Chapter 23 #2
Pain shifted the gray of his eyes to charcoal ash, anger smoldering there as he tensed, like he was bracing against something fresh and raw.
“Yeah, fuck that. I’ve heard that before, and Blair, it’s never.
..ever…true.” The bitterness tinged the roughness in his voice, making her gut clench. Damn if there wasn’t a story there.
“He needs to know that he’s still useful,” he murmured. “I’ve got this.”
Leather creaked as he moved, the sound deliberate, unhurried.
Blair stood there dumbfounded as he approached the stall, unlatched the door, and simply turned away, walking past her.
His words slammed into her, tangling her emotions, and making her brain seize.
Of course. Why hadn’t she seen that? She didn’t lock Jet Relevé up like he’d been broken, his spirit was too alive for that. She’d worked him, and he’d healed.
This man just humbled her with honesty.
God, she freaking wanted him.
The barn breathed again, a long exhale of animal sound and shifting weight.
Talon whinnied again, softer, almost a nicker. Her mouth dropped open, and the big Palomino pushed the door the rest of the way and started after Breakneck.
She stood there until the gelding passed her, then she got her wits back. She raced after him. “Wait! I’ll saddle—”
“No. We need to get acquainted.”
Hooves scuffed softly on dirt as Talon followed.
Breakneck kept walking, and she once again hurried after him. “You’re going to ride him bareback without a bridle. Are you mad?”
“He’s sometimes batshit crazy, but no one ever said that was wrong,” Boomer grumbled. “Kid, you break something, and I’m going to kick your ass.”
She gaped at Boomer, then turned to Iceman for help. “There’s protocol,” she sputtered. “Liability. Papers to sign and file before you can handle an RCMP mount. Especially one who’s not cleared for duty! Stop!”
He did, looking back at her over his shoulder, that jaw so tough, she wanted to kiss it. “I’ve been a liability since I was sixteen years old, babe.”
“Ice?” she said, her teeth clenched.
He shrugged. “I don’t corral my operators.”
There were several snickers, and she shot a glare at GQ and Kodiak. “His instincts are always sound,” Kodiak said calmly. “Trust his process.”
Hazard clapped Blair on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, boss. I’ve never seen the kid’s confidence fail him.”
Beef caught her eye, rolling his. “A-mer-i-cans…”
“Let’s go watch Breakneck break his fucking neck.”
Tyler barked out a laugh, loud and unrestrained.
Their leader headed for the entrance, his words drifting back to her. “But this,” Ice added, “I gotta see.”
The barn doors stood open ahead, sunlight spilling across the packed earth outside.
She looked back at Jet, and the words came tumbling out to no one but his ears in an exasperated harangue.
“Of all the cocky, ill-advised ideas I’ve ever heard, this had to take the American pie.
” She marched over to him, unable to leave him cross-tied.
“Okay, I’m mixing metaphors, Jet, but dammit…
I don’t want that handsome, devastating man getting hurt. ”
Suddenly, a deep voice said, “He doesn’t do reckless. He does necessary.” She whirled, her face contorted in a guilty scrunch. Preacher smiled like the stealth god he was. “I like mixed metaphors. Don’t you?” Then he, too, walked out.
“Oh, God. Shoot me now.” Her exasperation returned. “Not a lick of horse sense in the lot of them,” she groaned as she rested her forehead against his neck for a second while she trembled. Jet tossed his head like he was agreeing with her.
Fuck protocol. He was already bruised and battered, running on restraint and stubborn will, and now he was about to handle, on instinct alone, a grieving horse that hadn’t been ridden in three months.
Releasing him, she got him in his stall and reached the opening to the barn, her anticipation and unease high.
He didn’t rush it.
Breakneck stood beside Talon for a breath longer, boots planted solidly in the packed earth, the worn leather grounding him as if he were taking measure of the world before moving through it.
Blair saw the subtle adjustments in his stance, the way his weight settled, balanced, ready.
The muscles in his legs flexed beneath the fabric of his riding pants, strong and controlled, built for power without waste.
His shoulders rolled once, loose, easing tension, the second-skin shirt deliciously mapping every line of effort and restraint across his back.
He slid his hand into Talon’s mane, not gripping, just anchoring, and the horse leaned into him as if the contact made sense.
As if it had been waiting for exactly this kind of presence.
Breakneck murmured something too low for her to hear, his voice pitched for the animal alone, and Talon stilled, breath syncing with his.
Blair’s chest tightened.
The was all about Kelly, the way one body read another and answered without force. The way he’d read Jet. The way he’d read her.
Then he moved.
The vault was effortless, no strain, no hesitation.
One smooth, economical motion powered by legs and core, boots leaving the ground.
Muscles bunched and elongated, his flexibility evident in his thick legs and tight ass as he easily straddled the gelding like he’d always belonged there.
The horse shifted, startled for half a second, then steadied as Breakneck adjusted with him, thighs tightening, balance flawless, his body moving in quiet conversation with the animal beneath him.
Talon quivered, and he nickered softly, then blew hard through his nostrils in a sigh that seemed to relax his whole body.
Blair’s breath left her in a rush she hadn’t realized she was holding.
The sight of them together, magnificent man and horse moving as one, hit her harder than she expected.
He didn’t ride Talon. He met him, giving the gelding what he needed most right now, a direction without dominance, trust without demand.
Emotion surged up her throat, hot and sharp.
If he could read a horse like that, feel the grief, the hesitation, the need for usefulness and answer it so cleanly, how was he reading her right now?
How had he been reading her all along? What would it mean, now and in the future, to be seen by a man who understood bodies, balance, and truth this deeply?
Her knees threatened to give out.
God help her. She had never wanted anything the way she wanted the promise in that moment to be real.
A low whistle cut through the air.
“Holy hell,” Skull muttered. “Look at that.”
Sunlight poured across the corral and caught Talon’s coat as he moved, turning the Palomino into something molten and alive.
Gold flashed and rippled over heavy muscle, every step smooth and sure, the horse’s mane lifting in the light like flaxen corn silk.
Grief hadn’t dulled him. It had been waiting.
Breakneck rode him like an extension of his own body, loose and balanced, boots steady, weight shifting with Talon’s stride as if they’d trained together for years instead of minutes. Just trust and timing and a conversation happening beneath skin and bone.
Beef shook his head slowly, something like grudging respect settling into his expression. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Horse picked him.”
“That’s not riding,” Kodiak added quietly. “That’s partnership.”
Tyler had gone very still.
Blair noticed it without meaning to. The way his shoulders dropped, the way his mouth tipped into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
Acceptance. Clean and quiet. He watched Breakneck and Talon circle once more, sunlight burning bright off that golden hide, and Blair knew, without pity, without drama, that whatever chance Tyler had once entertained evaporated right there in the dust and light.
He never looked at her.
She respected him for that.
Preacher’s voice came low, almost reverent. “Some men don’t take a place,” he said. “They’re given it.”
Breakneck brought Talon to a slow halt, one hand resting easy at the base of the horse’s neck. Talon stood tall, proud, ears forward, no tension left in him at all. A working horse again. A partner.
Blair’s chest tightened.
Sunlight slid over them, man and horse, like a benediction, and something inside her shifted, irrevocably. If he could give a grieving animal that kind of direction, that kind of purpose, that kind of trust…
She didn’t even want to finish the thought.
Suddenly she understood. Reading her was what was causing that restraint, and now she had to know why. She just simply had to know.
That knowledge, aching, bright, and terrifying, settled deep, right alongside her desire.
She’d never been one to hold back on something she wanted.
But the way he was acting meant she was going to have to be careful not only with her heart, but with his until she could hold it in her hands and feel the weight and texture of it, of him.
God. She wanted him in so many ways, a hunger that was deepening with each moment she interacted with him, but could she have him?
Would this compromise her principles, and that fear that lived inside her.
If she asked for more, wanted more, stopped holding the line, and gave herself over to the temptation of him, would that spell the kind of disaster that marred her past? Leave her alone again with regrets?
He wasn’t just lethal, he was a reckless risk for a heart that was still a little bit wary of wanting too much, but what was too much? How could that be defined with him?
Everything? Was that too damn much?
The week settled into a rhythm that should have been manageable.