Chapter 14
SAM
“Climb down. Let Spirit come to you,” I coached JT after he launched himself at the stall and climbed to the top of the fence for a better view. “We don’t want to make her or her momma nervous.”
JT instantly dropped down and went still. He was a good listener. His nostrils flared as he took in the scents of the barn.
“She was born just over a week ago, so she’s still nursing all the time,” I explained.
“Ohhhh,” Clio crooned softly beside me. “She’s so beautiful.”
It killed me and my wolf not to be able to put my arm around Clio, but she made the rules.
I would follow them–whatever it took to gain her trust. Having a sandwich picnic by the creek didn’t hurt.
She hadn’t had to cook, and there’d been no dishes to clean.
JT grumbled when he’d seen the “green stuff” on his sandwich but had tried it and liked it.
I’d call that a win. And so was having them here with seeing the new foal.
I crouched beside her pup and called softly to Spirit. “Come here, girl. Wanna come and say hi to JT?” I held out my hand.
Curious, Spirit stepped forward and nuzzled my hand through the slat.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” I murmured to Spirit as I reached out and gently scratched her neck.
“Foals love being scratched,” I murmured, keeping my voice soft. “Use your fingers like this to scratch her. It’s excellent for bonding and gets her used to being handled.”
JT scratched Spirit’s belly and neck, mimicking the same low, soothing voice as he said, “You’re a baby horse, aren’t you? Do you like to horse around, baby horse?”
Clio and I chuckled, watching them.
I heard the sound of running feet, and Remy’s little voice. “Sam is back! Sam is back! Sam! Did you bring JT?” She skidded around the corner in her fire engine red cowgirl boots and a yellow jumpsuit. It was quite the combination, and she’d clearly dressed herself.
I’d told her when I left the ranch that I was going to see if I could bring her classmate over to see Spirit tonight, so she’d been on the lookout for me.
“JT! Hi! Do you love Spirit?” Remy asked as she raced up to us.
“Remy?” JT asked, his face lighting up.
“Slow down, sugar. We don’t want to startle Spirit,” I warned, keeping my voice low still.
Remy instantly checked her speed. “I know,” she whispered. She trotted the last few steps and stood beside JT. “Do you love her?” she repeated.
JT gave the foal another scratch and grinned. “Yep. I do. Why are you here? Do you live here?”
“This is Remy,” I said to Clio. “She’s in JT’s class. Her dad, Wes, is the foreman here.”
Remy lifted her freckled face and flashed a bright smile at Clio. “Hi, JT’s mom.”
“Hi Remy. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you. I don’t live here, but we come here aaaaaall the time.” Her light eyes shifted to JT. “Wanna see my fort before I go home? Daddy says we’re leavin’ soon cause I have school tomorrow.”
JT’s mouth dropped open. “Your fort?”
Remy nodded, her light curls all wild and tangled after a full day. “Yeah. It’s this way.” She beckoned to JT then stopped and whirled to look at Clio. “Can we?”
Clio looked at me. “Do you know where they’re going?”
I nodded. “Yes.” To Remy and JT, I said, “Don’t go anywhere but the fort, okay?”
“Okay!” Remy called out, tearing back out the way she’d come. JT charged after her, laughing.
“We have to leave soon, too, JT!” Clio hollered, but I doubted he paid her any attention.
She put her hands on her hips. She’d stripped out of her coveralls before we left and now wore a pair of jeans and a long sleeved top. She looked so beautiful. I wanted to kiss her senseless now that we only had the horses as witnesses.
I waited, though, because she looked like she had something to say to me.
She cocked her head. “Did you plan a playdate for JT?”
I narrowed my eyes as I leaned against the wall. “That depends. Are you mad?”
She bit her lip. “No–I…I’m surprised, I guess.”
I shrugged. “Remy told me JT was in her class, so I figured they might like to hang out together sometime.”
Clio blinked. “You and Remy are buddies?”
I grinned. “Well, sure. She’s my boss’ kid. She’s here all the time.”
“That explains why you’re so good with JT.”
I laughed. “That and because I have a whole mini-pack of nieces and nephews, too.”
Her brows flew up. “You do?”
I reached for her waist and tugged her to me. “I told you–there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
She glanced in the direction the pups ran off, like she was worried about them coming back.
I stepped closer, into her space. “Don’t worry. I won’t get caught.” I sent her a wink.
A wry smile twisted her lips. “I’ll bet that wink gets you everything, doesn’t it?”
“What’s it getting me now?” My voice was low and suggestive.
“Nothing,” she said firmly, setting her hand on my chest and pressing in. “Not with JT around.”
I held my hands in the air. “Okay, okay. Message received. Let’s go outside where we can keep an eye on the kids, and I won’t be so tempted to lift that pretty top of yours.”
Some of the tension left her shoulders, and she let me lead her out with a hand on her lower back.
I walked her around the pasture to sit on a bench that Roy, one of our pack mates who was a woodworker, had made out of a split and polished log set onto thick, sturdy legs.
From here, we could watch the pups without being overheard.
“How many nieces and nephews do you have?”
“Three total. Two nephews, one niece, from two sisters. They all live here in Cooper Valley. I’m the ‘fun uncle’.” I waggled my brows. We stepped out into the sunset, and I dropped my hand from her back.
“I’ll bet you are,” Clio said.
“The kids are over there.” I pointed to the treeline where Remy had been stacking sticks.
“Wanna see something?”
She flicked her gaze toward the kids.
“We’re not going far. You’ll be able to see them.”
“Okay,” she replied, and I took her hand.
It was small and warm in mine, and I liked how it felt as I led her to the edge of the east pasture. It was fenced in and sloped up a hill.
“See that bull?” I raised my chin in the animal’s direction.
“That’s Lucifer. He’s a bucking bull. Half Brahman, half Longhorn. They grow big, can handle the heat, and are real muscular. He’s mine.”
She looked at me, a little confused. “You have a bull?”
“I do. He’s the start of my sire services.”
She snort-laughed.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“Well, you would make a good stud.” She squeezed my biceps. “But, I’m sorry. Tell me about your bull.”
“I sell his semen to ranchers to breed bulls for the rodeo industry. Bucking bulls are worth a lot of money.”
“How, um, do you do that? Do you bring cows here and let him dirty talk them into a little fun?”
He grinned. “It’s not as sexy as all that. I take him to a collection center in Bozeman. The semen’s put into little pipettes and frozen, and that’s what I sell. I’m headed to a rodeo in Missoula soon to work my old connections. Gotta fix my trailer’s axle before I go, but yeah.”
Clio’s gaze shifted to my white trailer that was on the back side of the stable beside Charlie’s big one.
“You can make a living off of one bull?”
I glanced out at Lucifer, happily grazing. “It’s possible if the bull’s got good bloodlines, which Lucifer has. I haven’t been doing much to develop sales, but now… it’s time to pick things up. Make more deals, get another bull. I’ve got some land of my own where I’ll put them. Soon.”
“That’s impressive.”
I heard the kids laughing and turned toward the sound. Clio followed too, and we watched the kids for a moment before heading back.
“It’s a start, but it’s time to make it into something more.”
We got near the fort which was a split in the base of a big cottonwood tree. JT was helping Remy drag a giant branch over to make it bigger or do something with it only seen in a child’s imagination. The size of the branch was big enough that no human child could handle it.
“Oh, God.” Clio tensed again. “He shouldn’t–” She stopped herself from saying more.
Shouldn’t what? Shouldn’t reveal his shifter strength like that?
“They’re fine,” I assured her. “Remy’s crazy strong and agile. From what I’ve seen of JT’s climbing, he is, too. I don’t think those two could hurt themselves or each other.”
Clio shot me a long, inscrutable look, but all she said was, “Thanks for thinking about JT.”
“Of course. He’s great.” Time to do some fishing. “So…is his dad a part of his life?”
“No,” Clio answered immediately, closed up, then didn’t say more.
Fuck. I didn’t want to pry about her past because it was just that, in her past. I doubted she wanted to know about the females I’d been with before I met her. Except one male in her past had been a shifter, and Rob wanted me to learn about him.
I definitely didn’t want to put a wedge between us when her walls were so firmly in place. I was slowly, so very, very slowly, making a dent in her no-strings rule. Or I hoped. Still, I had to obey my alpha’s word.
What would a human want to know about the situation?
“I hope he at least pays child support.”
Cleo took in a breath and held it. Then slowly let it out. “He doesn’t know about JT. He was one of the drivers on the IndyCar team I worked on.”
An IndyCar driver. That tracked. High risk jobs were a great fit for shifters.
He would survive a majority of car crashes, and it would allow him to be fearless with his racing.
Same reason I was fearless riding a bucking bronc.
Sure, I could break my neck as my mother always wailed, but barring that, there wasn’t much danger to any of the other injuries I sustained.
An IndyCar driver probably made good money. I wanted to ask why she hadn’t at least gone after child support, but I’d already pried too much for the moment. I returned to safer territory.
“How did you get into the racing industry?”
“I was born into it. My dad worked IndyCar pit crews my entire life. He made me a screw and nail board just like JT’s when I was four.
Then I moved up to helping bring tools and parts while he worked on the racecars before a race.
I even had a little chair I sat in during races in the pit.
Then, when I was ten, I started helping in the pit myself. ”
“So you’ve got motor oil in your blood.”
I laughed. “Sure do. I worked with him on a crew until he retired to Costa Rica before JT was born.”
That also tracked. “Impressive.”
She tilted her head to meet my eyes for a moment. “How so?”
“You do what you love. What your father handed down to you, you’re handing down to JT. You seem like someone who has lived and breathed your job. Like it’s a part of who you are.”
She smiled, and to my complete fucking surprise, her fingers tangled with mine on the bench between our legs where the kids couldn’t see. It was such a small gesture, but from her it felt huge. I somehow had put a crack into one of her walls.
“It seems like working with the animals is the same for you. Ernie says you’re a big rodeo star.”
I shrugged. “Boyd Wolf is the big rodeo star around here. He was pretty much my mentor on the circuit, and I won a bunch of championships, but not like he did. I won enough purses to help out my mother with her house. She lives up the road a piece.” I tipped my chin toward the east.
“Remy!” Wes’s voice boomed from up the hill. “Time to go.”
Clio and I turned at the sound.
“That’s Wes. My boss and Remy’s dad. He was in a meeting with Rob Wolf who owns the ranch with his brothers. His office is up in the house.”
Remy ran past us, her little legs pumping. “Bye, Sam! Bye, JT’s mom!”
Clio smiled at me. “Guess it’s time to go.”
I stood, tugged her up, and didn’t let go of her hand. She frowned.
“Come on, I’ll drive you both home. But…” I yanked her so that her chest bumped mine. “I’ll be by later. Then we can play a grownup kind of fort.”