Cowboy in Colorado (Fifty States of Love)

by Jasinda Wilder

  “Throw me? She could throw me?”

  “Like buck you off?” Theo smiles at me reassuringly. “She could, but she won’t. Just hold on with your knees, but don’t put your heels against her sides.” She hands me the reins. “Keep them somewhere between taut and loose. Tight enough that you can pull one way or another, but not so tight she doesn’t have slack to move her head.”

  I adjust my hold on the reins. “Like this?”

  Theo nods. “Yep, just like that.” She puts a palm between my foot and Tinkerbell’s ribs. “Now, keep your heels away from her. You can hold on with your knees, your thighs, your calves, just keep your heels away. Tapping her with your heels means go faster. You can squeeze, but don’t tap or kick, or she’ll think you want her to go faster.”

  “I don’t think I’ll want her to go faster.”

  “No, probably not yet. I mean, there’s no rush in the world like being on the back of a fast horse galloping like the wind, but I don’t think you’re ready for that just yet. For now, just hold on with your legs.” She pulls one leg away. “Basic commands—if you want her to go left, put your right leg hard against her ribs and your left leg away, like this. She moves away from pressure. So pushing your right leg against her means go left. Make sense?”

  “I think so.”

  “That works in combination with the reins, which is obvious—pull gently on the right rein to go right, and vice versa. You really don’t need the reins, as she’ll listen just to leg commands, but it’s good to know, especially for a first timer. You are going in a straight line, more or less, so you shouldn’t need to turn at all, but it’s good to know anyway.”

  “How do I stop her?”

  “Pull back with the reins and squeeze hard with both legs.” She frowns. “Well, just be gentle. Don’t panic. You don’t have to jerk or squeeze like crazy—that’ll just irritate her. Squeeze with your legs, pull back on the reins, and say ‘Whoa.’ Easy.”

  “Ha, yeah…easy,” I say, my voice faint. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “About horse riding?” She laughs. “Just about everything. That should get you there and back, though.” She lifts a finger. “Oh, wait. One last thing.” She grabs the reins down near the bit. “In case of emergency, like she’s freaked out by something and starts acting up like she’s gonna throw you—which, again, is very unlikely—reach way down her by her head and pull hard so her face is by your knee. She can’t buck or rear if her head’s like this. It’s called short-reining, and it’s just for real emergencies.”

  “Got it. But there won’t be any emergencies, right?” I ask.

  Theo grins. “Not a one. It’s just a nice easy ride across the pasture, that’s all.” She pats Tinkerbell again. “She’s a sweet girl. Talk to her. She hears you, and she’ll respond to you. Just talk like you would to a dog, encouragement, stuff like that.” She lets go of the bridle. “Now, I’ll open this gate here, and you just ease her through it. Shift your butt forward and tell her to walk, and she’ll start walking. Then, just give her some slack and she’ll take you to Alpha.”

  It’s hard to keep my breathing even, and fear of failure is the only thing keeping me from getting down off this huge animal. She’s wide, tall, powerful. I’m sitting on her and I’m hyperaware of the fact that this creature weighs a thousand pounds and can run at a dead gallop for hours, can pull a wagon weighing several hundred pounds, could throw me, stomp on me, kill me. Yet, she’s letting me sit on her back, holding a piece of leather connected to some metal in her mouth. That’s all that’s controlling her—and my trust in her training.

  I’m dizzy, and I have to grit my teeth as Theo walks toward a metal gate a dozen feet from where I sit on the horse. Swinging it open, Theo gestures me through.

  I gulp, grip the reins tighter, and shift my seat forward like Theo instructed. “Walk, Tinkerbell.”

  With a snort that sounded almost amused, she plods forward, and then we’re in motion and the whole world is tilting as the earth under me moves. Or so it feels.

  “Ooohhhh shit!” I gasp. “Ohmygod, slow down!”

  Theo is doubled over laughing. “She can’t go any slower or she’ll be stopped, Brooklyn!” When she’s regained her composure, she calls after me, “Calm down, woman. You’re perfectly safe. You’re just sitting on big, living, breathing motorcycle. One with a mind of her own and four legs instead of two wheels. You just have to be calm and stay in control.”

  “Calm and in control,” I repeat. I rub Tinkerbell’s neck. “I’m calm, and I’m in control.”

  Tinkerbell snorts, whinnies softly, and angles for the fence without me so much as twitching the reins, as if to say, no, lady, I am in charge. I spend the first few minutes just learning to stay seated in the saddle, and even after a few minutes, it’s obvious I’m going to be sore in places I didn’t know could be sore. But after a while, I realize it does feel oddly natural to be in the saddle. I also realize why Theo wanted me to change shoes—the slick, slippery, angled soles keeps sending my feet sliding into the stirrup, until I have to angle my foot to hook the heel against the stirrups…the process of learning this means I accidentally nudge Tinkerbell with my heels, sending her into a trot.

  At which point I promptly scream, forget everything Theo told me, and lean forward against the horse’s neck, howling and panicking and screaming. But, she doesn’t stop or slow down.

  “Tinkerbell, stop! Stop!”

  What did Theo just tell me? How do I stop?

  Shit, shit, shit!

  Squeeze with my heels, pull back on the reins, and say whoa.

  I fight through my panic, jolting and jouncing on the back of this massive, trotting beast; tug on the reins, squeeze with my legs. “Whoa! Tinkerbell, whoa!”

  Immediately, the horse stops dead.

  I collapse forward against the saddle and her neck, the horn digging into my chest. “Okay, okay. I can do this.”

  Why am I doing this again?

  Oh, right, to prove myself to Dad. Which means making my mark in a unique way. God knows this idea is unique. And crazy. An historical village? What was I thinking? I should’ve gone with the all-inclusive resort—at least that would’ve meant a trip to a tropical beach somewhere, instead of landing me on the back of a horse in the middle of Colorado’s wilderness. Panicking.

  Now my mascara will be streaky.

  I sit upright, gather my breath. Let go of the reins briefly, and wipe my eyes. “Okay. Okay.”

  Tinkerbell shakes her head, bobs, swishes her tail and stamps a foot, then turns her head to one side and stares at me with one big dark eye, as if saying, are we ready to go yet, crazy lady?

  “Okay,” I say, responding to what I imagine this horse is thinking. “I’m ready. Let’s go, Tinkerbell.” I shift my seat forward. “Walk.”

  And away we go. In comparison to our accidental trot, the walk does seem slow.

  I discover what Theo meant by spirited—this horse wants to go. If I so much as brush her sides with my feet, she bolts. The first time, she jumped into a trot. The next time I accidentally forgot and kicked her sides, she goes straight past the trot and into a bumpy, jolty run. A canter? I think that’s a word for a horse run.

  God, I really am city.

  She won’t stop, now, either. I pull on the reins, squeeze, but she just shakes her head and goes faster, and it’s all I can do to stay on.

  I was once invited by a ranking Air Force officer, as part of an attempt to woo me, to sit in the back seat of a brand-new fighter jet as he flew it. Quite a privilege, as I was given to understand. He decided it would be fun to scare me a little by doing some “evasive maneuvers” as he put it. Meaning, loops and twists and all sorts of things.

  That wasn’t as scary as being on the back of a runaway Tinkerbell.

  I scream whoa, doing everything I can remember Theo told me, but nothing works. She just wants to run. And run, and run.

  So, run she does, and all I can do is hold on with my leg and grip th
e front of the saddle and the reins as hard as I can, and hope she’ll eventually get tired.

  I even try talking to her. “Tink? Whoa, girl. Please, please, whoa. Please stop. You’re scaring me.”

  She just whinnies as loud as she can, making my ears ring, shakes her head, and pours on the speed, going from a canter to a full gallop.

  And now, very literally, all I’m capable of doing is holding on and hoping I don’t fall. I don’t dare think about falling, though.

  The fence flies past my right leg, whizzing in a blur, grass waves and speeds in a green smear, and the whole world narrows down to nothing but the wind rushing past my face and the pounding slam of the horse between my thighs, her huffing and snorting, the pounding of her hooves.

  I manage to twist my head enough to see in front of us, and I realize there’s something there, now. A smear of brown, which resolves into the geometric shapes of a cabin and a barn. I try again to get Tinkerbell to slow down, but she’s got her own ideas.

  Faster, faster.

  She’s showing off, I realize, as I glance to one side and see a cluster of horses on the other side of the fence keeping pace, whinnying and snorting at Tinkerbell, who answers, shakes her head, whinnying again in that deafening cry.

  I hear voices—shouts. “Stop! Stop!”

  Men, noticing me and my headlong flight on the back of this crazy animal, shouting at me to stop.

  “I can’t!” I scream. “She won’t stop!”

  I’m staring past Tinkerbell’s heaving neck, watching men scatter out of the way.

  All except one.

  He stands up from where he’d been hunched over a horse’s hoof. Drops a tool on the ground. Slaps the horse to send it scurrying out of the way.

  He stands, directly in the line of runaway Tinkerbell.

  “She won’t stop!” I shout. “Get out of the way!”

  He’s massive. His shoulders resemble the Rockies themselves. He’s utterly unmoving. Unafraid.

  There’s a fence ahead, and Tinkerbell isn’t slowing.

  Fear crawls up higher, inching up into my throat. My head is pounding and my chest is tight. I’m terrified.

  He’s going to get trampled, I just know it and it’ll be my fault somehow, because I signed a waiver, but that won’t protect me from the repercussions from whoever this tall, ballsy, beautiful drink of whiskey is, standing in the way of a runaway horse.

  He dances aside at the last second, snatches the bridle and reins in sure, quick, powerful hands, and hauls with every ounce of might, using his body weight and sheer fearlessness to wrench Tinkerbell’s head around to one side, forcing her to turn, heels skittering and scrabbling and skidding, churning clods of dirt and grass into the air, spraying us with sprinkles of soil and blades of shredded grass.

  And, just like that, Tinkerbell stops, chest heaving between my shaking, trembling thighs. Snorting. Panting. Shaking her head, as if to clear it of whatever madness had possessed her.

  Slowly, shakily, I push myself upright, still clutching the saddle horn in a death grip, and swallow past the hot dry lump in my throat.

  I look down and I see the hand holding the bridle—thick, weathered, scarred, leathery, strong, more like wood and granite and leather than flesh and bone. I follow the hand to a bare forearm, lightly dusted with fine blond hairs, coated in sweat and dust, corded with thick ropes of muscle. Beyond that is a bicep like none I’ve ever seen. Rangy and thick, corded and leathery and hard as the mountain rock. Not bodybuilder bulgy, but rather lean and hard with the power of a man used to…well, hauling runaway horses to a stop with his bare freaking hands, that’s what.

  And those shoulders, which I’d noticed even on the back of a bolting horse. Wide, rounded, massive, even underneath a dirty gray T-shirt tucked behind one of those big buckles ranch people seem so fond of.

  Oh. My. God.

  Chiseled jawline, furred with a thick blond scruff. Cheekbones hewed from the same granite as his hands and shoulders and jawline. And those eyes…

  Holy hell, those fucking eyes.

  Blue as Lake Tahoe in the glittering sun of summer. Blue as the Aegean Sea.

  The bluest, most piercing, most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.

  Staring up at me.

  Staring into me.

  I know, without a shadow of doubt, without having to be told or introduced, that this is Will Auden.

  He’s the most incredibly beautiful, masculine, powerful man I’ve ever seen…

  And he’s pissed.

  6

  “Who the hell are you?” he demands in a voice that’s a cross between the snap and growl of thunder, and the raging snarl of an angry mountain lion.

  It’s still hard to breathe. “Brooklyn,” I manage. “Brooklyn Bellanger.”

  “Better question is, what the hell are doing here?”

  “I came to meet with you—you are William Auden, I presume.” I sit up straight in the saddle; force myself to breathe normally, and to act composed when I’m anything but composed.

  He eyes me, a thorough looking over from head to toe, taking in my hair, my makeup, my necklace—a single massive teardrop pearl pendant on a gold chain which belonged to my great-grandmother—my now dirty and rumpled dove-gray Tom Ford silk power pantsuit, my blood orange Louboutin heels…

  He sees far more than my mere clothing, however—he sees me. I look like my mother, with my father’s eyes and temperament: Five-six and a half in my bare feet, with auburn hair that has a tendency to look red in the sun, with shades of brown and streaks of blonde. The shades and streaks and tints in my hair lead most people to assume I dye my hair, since many people spend thousands of dollars to achieve the look, but it's all natural. As is my body, and it’s my build that I know he’s focused on.

  My mother is five-five, weighs one-forty on her good days, and has curves no amount of dieting or exercise has ever been able to slim out—even at nearly sixty, she can wear a string bikini and make girls a third of her age jealous, and she prides herself on having never had a touch of plastic surgery, not even skin tightening.

  I, to my frequent chagrin, am built like her. I haven’t eaten a refined carbohydrate in years, haven’t had any kind of sugar in even longer, don’t drink soda, rarely drink alcohol, fast intermittently, I’m absolutely obsessive about riding my Peloton three to four days a week as often as possible, and when I can’t ride because I’m traveling I do yoga and go to the hotel weight room for a HIIT workout. Yet, despite all this, I’m just as curvy as my mother.

  I know, I know—most women would kill for my body, but I work my ass to the bone to stay as slender as I am—if I stopped working out and eating like a supermodel, I would balloon to epic proportions within hours. Or, weeks, more literally. It’s a point of pride for me that I can go into any luxury designer’s store and buy off the rack, but god, the price I pay in hunger and sweat and all-over soreness is very, very high.

  The man still gripping the bridle doesn’t know, and certainly would not care, about any of that, though. All he sees is the fact that my breasts are prominent despite wearing a conservative, restrictive bra, a blouse that flatters my waistline rather than bust, and a suit blazer buttoned to keep things contained. If I were to be standing on my feet, he would be staring at the way my thighs press against the silk of my slacks, the way my buttocks, despite shape-concealing undergarments, bulge out round and taut. Although, to be truthful, I’m pretty proud of my butt—I do a lot of hill rides and squats and lunges to make it look the way it does, and if I love and accept any part of my body, it’s my backside.

  Will’s eyes spend a little too long roving my body, and I’m not even dressed to impress.

  He never answered my presumption of his identity, but there’s no need: he wears authority like high-end cologne. “Why the hell are you on Tinkerbell?”

  “That would be your sister. She told me Tinkerbell would take me straight here, and all I would have to do is stay in the saddle.” I wiggle my b
utt in the saddle as I say this, aching and sore from the ride.

  Will snorts. “Goddammit, Theo,” he mutters. “Her idea of a joke, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  “Because even I don’t ride Tink unless I feel like a challenge. She’s the most willful, stubborn, hot-tempered horse I’ve ever sat on, and once she gets it into her fool head that she wants to run, there ain’t a damn thing anyone can do to slow her down.” He frowns up at me. “You stayed on, though.”

  I lift one shoulder. “Barely, and I’m not even sure how I did it.” I laugh. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’m capable of getting down. My legs are still clamped down and I can’t seem to make them let go.”

  For that matter, my fists are still knotted in Tinkerbell’s thick black mane, and I can’t unclench them either.

  “You ride a lot back East or wherever you live?”

  I shake my head. “Closest to horses I’ve ever been are the mounted police officers in Manhattan.”

  His eyebrows lift in surprise. “Yet you stayed on a runaway Tinkerbell?”

  “It felt like hang on, or fall off and die. So I hung on.”

  He strokes Tinkerbell’s nose with a gentling touch. “Well, she’s blowing pretty hard, so you may as well climb down. I’ll find a calmer horse to send you back on, and a hand to go with you.” He turns, and his gaze singles out a hard-bitten, shaggy-bearded, heavy-shouldered man a few years older than Will. “Clint. Take Tink back to the stable and switch the tack over to…Molly, I guess. She’s the most dead broke we got out here.” He glances at me. “Climb down, girl. What’d you say your name was? Brooklyn?”

  “Yes, my name is Brooklyn, and I told you, I can’t get down. I’m all seized up from having clung to this damn horse so hard for so long.”

  He frowns at me, and my stomach flips. I mean, I didn’t think it was possible for a man to look sexy while frowning, but Will manages it. He makes the frown seem like the gathering of thunderclouds, brooding and powerful. His eyes pin me again, and it’s hard to breathe for the fierce, wild, intelligence in his gaze.