Page 40 of Freeing the Wild
“Truly rode?I was eighteen or nineteen, so five or six years.I had a friend in Jellico that had a ranch.”
Cassie eyes Aspen like she’s about to get on up.
“Hold on.”I stop her.“Let’s square him up first.See his legs?”
I move Aspen forward to get him standing square.
“Now you’re good.See the difference?”
“Yeah,” she answers.I watch as she takes her plush bottom lip between her teeth.
“Need the stool?”I ask.Now that I see her beside Aspen I wonder if he might be just a bit too big for her.
Something about my question challenges her.Because she scoffs, takes hold of the stirrup, slides her boot in and swings up onto Aspen like she was born to ride him.
I chuckle at her attitude.I’m happy to see that spark of fire back in her eyes.
“What’s funny?”she asks.
“Nothing.”
“Then what are you thinking?”
I give my head a shake.
“Just thinking you look damn good up there, Princess,” I say as I turn to mount Odin.“But I’m not about to tell you that.It might make your head grow even bigger.”
“Haha.A comedian cowboy today?”she fires back, and I almost see the hint of the girl I met five months ago.
“Time to ride.Let’s roll.”
I sit up tall and squeeze my legs around Odin, making a clicking sound with my mouth.She does the same, only she rides past me and out into the pasture.The fucking confidence on this one.She has no clue where she’s going but she doesn’t wait long before taking off like she owns the damn place.If herlong blonde hair wasn’t flying out behind her, and the pasture weren’t wide open and empty, I might be pissed with her risking her safety.The beauty of her flushed cheeks and smile stuns me as I catch up to her.
“Feeling a little more free?”I call to her.
“Maybe!”
“So I was right?Some fresh air was good for you?”
“What?I can’t hear you!”she jokes with a soft smile, slowing Aspen and holding one hand to her ear.
“Well, hopefully you hear this.Safety first, Princess.You stay behind or beside me.I’m in charge here.”
“For now,” she retorts as I pass, flashing her a wide grin as the snowy pasture swallows us whole.
“So, you gonna tell me?”Cassie asks me an hour later as we ride side by side on the main trail back from the river.I showed her the site of Wade’s new wedding barn that is almost complete, and also where we’ll be building three new cabins.All made to resemble the old ones that have been here since the fifties.
“You’re gonna have to be a little more specific,” I say as I take in the silver pines that line the path.The ones this ranch is named after.
“You said you understood what I was going through.My career in jeopardy.You some sort of local celebrity I’ve never heard of?”
I raise my hand to scrub my jaw, before looking down and subconsciously sliding it onto my knee.I rub the lingering dull ache and chuckle.“Not quite.”
“But you might have been?”
When I don’t answer for a beat, she coaxes me further.
“Come on, Cowboy.Tell me something I don’t know.”
