Page 12 of Cowboy Stole My Heart
His expression was hard to read. “For the record, I don’t think you’re a woman with bad taste in horses, but this guy? He’s too hot for most riders to handle, so don’t go taking that as a cheap shot at your ability. I’m just calling the situation as I see it.”
Every time she was pissed at him, he managed to make her feel stupid for flying off the rails at him. Of course Tex was too much horse for her, it wasn’t exactly rocket science to figure that out. She hoped that would be the end to their stupid back-and-forth arguing; it wasn’t like her to be so petty.
“So what do you want to do?” she asked.
“What I want is to move him into a round pen,” Sam said, looking around. She watched as he held his hand up, shielding his eyes. “That’s it over there?”
She nodded, looking from the pen in the distance and back again. “I don’t like our chances.”
Sam climbed up onto the railing and stared at Tex. He’d made it clear that he’d seen them now, and he pawed the ground, shaking his head and staring them down.
“How aggressive is he once you’re with him?” Sam asked. “For instance, if I had a halter and rope on, would he lead?”
She shook her head. “I think he’s past behaving properly. He’s pretty wild these days.”
Sam sat on the fence, and she considered him, wondering who he was and what he was all about. She got the feeling that he hadn’t grown up wealthy at all, he was too grounded, too… she didn’t know what. But it was a feeling she’d had since she met him, that he wasn’t like other guys she’d met. The only thing that didn’t fit was how at ease he’d been when he’d first arrived, not at all overawed by her family’s ranch, which was unusual for someone who hadn’t grown up with money. The massive house and sprawling gardens was usually enough to make a person’s jaw drop. She knew that from years of having people fawn over her, thinking she was important, wanting to be with her and part of the lifestyle they seemed to associate with her. Only she wasn’t special. Her riding made her special, because it was something she trained hard to be good at, but she knew firsthand that money didn’t buy happiness, only privilege.
“What about this,” Sam said, moving back down to stand beside her. “We get in there and make a space with temporary fencing. That way I don’t have to move him until I have his trust, which is safer for everyone involved, and I can make a makeshift kind of ring.”
Mia was the one raising her eyebrows this time. “We?” she asked. “I thought you worked solo?”
He chuckled. “Maybe I need to be more open to change. You can watch, but I don’t want you in there distracting me or him.”
She doubted she was capable of being much of a distraction. Sam hadn’t shown the least bit of interest in her, and the horse would be far more intent on killing Sam than bothering with her. She was fairly certain about that.
“Do you think you’ll be able to crack him within a month?” she asked, terrified of her father deciding to follow through with his threat and have the horse shot if he was still a menace to society by then.
“I don’t know,” Sam replied. “I’ve never worked a horse that I couldn’t form a relationship with pretty quickly, and if I’m honest? It’s because of him that I’m standing here. I don’t do private work like this anymore because I don’t need to, but something about him spoke to me. I think I’ll learn as much from him as he will from me.”
“You talking about the beast?”
Mia spun around at the deep voice. “Geez, Stretch, I just about jumped out of my skin!”
She grinned at their foreman as he tipped his hat at her, his wicked smile cracking her up as it stretched his tanned, weathered face wide. Her father was beside him, and she gave her daddy a smile, too. It wasn’t often he bothered to venture down to the horses.
“Just the man I was looking for!” he boomed as he locked eyes on Sam.
Mia traded glances with Stretch as her father hooked his thumbs into his belt loops, his big Stetson firmly on his head as he strode toward Sam. She wondered if he’d feign an interest in her horses for Sam’s benefit.
“Good to finally meet you. I’m Walter.” She watched as her father shook hands with Sam, only just shorter than the horse whisperer he was greeting. Even she had to admit that her dad was still handsome, and the way he stood, shoulders straight and head always held high, meant no one would ever have guessed he was knocking sixty five.
“Walter, it’s nice to put a face to the name.”
“Hi, Daddy,” Mia said, leaning in to kiss his cheekwhen he came closer to her. She loved him to bits, she just hated that he treated her like his little girl so often just because she was the baby of the family. He seemed to forget she was twenty eight.
“What do you think?” Walter asked. “If it was my decision we’d have put him to sleep by now and put us and him out of our misery, but it’s hard to say no after everything that happened. Did Mia tell you he killed his last rider?”
She went ice cold, goose pimples tracking across her skin. If she could have dug herself a hole and crawled inside, she’d have done it. She caught Stretch’s eye and he raised an eyebrow. The old rancher had known her all her life, and he seemed to gauge her reactions a whole lot better than her father did.
“Daddy, why don’t you leave us with the horses?” Mia suggested, clearing her throat. “Sam was just about to get started and…”
But Sam wasn’t looking at her father now. He was staring, eyes like ice, at her.
“He did what?” Sam asked quietly.
Walter looked between them. “It’s hardly a great secret, it was all over the news a few years back. Surely you remember! Mia’s been tracking him down ever since, haven’t you, Mia?” He laughed. “When this one makes her mind up, there’s no stopping her.”
Mia swallowed, rocks in her throat, before nodding. “Daddy, I’ll come find you later on. How about you let us get on with our work here?”
