CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Haden
“He likes you,” Penny says to Cassie as she hangs a haynet inside Zeke’s stall a few hours later.
After having dinner with Penny and my little stalker, I put Cassie to work.
Surprisingly, she hasn’t stopped since I gave her the first job.
Probably trying to save face after her little stalking episode.
We’re making our final rounds after bringing in the horses that are rehabilitated enough to spend most of their day in the pasture.
They’re much happier and healthier than when we first took them in.
“You know, when we got him, he was afraid of all of us. He’d not had any good experiences with humans in his life. He’s taking to you quite nicely though now. His charm is really starting to show through,” she says proudly. “You’ll have to come back.”
Cassie smiles sweetly at her.
“Hey, Zeke’s my horse, don’t go pimping him out to shiny newcomers,” I joke, and Cassie laughs.
“You like me better than Haden. Don’t you, boy?” She rubs between Zeke’s eyes.
Penny pats me on the shoulder. “Alright, darlin’, I’m spent. Are you okay to do the rest? My fingers need to dethaw.”
“Yep. You go ahead. We’ll check on Marlow before we leave.”
Marlow’s finally looking better this week. Her appetite is improving, though she still won’t go near the other horses.
Penny reaches over and offers Cassie a hug.
They’ve spent the last two hours chatting, with Cassie telling Penny all about her dad and the horses she used to ride as a child.
Her father was a vet just like Penny, so I could barely get a word in edgewise.
Besides, I liked learning more about Cassie secondhand.
“I’m so glad you agreed to come and give Haden some help tonight. Work is always more fun when you have a helper. And you come back any time now.”
“You can bet on it,” Cassie says as she hugs her back.
When we’re alone for the first time, Cassie looks over at me as I bring the next batch of hay bags out.
“You’re just this big rugged cowboy with a heart of gold aren’t you?” she says. “Helping a nice widow out on her rescue farm? I didn’t see that coming.”
“Well, it’s certainly better than what you originally thought.” I waggle my eyebrows.
Cassie shrugs as she grabs a couple flakes and enters the stall beside another horse we have here, Woodsy. “Hey, to each their own. You never know. Everyone has their own taste.”
After the daytime hands left, Cassie has been helping me feed and give the horses that need them their meds, and despite her thorough embarrassment when I busted her spying on me, she’s more like the woman I met last fall.
I think it should freak me out a little that she was wild enough to follow me.
But it actually sent my blood racing in a good way, seeing her trying to hide behind the steering wheel like she was fooling someone.
I liked seeing her all flustered and even a little jealous.
I liked knowing she wanted to follow me, as much as I shouldn’t.
And spending time with her like this? I don’t hate that either.
“So why do you do this?” Cassie asks me now. “What is it about this place that has your heart?”
I enter Marlow’s stall carefully as Cassie sits on the bench outside it.
Marlow skits to the wall. “Easy now,” I tell her in a soft low voice, raising a hand slowly to let her know I’m her friend.
I hold the bucket up, to show her I’m here with food.
I have to feed it to her in handfuls because she won’t take it from the bucket yet.
At least she’s eating something. “Penny is so damn inspiring, plus she’s my mentor.
I want to do what she does one day all on my own, maybe even take over here.
She’s teaching me everything she knows.”
“You want your own rescue center?” Cassie asks in surprise.
I avert my eyes from hers. She looks so goddamn pretty standing there. “If I can learn enough and save enough.”
“That’s noble.”
“It’s an important job. Plus, someone has to do it. Might as well be me.”
“How long has Penny been doing this without Mr. Lane?”
“It was Mr. Garrison actually. Will died just before I met Penny. We got to talking in line at the local feed store and I just felt like she needed help. She was on her own, trying to keep this place alive without a partner,” I tell her as Marlow mercifully takes some food from my hand.
“She and Will started this place with everything they had, a passion for looking after animals and big hearts. Apparently, Will always said Penny had a heart much bigger than their wallet, and she still takes in way more horses than she can afford. Pass me that brush? I’m just going to try something. ”
Cassie searches for what I’m pointing at in my bucket of supplies.
“Penny seems like she does alright here. All these horses seem well cared for,” Cassie comments as she hands me the brush.
I shrug and very gently move closer to Marlow, stroking her side as much as she’ll let me. “She gives everything to this place. So I help her fix up her house when she needs it, and Asher redid the drywall in her mudroom last year.”
Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Asher? The scary bartender?”
I chuckle. “Yeah, he’s not so scary when you get to know him. He’s more just quiet. Keeps to himself. He’s also the deputy fire chief and dabbles in woodworking on the side.”
“Do all you men here just do everything?”
I shrug. “We try.”
She smiles.
“Anyway,” I push on, “point is, she always needs help here. She could use some new equipment for sure. Everything she has here is old and tired and hardly works. Even the rakes need replacing. But we get by, and the community sometimes helps with donations too.”
I start to brush the ends of Marlow’s mane. She backs up.
“Easy girl, I’m just gonna spiff you up is all,” I say calmly. “If you’ll let me.”
I stand still for a moment and see what Marlow will do next. Then I approach her slowly.
“That’s it, buddy,” I tell her as I start to run the brush over her gently. She doesn’t back away or try to pace as she’s been doing for the last few days. I speak evenly to Cassie to give Marlow the vibe that I’m calm and everything is alright as I inch even closer.
“Penny says that when Will died, it took a lot of the joy out of this place for her. They only have one daughter, who lives a few counties over, so I think these horses became like their children.”
“Well, it’s really commendable what y’all are doing here.” Cassie smiles at me over the stall door. Her face has some dirt on it after the busy evening. Her jacket is a little muddy too, and her white wool hat has hay in it. She looks fucking adorable.
“But I have to ask. If the joy for Penny has gone without her husband here, why doesn’t she just sell the business and truly retire?”
I look at her and smirk. “She says she’ll sell it when I’m ready to take over. Because she could never close the center down. Without something like this place around here, where would all these horses go?”
Cassie nods and smiles at me again as I pat Marlow.
“That’s enough for today, isn’t it, bud?
You did good though.” I reach into the bucket and offer her another handful of food.
She smells what I’m holding but doesn’t take it from my hand.
Instead, she turns her head, getting anxious again.
“That’s okay. Soon enough, Marlow. Soon enough. ”
We leave the stall and I pull the latch across, closing it tight. I take one last look around the barn; everyone and everything is settled for the night. Earlier than usual too. Probably because I’ve had a helper. When my eyes meet Cassie’s she’s staring up at me with an expression I can’t place.
“What?” I ask her.
She just smiles and shakes her head. “Nothin’,” she says.
“Nah, you have to tell me. Do I have horse shit on me or something?”
I look down at my clothes. They seem all clear to me.
Cassie reaches up on her tiptoes and tweaks my chin. “You’re just not who I thought you were, Cowboy.”
Then she turns and starts to leave the barn. I chuckle as I follow behind her.
“You’re just saying that to butter me up, and to make me feel safer after you stalked me.”
She turns and her mouth falls open as she punches me playfully in the shoulder. “Excuse me for wanting to learn about your double life. I was being honest earlier—I was curious, is all.”
I pull the barn door shut behind us and pick up a scoop of salt from the bucket near the door to finish my final task of the night.
“I wasn’t stalking, your honor, I swear,” I mutter in my best Cassie voice.
“That does not sound like me.”
I shrug. “I think I nailed it.”
She laughs softly. “Shut up. You are closed-off you know. Though I don’t remember you being like that when we first met. At first, I chalked it up to the whole ‘been here done that,’” she says, waving a hand over her body. “But now I realize it was because I hit a nerve with you.”
Cassie pauses and I watch her mull over her next words before she continues.
“I just thought that night, we did what we came to do is all. And I really do hate goodbyes. I have ever since my dad …” She trails off and I see grief in her eyes even though I know her dad died years ago.
But I know enough to understand it never goes away.
“Well … let’s just say I would rather say ‘see ya later’ than goodbye and hope we meet again.
And if I’m being honest, you kind of freaked me out. ”
We start walking toward her truck now everything’s closed up.
“I freaked you out so much you wrote a song about me?” I force a smile, trying to shake the heavy feel in the air.
“I was honestly shocked you even listened to my song. I didn’t mean to hurt you with it, Haden. It was a good storyline and this business is so … intense.” She stops walking. “I’m sorry for twisting it. And I’m sorry for leaving you there that night.”
I stop too and look down at her.