Page 50 of Lost and Lassoed

I shook my head. Teddy had laid herself bare. What I did after I’d impulsively kissed her years ago—the last time I’d done something I wanted to, probably—had stuck with her. And not in a good way. “Listen to me. I am in possession of all my mental faculties, I’m not sleepwalking, I’m not possessed, and I’m not walking away this time. Okay?”

“Okay.” Teddy’s voice was quiet. I kissed her forehead before I left.

I didn’t know what I was doing, but I liked doing it with Teddy.

I drove my truck down to the ranch hand stables. Every couple of months, the vet came to do a check on our herd, and since we were coming out of winter, we needed to check shoes too.

I saw Emmy first. She and Wes were herding all the horses from our family stables across Rebel Blue and into the large pasture near the ranch hand stables.

Wes was riding Ziggy, his gray dappled mare, and Emmy was on Huey. Huey was a new horse at Rebel Blue—he was part draft horse, which meant he was fucking massive. Emmy had taken a liking to him because he was a hell of a workhorse. Maple, Emmy’s barrel horse, tended to get hot feet when Emmy used her for ranch work. She was used to goingfast and didn’t have a lot of patience plodding through tasks. Maple and I didn’t get along. She was a biter.

The family herd was coming from the east side of the ranch, and when I looked to the west, I spotted my dad riding Cobalt.

Cobalt was made for my dad. He was a black American Painter horse—easily the most beautiful on the ranch. When my dad rode Cobalt, in his black cowboy hat, chaps, and shearling-lined denim jacket, he looked every bit the powerhouse of a rancher that we all knew him to be. And I have to say, the sight of him on Cobalt always gave me a lump in my throat.

Sometimes I was so focused on what I thought Rebel Blue Ranch could be that I forgot that everything it was was because of Amos Ryder.

I got out of my truck as the horses approached the pasture gate.

“Well, well, well,” Wes said. “Look who decided to show up for work on this fine Tuesday.”

“Emmy told me that you didn’t need me for herding,” I said.

“And we didn’t,” Emmy said, shooting a pointed look at Wes. I knew this was her way of making sure I wasn’t working too much. “And Dusty has the ranch hands under control. We’ve got a foolproof schedule here.”

My dad rode up next to them. “And where have you been?” I asked him.

“My ranch, my rules, son,” he responded with a wink. I gave Cobalt a pat on the neck, and he leaned into me.

“Is the vet here?” I asked.

“He should be here in thirty,” Emmy said. “I think we start with our retirees, get them on the hitching posts before he gets here.” We had five horses that didn’t work and that we didn’t ride. There were a lot of ranches out there that would give them up at that point, but not Amos Ryder. A lifetime of service was more than enough to earn a horse a comfortable retirement at Rebel Blue.

It was a big part of my dad’s legacy, and over the past few years, I’d been starting to think about how I could contribute to that legacy. Maybe we could welcome more horses that needed a place to spend their later years—like a horse rescue or sanctuary. I didn’t know how to execute on the idea yet—hadn’t had the time.

We had so much potential here. I didn’t want Rebel Blue’s era of growth to end with my dad. I wanted to make it last.

Emmy, Wes, and my dad all dismounted then. Emmy was tall, but the drop from Huey’s back to the ground was still enough to make my knees hurt when I watched her hit it with ease.

“He’s fucking huge,” I said to Emmy.

“I love him,” she said. “Gets a little lazy on the lope, though.”

“That’s because his trot is just as fast as everyone else’s lope with less effort.”

“Both his trot and his lope are smooth, though. You could sit both of them. It’s like riding a couch.”

“He’s going to make a hell of a dude horse,” I said.

Wes came over and scratched Huey’s ears. “Hear that, Hubert? The city girls are going to love you.”

Huey nickered, apparently a fan of that possibility.

“I knew Huey would be a ladies’ man,” my dad chimed in. He’d bought Huey at auction—said he liked the look of himand that he had a kind eye. Not totally sure what that meant, but maybe it was just one of those things you learned with time.

“So we need Peach, Pepper, Winston, Doc, and Applejack,” Emmy said, grabbing two of the halters from me. “And let’s bring Moonshine out with these guys, too.”

Moonshine was old—closing in on thirty—but she was in great shape. If she kept up like this, she’d probably have five more riding years in her. She was a good horse, too. Wes’s girlfriend, Ada, still wasn’t quite used to horses, but when she did go riding, Moonshine was her go-to.

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