Page 14 of Coiled Tight
Cam cocked his head to the side before he shrugged and moved as I’d said. If he’d been a regular worker, it would’vebeen fine. Now, I had to fight the urge to praise him. A, it would be inappropriate as fuck. B, I didn’t evenknowhe was what my dad had gotten into my head that he could be.
“Do you make all the people come here do this?” His question got me back in the present.
The present where Cam was doing as I’d asked, slowly approaching the horses and keeping himself visible to them while he offered his hand for them to sniff. Of course he knew the basics of how to introduce himself to a horse.
I was being ridiculous, getting hung up on it.
“I’m more subtle about it,” I acknowledged, “but yeah. Everyone knows they don’t come here to ride the horsetheywant.”
“They don’t try to bend the rules?”
I wondered if Cam was keeping the conversation going because his anxiety wasn’t as prominent with the horses acting as a buffer, or if he was making more of an effort to get them used to his voice.
“You bet.” I snorted. One of the last mares we’d rescued—she’d only been here for a year, a beautiful cream colored species, bucked when Cam approached. I was set to intervene if I had to, but Cam barely reacted outside of taking a step back. Thankfully, the other horses weren’t spooked either. “Men from the city always think they can throw their money around and that’s that.”
The amount of bribes they’d tried to give me? I shook my head. Da and I had fought about it plenty, but I’d compromised enough with him by keeping the horse riding program going.
“What happened to her? Am I wearing something that triggers her?”
Of course, his anxiety showed when it had to do with one of the horses.
“Not that I know.” I tried to get as many details about thelives the horses we rescued had led to avoid such a thing, but it wasn’t always possible. The horses we had mostly fell into three categories. Champion horses who sustained an injury and couldn’t compete anymore, and their ranchers didn’t have the space or the means to keep them around; horses from ranches and farms that had to shut down or downgrade; and the last group. Horses that were abused. Most of those we heard about from the grapevine, hardly ever from the humans around them. It meant that the people we talked to knew some details, but they didn’t know all of them, and there was no telling how scarred the horse actually was until we had them among our midst. “She’s only been here a year, still healing from trauma.”
Her story couldn’t be anything Cam hadn’t heard before as a vet, even if we were the first sanctuary he worked at, but I didn’t want to give details about all the horses. I wasn’t fool enough to think they understood every word we said, but they picked up on more than people gave them credit for.
Cam didn’t press for more information, for once. Once he got going, I’d come to realize it was hard to make him stop. Granted, I saw that side of him more when I happened to run through the care facility and he didn’t notice, but I knew it was there. He just kept approaching all the horses—without any other attempt to run away or intimidate him—until the half dozen horses around us had all sniffed him.
“Go back to the black stallion there.”
Cam’s gaze darted from mine to the stallion in question. He was the tallest one we housed right now, with a strong musculature and shiny fur that glinted under the sunlight. “What’s his name?”
“Mercury.”
Mercury twitched his ears at the mention of his name. I grabbed one of the apple pieces from my backpack that Swiftheart had been subtly trying to get and handed it to Cam.
I worried he’d need more coaxing, but I should’ve realized that coaxing was only needed when there wasn’t an animal in the middle of things.
“I tell you I rode a runt everyone mocked me for, and you give me this beast of a horse?” A small smile formed on his lips as he spoke and Mercury ate the apple from his hand.
“After sniffing you, he kept leaning close to you.” I shrugged. “He likes you.”
He might feel protective of the man. Mercury hadn’t come from an abusive home. He was one of the champion horses who couldn’t compete anymore. He could run around and ride just fine, but high jumps were a big no for a few years—and back then, his previous owner hadn’t even known if it would be temporary. Regardless, that previous owner had had a child who went through some nasty bullying, and Mercury had taken to her.
To this day, she was the only one I let pick the horse she rode the few summers she managed to visit us.
“He’s gorgeous.”
He definitely was that.
If, for a second, I couldn’t tell if I was thinking about the horse or the man in front of me, there was no point in questioning it.
“Put a bridle on him, see how he responds to you.”
“Aye, Captain.”
The mouth on him.
I scoffed. “Sometime this century, if you don’t mind.”
