by Donna Alward
“Bring him outside, if you don’t mind,” he called to the man riding him, though why he did so he had no idea.
The horse obeyed the rider instantly. Wes shot Jillian an expression of doubt. As good-looking horses went, the gelding took the cake. A little taller than he would like for a potential cutting horse, perhaps, but he’d seen some bigger geldings get down in the dirt. He’d watched a video of him working cows yesterday and been impressed. If he’d owned the horse, he wouldn’t have offered him for sale for any amount of money.
He eyed the man on horseback, a younger cowboy with scruffy blond hair who hadn’t outgrown acne just yet. “You the owner?”
The kid’s eyes darted right before he answered, “Yes,” but the way he said the one word caught Wes’s attention. A little too quick. Wes might have missed it if he hadn’t been listening closely.
“How long have you had him?”
Again the cagey look. “Long enough to know he’s a good one.”
Honestly, he didn’t believe Jillian was some kind of horse whisperer, but he didn’t like the way the kid was responding to his questions, either. “Ever been bucked off him?”
If he’d looked uncomfortable before, he was positively sitting on tacks now. “No, sir.”
“Never?”
“Wellll, he can get a little high sometimes, but nothing someone with a good seat can’t handle.”
Wes had heard enough. “Okay, then. Thanks for showing him to me. I appreciate it.”
He turned away before he said something sarcastic. Cowboy fell into step beside him. Good Lord, the kid was a bad liar. He heard more than saw Jillian follow in his wake.
“Now, there’s a horse trader if ever I’ve seen one,” she said.
Horse trader. The scourge of the equine industry. People who picked up horses for cheap and tried to resell them, usually telling a whole boatload of lies along the way. He would bet if he looked at the horse’s registration papers, he’d see that the kid wasn’t even listed as owner. He stopped suddenly.
“Did you see him try to buck that kid off earlier?”
Jillian drew back, obviously offended. “No. I told you, I could tell something was off the moment I spotted him and so I dropped in on him last night.”
He looked away from her piercing green eyes, still not really convinced, but damned if he didn’t agree that something wasn’t right. Perhaps it’d been a lucky guess on her part.
“You believe me now, don’t you?”
He faced her squarely. “I believe you’re an astute horsewoman, one smart enough to check up on a prospect when nobody was around. And I believe you’re probably right. If he’s got issues in the stall, he probably has issues under saddle.”
“Thank you. I’m flattered.”
They stood in a place just outside the arena, in between the fenced enclosure and a long line of stalls. Horse heads bobbed up and down as they watched the activity directly across from them.
“I don’t know why you men are always such skeptics,” she added. “I get so tired of having to explain to your sex why I feel a certain way about a horse. For once it’d be nice to meet someone who says, ‘Oh, you have a gut feeling? I completely understand. Thanks for the tip.’”
A horse neighed in the distance. In the arena, one of the animals being ridden answered back. Typical sounds for an equine event except in the distance, off in the barns a ways away, one could hear the sounds of bulls calling to each other. Wes had planned to go look at them earlier, but then he’d spotted the kid riding the gelding...
He turned back to Jillian. She sure was cute, especially standing there, branches from a nearby tree sifting sunlight onto her hair and throwing dappled patterns on her shoulders.
“I see your point, and I’m glad you spoke up. I’m still interested in the horse, but I’ll be watching him more closely from here on out.”
“Suit yourself, but I’m telling you, you’ll be sorry if you end up buying him.” She bent and scratched Cowboy again.
“Duly noted.”
“Your dog knows I’m right, too.”
“Yeah?” Cowboy whined. When Wes looked down, he was chagrined to realize his dog sat at Jillian’s feet.
“Dogs have a sixth sense about other animals. They know when they’re bad. You ever watch a cattle dog run up to the rankest bull in the herd? They just know, and they step in to protect their master.”
“If you say so.”
“One more thing,” she said. “If you want your dog to stop chewing your boots, give him something else—like a pig ear or a cow bone. He’s never going to stop on his own.”
Wes jerked upright.
“What makes you think he likes to chew my boots?”
“Another gut feeling.”
He didn’t move for a second. Could she see the chew marks along the top? No, she couldn’t see them.
“Lucky guess.”
She must have realized she wasn’t going to get anywhere with him, because she nodded. “Just do me a favor. Stay away from that horse. He’s a bad one.”
“Duly noted.”
She turned away. He watched her for a moment before doing the same. Crazy. The whole thing was crazy.
“By the way,” he heard her call, “Cowboy strikes me as the type that likes to bury things, so if you’re missing a boot, check for fresh piles of dirt.”
He almost stumbled. She was looking over her shoulder, a wicked smile on her face. How did she know about that—?
She started walking backward, thumbs hooked in her jeans. “But that was probably just a lucky guess, too, huh?”
She turned away before he could respond, which was probably a good thing because she’d done something a woman hadn’t done to him in a long time.
She’d rendered him completely speechless.
Copyright © 2015 by Pamela Britton
ISBN-13: 9781460375945
The Cowboy’s Valentine
Copyright © 2015 by Donna Alward
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