Page 35 of Catch Me, Cowboy
Les shot Ty a look, as if fully expecting him to jump Shelby the moment his back was turned. It would have been amusing if the situation had been different.
Ty waited until Les had crossed the driveway and was halfway to the house before Ty turned to Shelby and said, “Send this horse back. Now.”
“Have some faith in me.” Shelby moved past him on her way to the hay stack.
Ty caught up with her. “I know thatyoucan ride that horse. My problem is that you’re never going to be able to turn him into what those people expect, and by continuing on, you’re risking yourself for a lost cause.”
She rolled a bale off the stack and cut the strings. Ty pitched in and helped her load the hay into a large rubber wheeled wagon. She stood, wiping her forehead with the back of her glove. “I want to see how far I can get him, even if I don’t get paid for all my days.”
“Why?”
Shelby yanked the wagon handle, pulling it forward, leaving him where he stood. He caught up with her again, fully expecting her to ignore him, but instead she said, “I’d like to get him to a point where they can sell him to someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“Do you honestly think these guys are going to sell?”
“We’re going to have a long talk.”
Ty let out short humorless laugh. “Did you hear them when they delivered him? They’re delusional. They want you totamethis horse—in less than thirty days, please.” And anyone who didn’t know the difference between taming and training should not be in possession of a horse like Evarado.
She shot him a fierce look. “I may not succeed, but I’m going to try. For the horse.” She tossed two flakes into a manger. The horse shoved his nose in and tossed loose hay in the air.
“How aboutnotdoing it. For me?”
Her shoulders stiffened as she pulled the wagon forward, but she didn’t look at him as she said, “You don’t get to ask those things anymore, Ty.” She stopped pulling and tossed a couple more flakes into the next feeder. “I train horses. It’s what I do. And I’m not stupid about it. I know when an animal is too much for me. I can move this gelding to a better place.”
“And probably get yourself sued.”
“Meaning?” She tugged the wagon along to the next manger.
“Do you really think they’re going to be satisfied with what you’re able to do for him in thirty days?”
She fed the horses in the last two pens, then started back to the haystack. “He’ll be a better horse when I’m done.”
“I don’t trust him and I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“You’re a fine one to talk about getting hurt on horses,” she said mildly.
“I ride bucking horses for a living. I expect them to explode. This gelding… you never know when he’ll blow up.”
Shelby’s head came up. “Don’t you mean ‘rode’? As in past tense?”
He sucked in a breath and he saw the moment she understood that, no, he didn’t mean rode in the past tense.
“You’re going to start again?”
“I have an entry in the Copper Mountain. I’ll see how things go.”
For a moment she simply stared at him. “You’ll see how things go.” She echoed his statement flatly, but her eyes were blazing. “What. The. Hell?”
He frowned at her. “You never had a problem with my riding before.”
Something flickered in her expression. “You’ve never been this beat up before.”
“I disagree,” he replied evenly.
“You walk like Gramps before a rain storm.” She took a couple steps away from him, then turned back. “Son of abitch.”
She looked as if she was going to take him by the front of his shirt and shake him.
