Chapter 2
two
saúl
“You’ve got any idea how the new vet ended up in our back gate, Swiftheart?
” I rubbed my mare’s neck before I mounted her.
It was a good thing I’d been cleaning up the horse stables when the guy called.
And lucky that I had network. I had to speak with my father about hiring people without my supervision, or without letting me know when to expect them, but that would be a problem for another day.
Besides, I could tell how that conversation would go.
It had taken me more than a few decades, but I’d learned the lesson: this place ran more smoothly if I just adjusted to the old man’s whims. “Yeah, me neither.”
Despite her name, Swiftheart didn’t love to ride fast, but she loved the prairie grass that sat near the back gate, so it was never a struggle to get her moving in that direction. She wasn’t the only horse who still loved riding, but she was the most docile one when it came to meeting new humans.
She worked great for the few times we felt forced to open our gates to the public. Everyone gawked and awed at her gorgeous chestnut color and the shiny white patch between her eyes.
She was a beautiful specimen, that much was true, but I was the sentimental fool who favored her over the others because she’d been the first foal I’d helped birth all on my own.
Everyone had thought neither the mother nor her would make it.
They had even considered putting a stop to their suffering.
I stood strong, and Swiftheart now thrived with us. And maybe she was more attached to me than any of the other horses—or it was the sentimentality talking and making me see what wasn’t there.
Through my musings, Swiftheart had kept on to the path—it was somewhat remarkable; her attention span wasn’t the best at times—and I could see a hint of dirty blonde hair glinting in the sun next to a neon blue suitcase. The suitcase looked like it weighed more than the guy.
I didn’t want to judge, but all the vets that had worked with us were the burly types, the ones that could lift the dead weight of a horse if they had to. They didn’t look as fearful as this guy did either. He hadn’t even given me his name, now that I thought about it.
I urged Swiftheart to move faster, my fingers tightening around the bridle as she picked up speed.
While I tried to gather more details on the guy I was approaching—like the way he didn’t stand to his full weight or how mussed up his short hair looked—I ran a mental checklist of the tasks I’d set for the day.
There was no way I’d get to them today if I was expected to show the new vet around, and that meant delegating to the ranch hands.
They wouldn’t be happy with the idea, especially since I doubted they’d had more of an inkling than I did about the new hire, but there was little I could do about it.
The guy looked up when he must’ve heard the hooves of the mare drawing closer.
I grimaced as I saw what looked like fear or anxiety etched in the widening of his eyes.
He couldn’t be scared of horses, could he?
My father might be losing his touch in his old age, but he wouldn’t have been that careless in hiring someone.
I shook my head.
That anxiety shifted when he looked up more properly, replaced with awe while staring at Swiftheart.
I could get behind the sentiment. Maybe I had been too quick to judge, and he was just the kind of guy who got the jitters on a first day. The look on his face was one I had seen many times in the rescue. It was the look of an animal lover.
There weren’t many things that altered my perception of someone as that trait.
When I was close enough, I dismounted Swiftheart and checked that the saddle sat comfortably in place before walking the distance to the back gate, bridle in hand.
Swiftheart was not one to run away or cause trouble, but she could be independent.
It had been a while, but when she was younger, she’d earned a reputation for leaving me stranded at random places because she’d rather run back to the stables to munch on some hay.
The corners of my lips twitched up at the memory.
Before I got lost in more of those, I unlatched the wooden gate and stepped aside.
The guy didn’t really move.
“Saúl Araya.” I reached out a hand. “I’m sorry we weren’t more prepared for you coming.”
If someone else had been here, or if he didn’t look like one of the traumatized horses we rescued, I would’ve gone on a rant about my old man and his ways. As it was, I didn’t even know if he was going to meet my handshake.
He swallowed once, twice, his Adam’s apple protruding sharply against his neck, before he clasped my hand in a more solid shake than I would’ve expected.
“I’m Cameron. Reed.” He swallowed again. “Most people call me Cam, though, and it’s okay. That you weren’t ready, I mean. That’s a beautiful mare.”
After he offered his name, the next words were rushed faster and faster. A few of my cousins would’ve struggled parsing what he was saying, the ones that hadn’t been living here for longer than a few years and had arrived when they were already adults.
“That, she is.” I felt myself smiling as I rubbed her neck.
Everyone said it would be easier if I just cut her mane, but I liked the way it moved with the wind too much.
Some upkeep was fine, but her long mane was part of her charm as far as I was concerned.
“I should’ve asked if you ride, but then… Better not, with that suitcase there.”
“It’s fine.” Cameron—Cam—did his best to smile.
He had brown eyes, the color of coffee when my mother made it and she added more milk than sense.
He was a head shorter than me, too, which I didn’t think was helping his anxiety, not that I could do much about it.
“And I do ride. It’s been a while, though.
I grew up on a ranch, but then we moved to New York, and boarding a horse there is expensive as fuck.
And I never liked the idea of paying to ride a random horse who didn’t have a say in liking me or not, you know? ”
I hummed. So he was the kind of guy who was standoffish until he got talking, and then he didn’t know when to stop. I’d met a few of them. They’d never worked for me, or anywhere near wild animals as far as I knew, but there was a first time for everything.
“You’re a long way from New York.”
“Yeah.” He grimaced, his hand shooting up to the back of his neck. “I needed the change.”
It was off limits, then.
I went to grab his suitcase and turn Swiftheart around to head back toward the main house. If nothing else, I needed to get the guy to drink some water after he’d been waiting for who knew how long there.
“You say you grew up on a ranch. Did you work there, too?”
Was I fishing? Sure. But my old man wasn’t here, and I needed to understand what had compelled him to hire this guy.
“I helped out?” Cam’s voice went a bit high as he fought not to stumble to keep up with me. “I mean, I left when I was fifteen.”
I was doing plenty around here when I was fifteen, but I kept it to myself.
“So what did Da tell you about this job?”
Cam took a deep breath before exhaling loudly. He clenched his hands in fists twice before he shook his head, and a more subdued form of him took over. It was in the way he shut down, the twinkle in his eyes when he was telling me about his horse riding experience gone.
“He needed—well, you needed—a full-time vet after your last one moved. I have the contract in my phone. Pay isn’t much, but full boarding is included. He said there were a few rooms in the main house I could use.”
Outwardly, I nodded along. Inwardly, I cursed the old man to shreds. When was the last time he’d offered to let someone live in the main house?
Of course there were a few rooms he could use.
I was the only one living there permanently after my sister moved out last year.
Some of the ranch hands would stay a few nights if there was an issue with their lodging—like last month when a pipe burst and the whole place flooded.
My cousins lived with my parents outside of the ranch and only came a few hours a day because they said they couldn’t handle the stench of the animals 24/7.
Fuck my life.
My cogs started turning.
There had to be more to my father hiring this guy than the fact that we needed a new vet—which we did. Lodging him in the main house?
I sighed.
Swiftheart nuzzled my jaw. She really was a good horse.
“Great,” I remembered to say. “Did he tell you you’ll be sharing with me?”
“I mean—” He almost stumbled again, but as I was processing this new piece of information myself, I felt less inclined to commiserate with him.
“He said rooms, so I assumed I’d be sharing with the ranch hands or something.
I swear no one will notice I’m there. I’m small. Don’t make any noise or anything.”
I scoffed. “I’m the only one who lives there.”
Was it lonely? Sure. My entire family used to live there, until my parents moved outside of the ranch to have an actual sense of retirement—or the closest they could get to it without losing it in the process.
Now it was just me. I was certain I knew the reason why all the cousins kept finding excuses to also move away, but I was not going to sour my mood that much today.
It was bad enough I still had a day of work ahead of me. Which reminded me—
“Mind if I make some calls?”
I didn’t wait for him to answer, simply dropping the suitcase and picking up my phone.
It was rude, and I didn’t love it, but the animals came first, and a day behind in tasks could very quickly snowball into injured animals, broken fences that would take heavy machinery to fix instead of a set of pliers and some wood, and worse.
No way I was going to live through that headache if I could help it.