Wild West Fortune

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  His eyes crinkled slightly. “Ridin’s easy.”

  “Says the man who grew up doing it.” She rubbed her hands down the sides of her jeans. “What do I do?”

  “Carry this on out to Daisy and Jobuck. You can hang it on the rail.” He set the saddle on her outstretched hands.

  “Holy mama.” The weight was unexpected and she had to hurriedly adjust her grip or drop the unwieldy saddle right on her feet. “How much does this thing weigh?”

  He’d grabbed two saddle pads in one hand and hung a second saddle from his shoulder. “That’s Mom’s saddle. It’s a light one,” he said, leading the way from the barn. “Less ’n thirty pounds.”

  “So much for thinking I work out at my gym often enough,” she muttered. He’d buttoned up his shirt and shoved one tail of it haphazardly into his jeans, which left her plenty of rear-end beauty to ogle as she followed. It helped distract her from the fact that for every step she took, she had to sort of push the saddle along with her thigh. It made for a Quasimodo kind of pace.

  At the fence surrounding the pasture, she managed to heave the saddle onto one of the rails like he did without sending it toppling onto the other side. Then she started gnawing the inside of her cheek as the horse closest to her turned its head toward her and gave a loud snuffy huff.

  “Think she smells good, do you, Daisy?” Jayden rubbed his hand over the horse’s back and looked at Ariana where she was hovering. “Come closer. She’ll sniff you up real well but she’s not going to bite.” He matter-of-factly took Ariana’s hand in his and set it on the horse’s warm back. “See?”

  “Sure.” Between the supple feel of the short, coarse hair under her palm and the warmth of his calloused one holding it in place, she was awash in sensation. And the way Daisy swung her head around to eyeball Ariana made her wonder if the horse knew it, too.

  He stroked their hands across the horse a few times. “All smooth. They’re already groomed, but you still always want to check and make sure nothing’s there to irritate her when she’s saddled.”

  His hand left Ariana’s and he stepped away for a moment, and she quickly swallowed, sharing another look with Daisy.

  Then he came back with the saddle pad, and once he’d shown Ariana how to make sure it was placed correctly, he grabbed the saddle and gently situated it on top of the saddle pad.

  Explaining all the while, he fastened the front cinch. Then the flank cinch. He glanced at her where she was standing next to Daisy’s enormous head. “I’m not using a breast collar.” As if Ariana even knew what that was. “And we don’t really need the flank for where we’re heading this afternoon, but it’ll make things feel a little more secure for you.”

  “Ah. Thank you?”

  His lips twitched and he looped the reins over the horse’s neck with one hand and hung his other fingers on the stirrup. “Come on. Left foot up in the stirrup if you can reach it. I’ll tighten things up a little more once you’re up.”

  Nervousness fluttered up her chest. She stroked Daisy’s cheek. “What if I fall off?”

  His lips tilted. “Then you’ll get back on.” He moved, gesturing for her to take his place standing next to the saddle. “But you won’t fall off. Daisy’s the steadiest ride we’ve got. She’s been around a long time.” He scratched the horse beneath her neck as they switched spots. “Haven’t you, girl? Not that it’s polite to talk about a lady’s age, but she’s twice as old as Jobuck.”

  Ariana blew out a puff of air. She stretched her foot up and was grateful not to hear one of her seams rip as she fit the toe of her boot through the stirrup.

  “Okay. I s’pose you could find a hundred people to tell you a hundred ways to mount a horse, but here’s how I learned.” He moved her left hand from where she’d grabbed the saddle horn and placed it instead near the horse’s mane not far from the edge of the saddle pad. “Usually you’d have the reins in your hand like I do.” His left hand nudged hers. Then he guided her right hand to the back of the saddle. “Some people grab the far pommel. Some the cantle. This is the cantle. You’re only looking for balance when you push yourself up. Not pulling. Pushing. Keeping your weight toward the horse while you’re doing it. Got it?”

  She let out half a laugh. She felt like she was being stretched on a rack. “Sure. Right.”

  When he’d been saddling the horse, she’d noticed that one of his hands had maintained contact with Daisy the whole while. And when his hand left Ariana’s to find her waist, she realized he did the same thing with her.

  She couldn’t decide if it was unsettling or comforting.

  “I’ll give you help if you need it,” he said. “Once you’re off the ground and feeling balanced standing there in the stirrup, swing your right leg over. Try not to kick Daisy in the process. She doesn’t like that much.”

  “Who does?”

  He laughed softly and the sound of it was almost music to her ears. He hadn’t laughed like that since...well, since.

  “Get some good spring going here.” His hand touched her thigh. “It’ll help a lot. And push.”

  She pushed, barely feeling his hand fall away from her waist as, by some miracle, she swung right up into the saddle, completely bypassing the whole stand and balance part, but nevertheless ending up with her butt where it belonged.

  She laughed, surprised by the exhilaration she felt. Not to mention being able to look down on him for once.

  It was a novel experience.

  “I feel very high up here,” she admitted.

  “You’re a natural.” His hand left her boot and he ducked under Daisy’s head and checked her right foot in the stirrup after she’d stood up in them when he requested. “You’re shorter than my mother.” He ducked back under again and adjusted the front cinch some more. The process had him standing distractingly close to Ariana’s thigh. “I figured I’d need to shorten the stirrups, but I don’t.”

  His brown hair was slightly lighter on top. Sun kissed. She caught herself just in time from reaching out to ruffle her fingers through the short, thick strands. His hair wasn’t much lighter than Daisy’s but she knew very well that it was so, so much softer.

  “Long legs, I guess.” She absently pressed down one of the bandages striping her palm.

  His gaze lifted, catching hers for a moment that seemed to stretch. “Yeah.”

  Then he took a step back, breaking the moment.

  He scooped up the cowboy hat he’d left hanging over a fence post and put it on his head. “Just get used to the feel of Daisy under you for a few minutes.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  She watched him stride back into the barn and leaned forward over Daisy’s neck. “Be gentle with me, okay, girl?” Daisy shook her head and shifted, and Ariana quickly straightened, grabbing the saddle horn as she rocked. “I hope that’s your way of saying yes.”

  The horse standing next to them—Jobuck—also shifted, tossing his head and pulling against the rope tethering him loosely to the fence rail, and Ariana gave him a wary look. “Behave over there, would you, please? I’m still new in town, remember?”

  Then Jayden returned carrying a coiled rope, a canteen and a longish pouch from which he pulled a pair of leather gloves. He handed them to her. “They’re the softest ones I could find,” he said a little gruffly. “But they’ll give your hands a little more protection.”

  Stupidly touched, she pulled them on.

  In a matter of minutes, he had Jobuck saddled. The younger horse didn’t stand quite so placidly in place as Jayden worked. “Cut it out,” he said easily as the horse seemed to deliberately bump against him. Jayden just pushed back with his shoulder against the horse and he settled.

  It was a reminder that Ariana didn’t really need that the horses could run the show if they so chose. “Have you ever been hurt by a horse?”

  �
��Not intentionally.” He looked up at Ariana as he fastened the bag to the back of his saddle. Next came the canteen and the rope. “Don’t worry about Jobuck. He’s just feeling frisky.”

  “What’s the rope for?”

  “In case.”

  “In case of what?”

  His lips twitched. “In case you don’t behave yourself.”

  She made a face and his smile widened. “In case,” he said again.

  She supposed when it came to a rancher, “in case” probably covered a lot of possibilities.

  He replaced the horse’s halter with the bridle and reins. But instead of mounting Jobuck, he led both horses around to the front of the barn, not stopping until he’d practically reached the storm-cellar door.

  Ariana pointed toward it. “Did it get all dried out down there?”

  He glanced at the cellar door. “Probably by now. Haven’t worried about anything down there enough to look.”

  He checked the cinch on Ariana’s saddle one more time before handing her the reins. “Hold ’em in your left hand.” He showed her. “You want ’em easy and loose for Daisy, but not so loose she worries you’re not in charge. Yep. There you go. Keep ’em up like they’re a cup of coffee you don’t want to spill.”

  “Coffee!”

  His eyes glinted. “Figure that might resonate more than the usual ice-cream-cone comparison. Drape the rest over on your right. You’re green, so you can hold the horn if you need to. Otherwise just let your free hand relax.”

  “Relax. Because that’s so easy to do.”

  He was smiling as she watched him swing up onto Jobuck’s back and she nearly swallowed her tongue.

  How on earth had she gone her whole life without realizing just how sexy the sight would be of a man climbing on a horse? Even though she knew Jayden had worn an army uniform for most of his adult life, at that moment it was hard to picture it. Not when he looked so completely and utterly where he belonged on the back of a horse.

  His smile widened and his eyes glinted. “Ready?”

  Her stomach danced around. And she knew at that particular moment that it had absolutely nothing to do with a horseback ride and everything to do with him.

  “Yes.” The word slid from her lips. “I think I am.”

  Chapter Nine

  They rode through grass. And more grass.

  And Ariana realized that she’d been wrong when she’d first thought that it all looked the same. In the thick of it, there seemed to be an endless variety of colors and textures and smells.

  And the sounds. She wasn’t sure why she’d ever thought of the country as being so quiet.

  There was buzzing. There was chirping. There was the quick rush and flap of wings as birds scattered almost from beneath their hooves when Jayden decided it was time for her to trot. At which point she was pretty sure that the loudest sound in the entire county was her teeth clanking together as she bounced ungracefully in the saddle. She didn’t know what to grab. The saddle horn to help the jouncing or her chest to stop the bouncing.

  “Relax your knees,” Jayden called. “Squeezing with your legs isn’t going to help. Lighten up your spine and let your hips rock more. Sorta like you’re bouncing on a yoga ball.”

  She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Yoga ball?”

  “You’ve been on one, haven’t you? You look like the yoga sort with the way you go around exercising every morning.”

  She hadn’t thought he’d noticed anything she did in the mornings. Aside from keeping food on the table and the coffeepot brewing. “Yeah, I do yoga.” She nodded, only to bite her tongue. Which, strangely enough, just made her laugh that much harder. “This is awful!”

  He was grinning. “How do you think it feels from Daisy’s perspective?”

  “Oh, great. Now I feel guilty for hurting her, too.”

  He pulled up Jobuck and Daisy slowed as well, taking a couple of steps, then just stopping altogether.

  “She’s patient,” he assured her. “She knows you’re learning.” He brought Jobuck closer until there was only a few feet between them. He pulled off his hat and reached over to plop it on her head. “Your nose is getting sunburned.”

  She pushed up the brim so she could see from beneath it and warned the pitter-pat going on inside her chest not to get too excited.

  “When we start trotting again, imagine keeping your seat bones in contact with the horse. Then once we do a slow lope, you’ll feel more of a wave motion and it’ll get easier. Graciela once told me she thought sitting the trot was sort of like learning to follow your partner during sex. Close your eyes if you have to.”

  He was waiting for a response. She merely nodded. It was all she could manage because she suddenly couldn’t seem to think a single, coherent thought.

  His eyes crinkled and they set off again.

  When she felt Daisy picking up speed beneath her, transitioning from that easy, swaying sort of walk into another trot, she had to clap one hand on his hat to keep it from blowing off her head.

  She closed her eyes.

  She didn’t know if she bounced any less, really.

  But she certainly enjoyed the image of him behind her closed lids.

  * * *

  She wasn’t sure how long they rode, but she was pathetically grateful when they finally stopped in the shade of the trees surrounding a large, meandering pond where an old-fashioned-looking windmill slowly turned.

  The hot sunshine had sent sweat dripping down her spine. Even inside the gloves, her hands were so wet that when she peeled them off, the bandages on her palms dropped off, too.

  “Here.” Jayden leaned toward her from Jobuck’s back, offering the canteen.

  “Thanks.” She was breathless. She’d lost count of how many times Jayden had her move in and out of a trot. In and out of a lope. Enough times, though, that she’d actually felt like she was getting the hang of it. “I didn’t know riding a horse was such a workout.” She twisted off the cap and drank thirstily. The water was cool. Vaguely metallic. And entirely refreshing.

  “That’s how Nathan and I keep our girlish figures.”

  She coughed a little as she swallowed. The day Jayden Fortune and his brother were in any way girlish would be the day the earth started spinning in the opposite direction. Even though she hadn’t met Grayson, she figured he had to have been cut from the same cloth, too.

  She swiped her arm over her mouth and took another drink, then screwed the cap back on.

  Jayden had already dismounted and led Jobuck near the edge of the water, leaving the reins loose.

  “You’re not afraid he’ll run off?”

  “I’ll keep an eye.” He walked back toward her and took the canteen. “But he’s usually pretty good being ground tied. Particularly when Daisy’s around.” He pulled off the cap and tilted his head back as he drank.

  His throat was tanned and sheened with sweat.

  And she felt desperately in need of something to fan herself with, just from watching him.

  Then he looped the strap of the canteen over a tree branch and took the reins that she’d draped around her saddle horn and walked Daisy nearer to Jobuck. “Need help getting down?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Just go in reverse pretty much. Get your right foot out of the stirrup. This time grab the horn with your right hand. It’ll keep you from getting anything hung up on it as you come down.”

  “What would get hung up?”

  He waved vaguely. “Your, uh, shirt.”

  She frowned.

  “Just trust me,” he said. Then he sighed a little impatiently. “Graciela once got hung up on her bra,” he said abruptly.

  She raised her eyebrows. It was difficult being blithe when she felt more like bari
ng her teeth. “Just what exactly went on between you and Graciela? I thought she was supposed to be the older woman who got away?”

  “Nothing to write home about.” He gestured to the horse. “Swing your leg over.” He waited while she did it. “And now lower it on down.” His hands surrounded her hips when her foot hit the clover-covered ground and she slid her left toe out of the stirrup. “Good job.”

  Daisy’s warm body was in front of her. Jayden’s warm body was behind her.

  It was safer to focus on the horse. She patted the side of Daisy’s neck and pulled off Jayden’s cowboy hat. Even though it was straw, her head immediately felt cooler from the fresh air and she shoved her hand through her hair, flipping it away from her neck. “Is the pond deep enough to swim in?”

  “Thought you didn’t swim.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, as it happens, it’s only a few feet deep, anyway. Good for wading in, but that’s about it.” His hands fell away from her as he gave her space. “Though if you want to strip off and give it a shot, don’t let me stop you.”

  She gave him a look.

  He spread his hands. “I’m just a guy, sweetheart.”

  “You’re not just anything.”

  His smile was faint and entirely wicked. “It’s fresh water, though. That old windmill’s been pumping up water since the fifties.”

  She looked up at the metal-framed structure situated on a slight rise above the trees. The fan part of it was turning slowly with a distinctly rhythmic squeak.

  In conjunction with the buzz of bugs and the chirping of birds, it was almost musical.

  “Fifties, huh?” She tucked the gloves in her back pocket and yanked her T-shirt off as she walked toward the water’s edge. “That was before your mother came to Paseo.” She crouched down and swished her shirt through the clear water, glancing back at him.

  He’d hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. His shoulders seemed particularly massive and his expression had closed. “So?”

  She swallowed a sigh and straightened. Every muscle in her legs protested.

  “I’m not digging for details,” she assured him evenly. “Paloma told me about your mother and the Thompsons. Irv—No. Earl. Earl and Cynthia Thompson. They’re the ones who took in your mom before you and your brothers were born.”