Slow Pony Home

He found the boy in the middle of a blizzard. 

She found them in the middle of nowhere.

An old west love story.

“There you are,” He grumbled at Jacob as he neared and Jacob tore himself from the girl’s grasp, darting toward him and latching onto his leg. 

“You are his father?” The girl’s mouth nearly hung open in astonishment. She was too pretty to look directly at and Jasper dropped his eyes to the dirt between them. He wasn’t around women often enough to know how to act and they usually just made him uncomfortably warm. This girl was the worst of them all. 

His neck was on fire.

“No.”

“But he belongs with you?” She glanced down at the scruffy Indian boy who needed a hair cut and was covered in a thin layer of dirt before arching one eyebrow delicately. 

Jasper nodded. “Yes.” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, as much to solidify his point to the pretty girl as to make sure the boy understood it too. Jacob clutched him tighter in response. 

“Where is his mother?”

Jasper shrugged, because he really had no idea. Jacob still couldn’t talk very well, and only in words that Jasper had taught him. Basics like ‘cold,’ ‘hungry’ and ‘sad.’ Even then, the boy still used his silent communication hand signals more often than not and they certainly weren’t exchanging life stories with one another. 

“Every boy needs a mother.” The girl pulled her eyes from Jacob still pressed against his chaps and Jasper pursed his lips. His own mother had died before he could remember her and he’d turned out just fine. Considering the way he and the boy lived, it wasn’t likely that a mother would come along any time soon.

Read it here: Slow Pony Home