Page 13 of Snowed In with the Rancher

“Ideally, Piccadilly, but he’d definitely kill her if he mounted her. Callie and Hula-Hoop, too.”

His stomach grumbled. They’d been out in the barn for hours shoveling shit, feeding horses, and keeping Fumble the goat with a penchant for mischief from escaping. He’d done it three times in the course of three hours and they could not figure out how he was getting out.

And as if he knew Asher was thinking about him, a mehhh from the other side of the corral had them pivoting their gaze from Mercy to the stupid fucking goat that had somehow entered the corral with the demon horse.

“What the fuck?” Asher barked, running around the corral to the closest point where the goat was. “This goat’s got a death wish.”

Mercy had already spied the stupid goat and was trotting over toward it, his nostrils flaring, head swishing back and forth and causing his black mane to whip around.

“Don’t kill the goat,” Asher yelled at the horse, who obviously didn’t understand a single word, since he was proving almost impossible to train.

When he was closer to Fumble, Asher leaped over the side of the corral and went to grab the goat, but of course, Fumble thought they were playing and did a little goat side-hop away, then ran in that goat-like two legs at a time way away from Asher.

“Fuck!” he barked.

He wasn’t even paying attention to Triss, since there wasn’t really a way that she could have helped anyway, but when he heard a snick snick of someone clicking their tongue in their cheek and Mercy lifted his head, dread pooled like an icy river in his gut.

Triss was in the corral with Mercy and Mercy’s attention was now on her and not Fumble.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he bellowed, running toward her, while Fumble bleated and ran around like an idiot-stick. “Get out of here.”

She ignored him, held up her hand, and called Mercy again. Her eyes only cast sideways to him briefly and she shook her head just barely. Asher stopped in his tracks so fast he sent up a small cloud of dust.

He knew better than to run at a horse, what was he thinking?

He was thinking he needed to get this city slicker out of the warpath of the murderous Mercy.

Mercy slowed down his trot as he approached Triss and simply walked the last few feet toward her, his nostrils flaring as he exhaled deeply.

Worry spun in Asher’s stomach. Two weeks at ranch camp and a morning mucking stalls and feeding horses carrots was not nearly enough fucking experience to be getting into a corral with an asshole Mustang. What was she thinking?

Mercy blinked several times, snorted, pawed at the ground twice with his right hoof, then he dipped his head and pressed it against her open palm.

Holy fuck.

Her smile was radiant.

She reached her hand up and scratched between Mercy’s ears, which prompted the horse to head butt her and demand more. She giggled and started to scratch him with both hands.

Slowly, Asher approached her and Mercy.

“That was dangerous,” he said, his tone harsher than he intended it to be. “And stupid, and foolish, and reckless and—”

“It worked,” she said, cutting him off and leaning her forehead against the side of Mercy’s head, then kissing his cheek.

Asher reached out tentatively to stroke Mercy, but the horse snorted again and backed away from him.

“Jesus, buddy, okay. I got it. You don’t like me. Message received.” He held up his palms and gave Mercy and Triss the space they needed. “That was still reckless, though,” he said, eyeing her as she pressed kisses to Mercy’s black nose.

“I know. But sometimes we have to take risks in order to get what we want, right?” Her gaze flicked to his and something burned in the gentle brown, something almost primal and it made his entire body ignite with flames. But they weren’t anywhere near hot enough to burn away his anger at her for doing something that could have gotten her hurt, or even fucking killed.

With a grunt, he turned around. “Now I need to get that fucking goat.” Then he went after Fumble, who seemed to laugh at him every time Asher lunged, then Fumble dodged, sending Asher crashing face-first into the dirt. It took lassoing the damn animal and tying him up in his stall before Asher felt comfortable enough leaving the barn to head in for a late lunch.

“Is it already two o’clock?” Triss marveled as they walked toward the house, snowflakes catching on her nose and eyelashes. “Time just flew.”

He grunted again, opened the door to the house, and let her inside ahead of him.

“I’m happy to make lunch if you like,” she offered, stepping out of her winter boots and hanging her coat up on the hook beside his. She kept the knit cap on her head and went to set her gloves next to the wood stove.

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