Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Knox
I’d pulled barn duty that morning, which suited me fine.
The other guys were rotating horses and other livestock through the east pastures, checking fences and such, and I had three stalls to muck, two water troughs to clean and refresh, and approximately zero obligations to make conversation with anyone.
A good morning, by most measures. Especially because it left me alone with my thoughts.
Daisy had told quite a story to me a few days ago, about her past with Trevor.
The rage in me—fuck, it simmered under the surface.
But it was something I managed, which was a polite way of saying I had been white-knuckling it since she told me about the notes on her windshield.
Trevor’s marriage ultimatum. Her father’s response to it.
By the time she got to the part about her parents’ accident, and the question she’d been carrying for years, the one she’d never said out loud to another soul, I had approximately zero patience left between me and doing something to Trevor that would have landed me in the county jail instead of the ODRR barn.
I’d held it together for her. She needed someone solid for her, not someone who confirmed that the world was as dangerous as she’d always feared. Trevor Brewster’s day was coming. I didn’t need to be the one to deliver it. Which made it my job to protect her.
The request to keep things quiet between us, that one I understood more than she knew. She wasn’t ashamed of me. She was afraid. I saw the difference, and knowing the complete story now, I could hold the difference without letting it eat at me.
Mostly.
The unmistakable sound of Daisy’s farrier rig pulled up to the barn.
I dropped everything I was doing and rushed to greet her once she was inside the barn door.
Whatever we were doing, whatever she wanted to call this thing between us, the discipline held back from throwing her over my shoulder and claiming her as mine was still a daily negotiation.
“Well, if it isn’t the sexiest Wylde woman in the county.
” I nuzzled into her neck when she came right to me.
A lighthearted chuckle escaped her when I did.
I pulled back to see a smiling face that warmed my heart.
She walked lighter; the weight of the world had lifted from her shoulders, full of more sunshine than I’d ever seen in her.
After giving all her secrets to me, it must have been cathartic for her.
“I’m covered in mud and horsehair, smelling like a barn. Still sexy?”
“Yep.”
“Even this morning when we woke up and my hair was a mess, eyes puffy, and wearing my granny nightgown? Still sexy?”
“Fuck. The sexiest.” No one was around, so I cupped her ass and picked her up.
She yelped, throwing her thick thighs around my middle with a laugh.
I captured her lips, giving the horses a show.
They neighed approval as if they’d been rooting for us all along.
I had half a mind to sweep her into the straw room and take her right here.
But Dusty’s truck came up the ranch road with a two-horse trailer hitched behind it.
“That’s why I’m here,” she said, straightening out her clothes when I set her back down. I quickly adjusted myself. “Dusty called and has a couple of new horses to bring, but can’t check them over himself due to his schedule. He asked if I’d stop by to do the intake checkup.”
Dusty got out and greeted us. “Got a call from the county animal control yesterday. They found these two horses up off the White Tail Creek trail, nobody claimed them after forty-eight hours. Malnourished, both of them, but tame. I think someone owned these animals at some point and either lost them or gave up on them.” He glanced back at the trailer.
“Perfect. I have two stalls I just cleaned out,” I motioned toward the stable with my head.
“If you can do the initial workup, Daisy, I’ll come back in a couple of days for a full exam on both of them once they’ve settled.”
“I can manage. I’ll check hooves, teeth, weight assessment.
Get them started on a proper ration,” she said, moving toward the trailer.
She produced a peppermint from her pocket and held it out to one curious nose poking out.
She knew how to dangle the goods just enough to calm a horse. “Hey, sweetie.”
“There’s a bay mare and a chestnut gelding. Mare’s the more skittish of the two. Gelding came to me as if we were old friends,” Dusty explained.
“He probably just knows a soft touch when he sees one.” Daisy worked the trailer latches open.
Dusty chortled. “On that note.” He clapped my shoulder once, promised to call ahead before Thursday, and was back in his truck and gone down the road, leaving us to it.
The mare came off first, a bay, dark brown with a black mane that had grown too long and tangled. She’d been pretty once and would be again; the ribs showing through her coat were a temporary problem that good feed and care and time would fix.
The horse peered around at the wide-open pasture, eyeing everything, deciding if this place was worthy of her.
Daisy nickered softly and gave her that peppermint.
I stood back and admired her work, the way she kept the mare calm.
She got her on a lead rope and walked her into the nearest stall with no drama, moving alongside her in that perfect way she had with animals.
The gelding stood about a hand taller than the mare, his reddish-brown coat rough with bare patches. He came out of the trailer easily enough. Practically walked me toward the second stall himself, cheerful and willing.
Right until he could see where I was directing him—into a stall next to the mare’s.
He stopped and turned his head toward the mare’s stall. Then back at me.
“Come on, buddy. Hay in here. Clean water. Best deal you’ve had in a while,” I urged.
He didn’t budge.
He turned back toward the mare, dropped his nose toward the gap at the bottom of her door, and let out an inquiring nicker. From inside came her immediate retort with a flat pinning of ears.
He nickered again.
She kicked the wall.
He considered this information and decided it changed nothing. He moved toward her door and pawed, knocking at a door he fully intended to be answered. His enormous head came up and nodded toward it, recommending, apparently, that someone open it.
“He seems to believe he belongs right here beside her,” I observed.
“She seems like she has issues.” We met eyes. Neither of us said the obvious thing, which meant we were both thinking it. These two sort of mirrored our own situation, although after last night I figured Daisy was coming around to my way of thinking about us.
We pulled them both into a double stall. The mare stepped as far from the gelding as the space allowed. He positioned himself at her shoulder anyway, content with whatever she would give him, apparently untroubled because it wasn’t much.
I understood more than I wanted to.
Daisy worked them both over the next hour with the check-in routine.
Nothing went unnoticed; she was that serious about her job and horse care.
Hooves, teeth, weight noted with a scowl that meant she was already deep in thought about their feeding plan.
I fetched what she pointed at and stayed out of her way, which was how you helped Daisy Wylde in her element: quietly, without requiring acknowledgment.
Eventually, I leaned on the post and watched her fill in the care log, her pen flying across the page.
Fuck, I loved watching her work. Or maybe I was jealous of the way she poured herself into everything and everyone around her while I remained somewhere near the bottom of that list, barely above taking care of herself.
“We need names for these two for the intake form. What should we call them?” She gazed over at their stall as if the answer resided there.
“How about Rhett and Scarlett?” I offered.
“You’re serious?”
“My mother’s favorite film is Gone with the Wind.”
“Suitable names, given the way they seem to dance around each other.”
“Speaking of… Ivy’s been after us about the upcoming barn dance,” I mentioned, keeping her talking.
Daisy didn’t look up. “What about it?”
“She wants the entire ODRR crew there, and texted all the guys to be on their best behavior, told them what clothes to wear. She expects them to dance with as many women as possible.” I scratched the back of my neck. “There’s only one problem. Only one woman I want to dance with.”
“We got the same lecture. We’re supposed to grab every cowboy and dance as often as we can.
She wants the night positive, people happy, a total celebration for the sheriff.
” She set the pen down then and looked at me with a very specific expression, the one that was doing a lot of work to stay neutral.
I pushed off the post and drifted closer the way I always did to her because I couldn’t help myself. “You know you don’t need your sister’s event to find a cowboy. Got a man right here.”
“You are a cowboy.” Her mouth twitched despite herself.
“I’m your cowboy. Different thing entirely. And I won’t even look at another woman unless it’s you.”
She chuckled and finished the log, setting the book aside. I trapped her there against the desk, an arm on each side of her.
“Got some time for me?” I asked, nuzzling her hair, inhaling her lavender. We’d only grown closer since she told me everything.
Her mouth curved, and she glanced past me down the barn aisle, the afternoon light low through the slats. Not a soul in sight. “The guys are out?”
“Pasture rotation. I drew barn duty. Till three or so.”
“What time is it?”
I glanced at the clock above the desk. “Half past two.”
“That’s not much time.”
“It’s enough. I’ll always make the best of what you give me.”
She nodded toward the straw storage. “We need to add fresh straw to their stalls.”
“We do,” I agreed. My blood rushed south to my cock as I followed her around the corner into the room.