Page 36 of Wild, Wild Cowboy

Hopefully, saving Hurricane Red would be the first step to get him out of it.

“I brought snacks,” I said as I tossed my bag on the floor of Zack’s truck, settled my travel mug of tea in the cupholder, and climbed into the passenger seat. He shut the door behind me and limped around the hood to the driver’s side. My brow furrowed as he carefully eased behind the wheel. “Are you all right?”

He put the truck in reverse and buckled himself in with one hand while he steered us down my driveway with the other. Dang it, why was that hot? He was just socompetent.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I get a little stiff in the mornings, that’s all.”

I took a good look at him—or tried to, anyway. With the brim of his ball cap pulled low, it was hard to see his face. But even in the shadows, I could see the purple half-moons under his eyes and his signature half-smirk, half-smile was nowhere to be seen. Even looking like he hadn’t slept in a week, he was still handsome as ever.

“Rough night?” I asked.

“All my nights are rough, duchess.” His smirk came out of hiding briefly.

I pushed up my glasses. “Is that an innuendo or a fact?” I asked sternly, despite the fact that his smirk made me want to crawl into his lap and purr like Evie.

He chuckled softly. “Both.”

“Oh.” I stared straight ahead. I refused to ask him what he meant by that. He could spend his nights however he wanted. We weren’t dating. We were…having intercourse for instructional purposes. He had never promised to be exclusive, and it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask. “Well, I hope you stayed safe,” I said stiffly.

There was a long pause during which I refused to look at him for fear he would see right through me to the petty jealousy inside.

Then he laughed again. “I was alone last night, which you know damn well, Hannah Bell, because you weren’t with me.” He said it like there was no other option, like it was me or no one. I didn’t know what to make of that. “Nights are rough because everything hurts and itches too much to fall asleep, but sleep is what I need most to heal. And even if I take a painkiller, my brain won’t shut up anyway. What snacks did you bring?”

I wanted to know more about the things that kept him up at night, but he clearly wanted the conversation to be over. “Egg white muffins.” I dug into my bag and pulled out the container. I had noticed he liked to stick to healthy food, and I doubted we’d find much of that on the road. “I baked them this morning, so they’re still warm. Did you eat breakfast?”

“Just coffee.”

I popped off the top and offered him the open container. He grabbed one, wolfed it down in two bites, and then grabbed another.

“Thanks,” he said. “These are great.”

“I also brought red vines. But those are more of an afternoon snack for the way back.”

My e-reader and latest embroidery project was also in the bag, just in case Zack wasn’t in the mood for conversation or we ran out of things to say. It turned out to be unnecessary. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we were quiet, but it never felt awkward.

I had never been to an auction before, but it was about what I expected. There were two long barns lined with stalls much smaller than what I’d seen at Lodestar Ranch. The horses looked fairly well cared for, from what I could tell, which gave me hope that Hurricane Red hadn’t been mistreated. I had theauction catalog with me, but it didn’t tell me where he was being held.

“He’s number three hundred sixty-eight,” I reminded Zack as we walked down the aisle of the first barn. I frowned. There were a lot of stalls here, but notthatmany. “The stalls are numbered in order, but there can’t be more than seventy here.”

“We won’t find him in the barns, Hannah,” Zack said quietly. He took my hand and walked faster. “These are the saddle stock, the horses sold for riding. He’ll be in one of the pens. That’s where they keep the horses sold by the pound.”

I flinched.By the pound. I felt sick. “Oh.”

He glanced down at me, then pulled me to a stop. “They’re usually in good condition. No open sores, decent weight to them. Unhealthy horses don’t sell well, not even for dog food. But we’re leaving here with only one horse, so if it’s too much for you knowing where the others are going, you can wait by the truck. I’ll text you when I have him.”

I adjusted my glasses and squared my shoulders. “It’s not too much for me, Zack. There’s suffering in this world and pretending it doesn’t exist won’t change that. If the most we can do is acknowledge it and save one horse, then all right. Today that will be enough.”

He studied me for a moment, then nodded. “All right, then, Hannah Bell. Let’s go do the bare minimum.”

I stared up at this man who had said yes to helping me with the rodeo when no one else would, who had thrown himself into getting dressed in sixty seconds like it was an Olympic event, who refused to let me fake a single thing, who had saidevery horse, every ride.

“Zack Hale, you’ve never done the bare minimum in your entire life,” I declared.

He blinked down at me in surprise, and then his lips crooked in that half-smile, half-smirk that made me simultaneously want to smack him and kiss him. “Then maybe it’s time to start.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as he took hold of my hand again, but my laughter faded as we came to the large, metal-railed pens full of stock horses.

“There must be a hundred horses here,” I said quietly. A hundred horses bound for slaughter.

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