Poor baby.
The horse lifted its head, nodding as if in silent agreement.
“What are you doing?”
Jillian’s eyes popped open. She wasn’t normally so obvious, especially in front of men.
“Ahh. Nothing. Piece of sawdust in my eyes.”
He turned to face her again. Beneath the overhang of a stall he seemed all the more imposing. He wore cowboy hats low on his brow, she noticed, not that it mattered how he wore them, because he was a big man and he probably could have covered his nose and still seen the world.
“You okay?”
She looked down at Wes’s feet, at the dog that faithfully sat by his side. Your human is very handsome.
The dog wagged his tail, the soft hairs brushing the ground and kicking up dirt.
And he probably knows it, too.
“Fine.” She nodded toward the horse. “See how quiet he is?”
“Well, yeah, I don’t need a sixth sense to know why that is. Clearly someone rode him pretty hard today. Look at the marks by his girth.”
She leaned in, then immediately drew back. How had she missed that? She could see where the skin was raised beneath the hide. Horizontal lines and one diagonal line intersected right about where a spur would rest. She would bet if she examined the gelding up close, she’d find broken skin.
“You have to buy him.”
Cowboy whined as if trying to urge his master to do as she suggested, but she could tell Wes wasn’t convinced.
“And why should I do that?”
“Look at him. Nice head, and with that short back, he ought to be pretty handy. He’s flashy, too, with those four white socks and half-white head. And smart. You can tell by looking in his eyes.”
“I don’t like four white feet. Their hooves are horrible. Too brittle.” Their gazes connected. “Sorry—I probably should have told you that before you started scouting prospects.”
“You don’t even want to see him work? Because of his feet?”
“I’m saying no because he’s reining bred, too. He even looks like a reiner.”
“Would you refuse to date a woman because she came from the wrong bloodlines?”
She had no idea where the question came from, except maybe she was trying to give herself one more reason to stop thinking about the breadth of his shoulders. Normally, she would never push a client toward something they didn’t want, but she enjoyed the way his eyes widened beneath his black hat. She could practically hear the thoughts going through his head.
Should I answer that? Maybe I shouldn’t. Lord, that’s a loaded question.
She almost laughed.
“I guess it would depend on the woman.”
“How about a woman who’s short, a little bit overweight, but who makes you laugh. Would you say no to that?”
Why was she pushing him?
“Well, I can overlook a lot of things if someone can cook.” He smiled. She looked away. “How’s your cooking?”
“I can’t boil an egg,” she lied.
She thought she heard him laugh. And she could have sworn he softly said, “Liar.”
Okay, so she was a great cook, but she wasn’t going to let the conversation flow into territory she’d rather avoid.
Arm’s length, she reminded herself.
She’d agreed to help him because of CEASE, because what they needed, what they had always needed, was a wealthy sponsor to help fund their organization. With financial backing they could get the word out, tell more people about the plight of unwanted racehorses. Not just racehorses but all horses. His mother might be just the ticket.
“Seriously, Wes, you shouldn’t turn up your nose at something because it’s different from what you want. Plenty of good reining horses have made good cutting horses—and vice versa.”
Was she speaking to herself? Or him?
When she felt his gaze fall upon her, she dared to look up at him.
“That sounded personal.”
It had been, and she had no idea why she’d said it, not after warning herself off.
“No. Not at all. I just think you should give him a try.”
He went back to peering at the horse in the stall. So did she. Inside, the gelding swished his tail.
“He’s young,” Jillian added. “He’ll do some growing over the next couple of years.”
She felt something cold and wet touch her hand. When she glanced down, Cowboy stared up at her.
Maybe you can talk some sense into him.
More tail wagging.
“Okay, fine. I’ll watch him perform today.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
She didn’t know why she did it, didn’t have a clue what prompted her, but suddenly she hugged him. She felt so strongly about the gelding in the stall it took her breath away. She didn’t pretend to be psychic. She just had a feeling they’d be a perfect match.
“Wow.” He drew back. “If I’d known that’d be your reaction, I’d have said yes ten minutes ago.”
She felt so small in his arms. Hated that she noticed again how wide his shoulders were. Loved the way his eyes lit up when he smiled.
She stepped back.
“Sorry. I just think...” You have the sexiest eyes I’ve ever seen. “You won’t be disappointed.”
She turned away before she forgot it all—forgot the pain and sorrow and wasted tears she’d spent on one man after another. Forgot the crushing disappointment and how stupid she felt afterward, forgot how many times she’d gotten her hopes up by telling herself, once again, that it would be different this time around.
It never was.
She started to turn away again.
“Wait.”
She didn’t turn back, didn’t want to look him in the eyes. She didn’t want to connect with him at all.
“Don’t you have more for me to look at?”
“Nope.” She gave him her profile. “He’s it.”
“Well, all right, then,” he said. “What time do you want to hook up at the arena?”
“One o’clock. He’s the third one out.”
She didn’t wait for him to respond. He would either be there or he wouldn’t. From here on out it was horses and horsemanship. That was it.
Too bad she had a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy.
Chapter Four
“She’s an odd one, isn’t she?”
Cowboy peered up at him intently.
And you’re getting desperate, buddy, if you’re talking to your dog.
A cute oddball, he amended, watching her walk away, but an oddball just the same.
Desperate straits call for desperate measures.
The words had become his mantra recently. If Bugsy hadn’t pulled up lame... He shook his head in disgust and disappointment. Now he was dead in the water and a fully trained replacement horse would cost a fortune, which was why he’d traveled to Red Bluff this weekend to look at prospects. The equine equivalent to a Hail Mary pass. He had to find a horse that could nudge him over the half-million-dollar mark in earnings. Pronto. If he didn’t... Well, he couldn’t even think about that.
“Come on,” he said to Cowboy.
Two hours later she stood right where she’d said she’d be, out in front of the two-story brown building that served as a horse arena. She wasn’t alone. A woman with blond hair and blue eyes stood next to her.
“Wes,” Jillian said, barely making eye contact. “This is Natalie.”
He glanced at Natalie, offering a “Nice to meet you” before looking back at Jillian and puzzling through why she seemed so cold all of a sudden.
“Wow,” he heard Natalie say. “You weren’t kidding when you said he was good-looking.”
He had a front-row seat to Jillian’s reaction. She flinched, turned on her friend and sharply whispered, “Natalie!”
Now, that was more like it. At least she had some color back in her cheeks.
She thought he was good-looking?
For som
e reason that made him stand up a little straighter.
“And who’s this cutie?” Natalie said.
“This is Cowboy,” Wes said.
Natalie squatted down to meet his dog. “Hey there, boy. Gonna watch some horses work with us?”
Cowboy barely shot Natalie a glance. His dog only had eyes for Jillian. The canine stared at her as if she held the keys to a room filled with bones.
“We better get in there before the seats all fill up,” Jillian said.
She still wouldn’t look at him. It’d grown colder since that morning. Overcast. Both women wore jackets, Natalie’s made of leather and Jillian’s a black knitted cardigan that hung past her hips to midthigh. It hugged her petite body but didn’t look all that warm, and he knew it would be even colder inside.
“Are you excited?” Natalie asked Wes.
“I’m curious,” he replied. “The horse Jillian chose for me isn’t exactly what I was looking for.”
Natalie nodded. “I know how you feel. She narrowed the field down to three for me, and not a one of them is what I would have picked for myself. But I’ve learned over the years to listen to her. You’ll learn the same thing, too.”
Great, he thought as they headed inside. Two crazy women.
The building had been built in the ’50s. A beige stucco facade on the outside and a concrete floor that seemed to radiate the chill. They were a little late to be finding a seat, most of the grandstands already filled, but they wedged themselves into a spot near the top. Cowboy settled at Wes’s feet. It looked like a sea of cowboy hats from where they sat, as if you could hop from brim to brim and never touch the ground.
“I’m so excited,” he heard Natalie say. She wore her long blond hair in a braid, a brown ball cap on her head, one with rhinestones in the shape of a horseshoe catching the light. The glimmer of the stones nearly matched the blue in her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.”
“Me neither,” Jillian said, and Wes noticed she’d made sure Natalie sat next to him and that Jillian sat on the other side of Natalie—as far away as possible. “I have no idea how you’re going to wedge in learning to ride a reining horse and continue with your show jumping career, too.”
“Who’s your reining trainer?” Wes asked.
“I don’t have one.”
Wes pulled his gaze away from a horse just entering the arena, an average-looking bay gelding with big ears and a bushy black tail, and shot her a look of surprise. “You’re buying a reining horse and you don’t have a trainer?”
“I am a trainer,” Natalie said.
“You ride English.”
“Yeah, which means I know how to ride.” He tried to keep a straight face; clearly he failed. “You try and ride a horse over a five-foot fence.”
“No, thanks, I prefer to keep my feet on the ground, but I know someone who would take up your challenge.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“A friend of mine. A rodeo performer. I’ll have to introduce the two of you.”
“Rodeo?” Natalie’s look said it all. Yuck. “Can’t imagine anyone involved with the world of rodeo knowing anything about reining horses.”
“You might be surprised.”
In fact, he’d make a point of introducing the two. In the arena a black horse worked—unimpressively, he thought—over so-called trail obstacles that were nothing more than wood poles, tires and plastic bags filled with aluminum cans. The gelding was slow on the uptake, so much so he almost dumped his rider when the man picked up one of the bags.
“That was scary,” he heard Jillian say.
The main arena had been sectioned off into three different pens. The first was meant to showcase the animal’s horse sense—in this case, none. The second was for showing off the animal’s maneuverability. The third was where they would work a cow. The middle ring was the one that Natalie would pay close attention to because that was where the horse would circle, stop and back...along with a few other tasks, all moves that would be necessary at a reining competition.
Less than a minute later a horn sounded, signaling it was time to move. Alas, the black horse didn’t appear to be any better at reining than he was at trail. Meanwhile, a new horse had entered the first ring. There would always be a horse working in one of the pens, something that made watching interesting.
“Here we go,” Jillian said. “This is one of the horses we’re interested in.”
Curiosity made him study the dark bay gelding. Like the horse Jillian had picked out for him, the gelding hardly seemed impressive. No flashy white on his face. No tiny dish head. No thick neck and round butt. He seemed as plain as a brown paper package. He glanced at the catalog. The horse’s name was Playboy Gunslinger.
Each horse had been given ninety seconds to work each pen. The dark bay obviously had a good head on his shoulders, because he didn’t spook at any of the obstacles. He cleared the log poles without a second glance, walked obediently around pylons and didn’t so much as flinch at the bag of cans.
“Well, if I ever need to go on a trail ride, I won’t have to worry about breaking my neck.”
Wes had to agree. He liked the look in the animal’s eyes, too. Even though they were high in the grandstand, he could tell the horse seemed calm and cool, as if nothing would faze him.
A horn sounded again. He sat up a little straighter.
“He’s going to be great,” he heard Jillian say.
Wes almost leaned forward and asked if she’d spoken to the horse personally. For some reason the thought amused him. Nobody could talk to animals, but wouldn’t it be interesting if they could.
Once the gelding stepped into the middle ring, Wes knew they were in for a show. The rider stopped the gelding dead center, dropped the reins and waited for his horse to settle. Even so, Wes could see that the horse waited to be told to go. Like a rock in a slingshot, he wanted to shoot off. Sure enough, the moment the rider tapped the horse with a spur, the animal spun around his hind end so fast that his black mane seemed like streamers of liquid onyx. So fast that the animal appeared to sink low to the ground. So fast that his tail became wound up in his legs.
The audience roared.
“Impressive,” Jillian said.
The rider stopped. Wes wondered if the tall, lanky cowboy on board the animal’s back was dizzy. He sure would be. After a moment or two, he set off at a lope that was both beautiful to watch and clearly comfortable to ride. The horse’s head was low, not too much but enough that Wes knew the animal respected the bit. He was in a snaffle, too, not one of those long-shanked implements of torture known as a spade bit. He watched as the horse changed directions, switched the leg he was leading with as effortlessly as a world-champion horse and continued on with his figure eight.
“I think I need to buy this horse,” Natalie said.
“I think you’ll be bidding against a lot of other people.”
As if hearing him, the crowd erupted, this time at yet another flawless lead change. When the rider headed to the rail and began to pick up speed, everyone knew what came next. Wes held his breath as the animal headed toward the opposite end of the arena at a full-out run. If he’d blinked, he would have missed the cue the rider gave for the gelding to stop, which he did instantly, the horse seeming to sit down, back legs leaving twin skid marks in the dirt.
“Wow.”
It was Jillian who’d spoken but the word was echoed by dozens around him.
“What is a horse like that doing at an auction like this?” Wes asked.
“That’s a good question.” Natalie shot him a glance. “I would expect him to be a futurity horse. He should be out earning money.”
“He was raised on a cattle ranch,” Jillian said. “The kid riding him is the owner’s son. He learned about reining horses by watching YouTube videos.”
Wes’s mouth had dropped open. “He learned all that from a video?”
Jillian leaned forward, eyes twinkling. “Yup. And by studying the rulebook.”
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He clamped down on his lips just in time to stop a laugh. Unbelievable.
Whoever the kid was, he had a brilliant career ahead of him as a trainer. The gelding worked the rest of the pattern beautifully. When it came time to switch arenas, Wes expected to be disappointed with the way the animal handled cattle. He wasn’t. He was half tempted to make a bid on the animal himself, except he strongly suspected the horse would sell for more money than he could afford.
“I hope jumping horses pays well.”
Natalie didn’t hesitate. “It does.”
Of course it did. As with horse racing, the people involved had money, and lots of it. The purses for jumping competitions were pretty big, too. He’d heard Natalie had won a big grand prix not too long ago. It made sense that she had the means to afford a nice horse. Yeah, his buddy Colton Reynolds needed to meet her. He’d probably appreciate meeting someone who wasn’t a buckle bunny.
“You’re not even watching the horse I picked out for you.”
Huh? He turned toward the first arena and sure enough, there was the sorrel gelding with the four white socks. He looked tiny beneath the man who rode him, a big hulk of a cowboy with a bushy beard and black half chaps and spurs. Wes disliked him on sight.
You have to buy him.
Jillian’s words reminded him that they did have something in common. They both hated animal abuse. He’d like to rake the man in the sides with his own spurs.
The little gelding barely glanced at the poles in the arena. He seemed unfazed by the bright orange pylons, too, and the audience watching him so intently. Jillian shot him a “See? I told you so” look. When the whistle sounded a little while later, he was curious to see how it would go. Like the man before him, the gelding’s rider paused in the middle of the center arena. He no doubt planned to wow the crowd just as the last cowboy had done, only when he tapped the horse with his spur, the gelding erupted, and not in a good way.
The crowd gasped. Wes came half out of his seat as the demure sorrel gelding turned into the best-looking bronc he’d ever seen. One jump, two, three—the cowboy came off. Wes wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t found himself amused. The man had it coming with the ice picks he used for spurs.
Kissed by a Cowboy Page 3
