Chapter 17
JEREMIAH
Most people who came to Mercy River Ranch considered horses to be an asset. Cattle were our business, but horses were our heart. I had witnessed it time and time again, the way a horse could heal a wounded soul.
Judging by the way Lennon backed up with a surprised gasp when Indigo sniffed her, she did not agree. I bit back a smile.
“This is Indigo. He likes city slickers.” I held the black gelding’s reins loosely in one hand while Lennon gave us both a dubious look.
“How does he like city slickers?” she asked suspiciously. “Served with a side of oats for breakfast?”
I chuckled. “I know he looks like a demon, but I promise you’re safe with him. This boy is bombproof. Aren’t you, boy?” I gave him a solid pat on his neck, and he turned to look at me. “Nothing fazes him.”
“He’s not the one I’m worried about,” she muttered, but she stretched tentative fingers toward his nose and rubbed gently with the back of her knuckles. “He’s soft,” she said begrudgingly. She shifted closer.
“Horses can sense a person’s emotions,” I told her.
“They’re prey animals, so they’re wired to stay alert for signs of danger.
That means if you’re a nervous rider, your horse is going to pick up on that and start acting out.
But Indigo here, he stays calm no matter how silly his rider is.
That’s what makes him good for greenhorns. ”
“Is he slow?” Lennon asked hopefully.
“As slow as you tell him to be,” I evaded.
Indigo was one of the smartest, most intuitive horses I’d ever had the pleasure of riding, but slow wasn’t his preferred speed.
That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, though.
I’d learned the hard way that a lazy horse and an inexperienced rider were a match made in hell.
Once a lazy horse realized his rider didn’t know shit, he’d take advantage of that and graze away, no matter how much his rider kicked.
A horse like Indigo, who liked to stretch his legs and didn’t care too much if his rider bounced like a sack of potatoes on his back, was a much better fit for a new rider.
“Ready to ride?” I asked.
Her brown eyes widened. “But I don’t know how.”
“It’s not the kind of thing you learn on the ground, honey.
” I placed the reins in her left hand. “Face the horse, left hand on the saddle horn but don’t drop the reins, right hand on the cantle—that’s the back of the saddle.
Yes, right there, you’ve got it. Left foot in the stirrup.
Now step up and swing your right leg over his back. ”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
But even as she spoke, she gave an experimental hop and then went for it for real. It wasn’t graceful, but she was in the saddle. That was one of the things I liked about Lennon. Even when she doubted success, she was always game to try. She gave it her all.
I fixed the length of her left stirrup, then rounded Indigo’s head to lengthen her right stirrup so they matched. Moving back to the left side, I checked the girth one last time to make sure it was tight enough.
I gave her a quick lesson on the basics, showing her how to hold her reins with her left hand and to steer by gently placing the reins on the right side of Indigo’s neck to turn left, and on the left side to turn right.
When the stiffness in Lennon’s shoulders melted a bit and her right hand relaxed its death grip on the horn, I swung up on Ruby, a pretty chestnut mare with a fondness for open spaces, Indigo, and sneaking up on unsuspecting folks with a sharp whinny that could raise the dead.
“See those trees over there?” I pointed, and she nodded. “There’s a meadow right beyond them. That’s where we’re going.”
Her hand tightened on the horn again. “We’re not staying here in the ring?”
“Wildflowers are blooming. There’s no better way to see them than hiking or on horseback.”
The truth was, Lennon and I were overdue for a conversation, and that conversation needed to be had away from certain nosy cowboys. After digging through her past yesterday, I intended to confront her with it. Drag a confession out of her and then send her packing.
This morning I had the opportunity to do just that, and what had I done instead?
My brain had short-circuited at the sight of her wearing my coat unzipped and nothing but those tiny shorts and camisole underneath.
How was I supposed to have that conversation with her when her peaked nipples were taunting me like that?
I’d zipped her up in my coat so I wouldn’t pounce on her like a rabid dog.
And then I’d offered to find her earring.
And then I’d asked her to come riding with me.
If I hadn’t gotten the hell out of there, I probably would have found a way to kiss her again. Gotten her out of my coat and into her bed.
And that was a real fucking problem.
“It’s so beautiful here.” Lennon lifted a hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the brilliant afternoon sunlight and gazed at the field of wildflowers that stretched all the way to the mountains. “The sky goes on forever. I guess that’s why you all wear cowboy hats, huh?”
“Here, take mine.” I turned Ruby to pull up next to Indigo, removed my tan Stetson, and plopped it on her head. It sank low on her forehead.
Laughing, she pushed it higher. “It’s a little big. But thank you.”
She nudged Indigo with her heels, hips swaying to the horse’s movements.
Wear the hat, ride the cowboy. It was a favorite saying around here during tourist season, when women on vacation were looking for a cowboy adventure.
Watching Lennon’s hips roll, her dessert-colored hair tumbling down her back under my hat, I saw the appeal.
I could imagine. Lennon above me, my hands on her hips, her breasts—
Fuck. I had gone from half hard to fully hard in ten seconds like a teenage boy who hadn’t learned to control himself yet.
With a muttered curse, I rose in my stirrups and surreptitiously adjusted myself, hoping to hell she didn’t choose this moment to look back at me. Eyes forward, honey. Pay no attention to the blue-balled dumbass behind you.
She halted again, looking down at the yellow flowers.
“Dandelions, right?” She fished her phone out of her bra for the third time, tapped the screen to open the app she’d been using to identify wildflowers, and aimed the camera at the flower.
“No, it’s pale ago…ago…” She frowned over the unfamiliar word.
“It’s fake dandelion.” She laughed, looking at me over her shoulder just as I eased back into the saddle.
“They’re pretty, though. Even if they are little fraudsters. ”
Just like someone else I know.
The meadow was thick with early summer flowers. Indian paintbrush in red, orange, and pink were interspersed with yellow fake dandelions and white daisies. Lennon had been snapping pictures left and right.
“It’s tempting to pick a bunch for your cabin, isn’t it?” I hinted. “I bet they’d look pretty in a vase on your nightstand.”
She didn’t take the bait. “I think they’re prettiest right where they are. If everyone picked themselves a bouquet of wildflowers, there wouldn’t be any left.”
I ground my teeth in frustration. I had given her a couple of opportunities to tell me the truth, and she’d sailed past all of them without batting a guilty eye.
“Have you been riding horses your whole life?” she asked, changing the subject.
She did that a lot, I’d noticed. Turned the subject back to me when it edged too close to something personal for her.
Usually she paired that with a compliment.
I never trusted flattery, but the way Lennon seemed both sincere and genuinely curious, it didn’t feel like she was blowing smoke up my ass.
Which probably meant that I was more susceptible to a pretty girl showing an interest in me than I cared to admit.
I let the silence stretch a moment instead of answering right away, so she paused a moment, studying me, and then continued, “You look like you were born in the saddle. I can’t imagine you bouncing around like a sack of potatoes.”
“Everyone’s a beginner at some point,” I said.
A flicker of disappointment crossed her face.
I hadn’t answered her question. Hadn’t given her any more than she’d given me.
Maybe that was the problem. Lennon was locked down tighter than Fort Knox, but I wasn’t much better.
If I wanted her to open up, I had to go first. Trust went both ways and I hadn’t earned hers yet.
“I grew up on a compound. Several families shared the labor of working the farms. We had horses, mostly for working fields or pulling carts. We didn’t ride and, looking back, I’m glad I didn’t learn until I came to Mercy River.
” I rubbed my thumb over the soft leather of the reins.
How deep into this was I willing to go to get answers?
How much of myself was I willing to bare?
“The Bible told us that man was to have dominion over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. How I was raised…” I worked my thumb harder over the leather.
I hated talking about this shit. “They didn’t interpret it in a gentle way. ”
“Amish?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
“Polygamists.”
Her mouth fell open in surprise. She blinked rapidly. “Like…free love? Hippies?”