckets that stood on the concrete floor. When the buckets were full, he scooped them up and led the way out a side door.

“Here’s your ride, if you’re of a mind to,” J.D. said, feeling small for sneering at her childhood fantasy. “Get yourself a sparkle suit and knock yourself out.”

Mari stopped dead and stared at the creature in the grassy paddock. “A mule?”

She wouldn’t have been surprised at a sleek thoroughbred or a handsome quarter horse. Lucy loved anything beautiful and expensive. But a mule? The animal pricked his long ears and ambled out of the shade of a lean-to as Rafferty took the grain can and dumped it in a big black rubber tub. Sturdy and slick with a glossy seal-brown coat, he was handsome enough as mules went, she supposed. But the big head and long ears were a lot to get past aesthetically.

“Some actress up Livingston-way bought one last summer. Now they’re all the rage,” J.D. said dryly, rolling his eyes. He had been raised to see animals as useful and necessary, not trendy. He looked the mule over quickly and expertly, automatically checking for any signs of illness or injury. “Tack is in the barn.”

Mari slipped between the bars of the fence and circled the mule slowly. The creature kept his nose buried in his grain, but followed her with his eyes. When she squatted down beside his dish, he raised his head a few inches and stopped chewing, giving her a vaguely peeved look out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey there, Clyde. How you doing?”

The mule gave a little snort, chewed some more, watched her. Mari smiled and held a hand out for him to sniff. Clyde reached over and pretended to nip at her, then stuck his nose back in his feed.

“Clyde?” J.D. said skeptically. “Why Clyde?”

“Why not? He strikes me as a Clyde. How does he strike you?”

“As a mule.”

“What an imagination you have. Must be a real struggle to keep it from running away with you.”

They left Clyde to his grain and continued on through the small pasture to another gate. Gathered in the feeding area were about twenty llamas. The colors of their shaggy coats ranged from black to white, solid to spotted. They stood expectantly around the feed tubs, their magnificent, long-lashed brown eyes fixed on J.D. and Mari.

“Here’s your stock,” J.D. said with no small amount of sarcasm.

“Llamas! Cool!” She stood still and watched as a fuzzy white baby came to nibble at her shirttail, her eyes wide with wonder. “Lucy never said anything about llamas!”

“Yeah, well,” J.D. grumbled. “She was just full of surprises, wasn’t she?”

He watched her as she got acquainted with the peculiar creatures, trying not to be swayed by her obvious delight in them. It would have been better for him if she had run screaming in fright. He never liked a person who didn’t like animals. They almost always proved untrustworthy. He didn’t want to like Mary Lee. He couldn’t associate anyone from Lucy’s world with trust.

Mari ignored him, her attention absorbed by the curious animals that came to inspect her. They craned their long necks, sniffed and nibbled and hummed softly. Their gazes were sometimes direct, sometimes shy, always with a quality of secret wisdom in their limpid brown depths.

She had never met a llama up close before. Now she wanted to know everything about them at once-how soft their woolly coats were, what they were saying when they hummed at one another, what they ate, what they thought about. The peanut tin curled protectively in one arm, she touched them and stroked them and let one rub his soft upper lip against her palm. She chatted with them as if they were people, introducing herself, explaining her connection to Lucy.

One poked at the peanut tin with its small nose, and she laughed and backed away, a little apprehensive as they followed her en masse.

“Bring me up to speed, here, Rafferty,” she said, making a face as a black one tried to lick her cheek. The smell of them filled her nose like the scent of damp wool sweaters left on a radiator to dry. “What exactly do llamas do? I mean, they’re not dangerous or anything, are they?”

J.D. snorted. They were next to worthless by his scale, a curiosity. Not that that was their fault, he admitted as he absently scratched the back of a black and white male. “If they don’t like you, they spit on you.”

“Ah. Big, hairy, smelly things that spit. It’s like junior high revisited,” Mari said dryly, narrowing her gaze on the one that had gotten a firm hold on her shirt cuff. “In fact, this one looks exactly like the guy who sat behind me in science class. I’d recognize those ears anywhere.”