Page 1 of Frosty in Flannel
Chapter One
Libby
The second I stepped out of my truck the cool autumn breeze flowed around me, bringing with it the familiar scent of fall. There was no way to describe it. The air just smelled different this time of year.
I took a deep breath, inhaling the other layers of the ranch—of hay, dust and horses. Everything wrapped around me like a welcoming hug. It wasn’t new—not to someone who spent most of her days in barns and paddocks—but there was something different about this place. The quiet. The weight of the mountains pressing in. The way the wind carried more than just the smell of horses—it carried history.
I tried to stop second-guessing everything that had brought me here.
New start,I reminded myself.Fresh slate. Whole different world.
The Off-Duty Rescue Ranch looked clean, well-kept, and organized—exactly the kind of setup you’d hope for when working with high-strung animals and wounded veterans. Sturdy fencing, a solid barn, and enough open space to let the tension bleed off both horse and handler. Somewhere out there was the reason they’d called me—a mustang so traumatized no one could get near him.
No one except one man.
And apparently, that man was a total jackass.
That part, I hadn’t witnessed for myself yet. But the woman who hired me hadn’t exactly sugarcoated it. Everyone had the same warning. Beckett Callahan was a man you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of.
Especially when it came to the horse he’d personally rescued.
I let myself into the barn, the door creaking open as I stepped into the cooler air inside. No welcoming committee, no clipboard with my name on it—just the sound of shifting hooves, the soft clink of metal, and the faint smell of leather that settled into my bones like home.
I didn’t need a tour. I’d worked enough places like this to know where to find the horses.
And the trouble.
The man I’d be working with wasn’t hard to spot.
He was big—the kind of big that made you take a step back without thinking about it. Tall, easily over six feet, with shoulders that stretched his faded work shirt tight across his back. Arms corded with muscle earned from years of hard labor, not a gym. He stood just inside a stall with a restless black mustang. Even from where I stood in the shadows, I could feel the controlled power radiating off him.
But it wasn’t the size that made me stop.
It was the stillness.
He wasn’t moving, wasn’t speaking—just standing there with his shoulders squared and his posture loose but alert. Waiting. The stallion was agitated, ears twitching, shifting his weight from foot to foot, but he wasn’t trying to bolt. He was listening. Responding.
That told me more than any report ever could.
I stayed back, watching from the barn’s center aisle. The man hadn’t noticed me yet—or if he had, he didn’t care. Thefirst thing I saw was the scar. It twisted down the left side of his face from temple to jaw, the skin pulled tight and discolored, disappearing beneath his collar. When he shifted, reaching up to stroke the horse’s neck, I saw it continue down his arm, the sleeve of his t-shirt clinging to uneven skin.
Burns that hadn’t healed properly. Burns that looked like they had tried to kill him but hadn’t succeeded.
Sympathy tightened my chest, but I knew better than to say anything.
There was something about the way he held himself—closed off, guarded, like he’d built walls so high even he couldn’t see over them anymore—that made my breath catch.
He looked like a man who’d forgotten what it felt like to be touched gently.
Like a man who expected pain and had learned to live with it.
Professional,I reminded myself.Keep it professional.
But my body wasn’t listening. My pulse kicked up, heat spreading low in my belly as I watched him move. There was a raw, animal grace to him—dangerous and damaged and somehow magnetic. The kind of man you knew would wreck you if you got too close.
The kind of man I’d always been too smart to want.
Until now.
