5. CT
5
ct
I stare down my stubborn brother and blow out an exasperated breath, “Why are you fighting me on this? I thought you wanted to ride again.”
He rolls his eyes and stubbornly crosses his arms as he leans against my tack room door. “I do. I just don’t know how to feel about Dani helping with it.”
I take a deep breath. In the last few days, Dani has had my full attention, and she doesn’t even know it. I’d gone years without thinking about her constantly, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t sometimes sit around and wonder what I could have done better, what I could have prevented altogether.
“You loved Dani,” I retort to my brother.
We were waiting for said person to get here to watch me work with her horse.
It was true that when we’d been a couple, Graham had already considered Dani to be his sister .
“How did all of this happen anyway? She just showed up one day?” he asks, evading my statement.
I shove my thumbs into my front pockets. “Logan let me know she needed some help.”
“You still talk to Logan and the boys?”
Logan and “the boys” were Dani’s cousins. The Cash brothers. Four brothers who were full cowboy and full of trouble.
“Sure. We play darts every once in a while. Logan is working on convincing that new bar to put up a dartboard and let us do leagues down there.”
“Huh.” He scratches at his overgrown stubble and sighs. “You’re just willing to forgive everything that happened in the past?”
I frown at him from my spot, crossing my arms. “What do you mean?”
Graham and I have hashed out a lot of our issues over the past year. One of those things was not my and Dani’s relationship. Or lack thereof.
“Look, Dad told me what happened. How she dumped you because the stress of Mom was too much. He told me how heartbroken you had been.” He sighs, and the tension in his jaw gives away his frustration. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”
My frown must be severe because Graham gives me a weird look. “I don’t know who told you all of that, but you’re mistaken. Dani didn’t dump me. I dumped her.”
Graham regards me carefully. “Why?”
I shrug, even though the answer is simple. It was a simple, horrible answer that made my gut churn every time I thought about it.
“When I left for the Army, you two were talking marriage.”
I ignore his questioning tone and walk into my tack room, where my saddles, blankets, pads, bridles, and basically anything else I could possibly need are located. I grab my saddle and walk back into the alleyway, setting my saddle on the rack I use during the day.
“CT.” Graham pulls my attention back to him. “What happened?”
“I couldn’t do it,” I tell him bluntly, throwing a hand to the side, irritated that this is coming up again. It was years ago, and I have no desire to walk down the memory lane that completely wrecked me. I rub my eye. “Fuck, man, this shit was supposed to stay in the past.”
“Well, it’s not now.” He crosses his arms, his brows pulled down in concern. “Tell me what happened. ”
I scrub a hand over my beard. “You weren’t here. You didn’t see the way Dad suffered when the light in Mom’s eyes started to fade.”
“CT—”
I hold up a hand, effectively cutting him off. “I’m not mad at you anymore. I get it.” I spent too long holding it over Graham’s head that he wasn’t here for us. But I’ve worked to fix that over the last year, worked hard on myself to be able to open up to my brother again. I’ve already lost too many people. I was tired of it. “My point is, I couldn’t take that for Dani and me. What if she got sick and left me behind? What if I did that to her?” I try to still the emotion in my voice.
He sighs. “So, what, you’d rather be alone?”
“I can’t lose…”
“Listen to me,” Graham starts when I can’t finish. “What happens if she gets sick right now? What would you do?”
The thought makes me physically ill, and I frown. “I don’t know.”
“Wouldn’t you rather spend the time you have, no matter how small, than live in misery without her?”
Before I can answer, a silhouette comes into view at the end of the barn, and I swallow when I realize she’s here.
“Judging by the look on your face, I’d say I have my answer.”
He leaves me with those words and heads toward Dani, and all I can see in my mind are the remaining nightmares that used to keep me up at night and the reason I broke up with her in the first place.
Dani in a hospital bed, barely breathing.
There’s a certain calmness that washes over me when I’m working on a horse. Doesn’t matter whose horse it is.
Could be my worst enemy, could be the woman who challenges my heart.
Once I start working with a horse, it’s just me and them. I slip into a zone where I can focus solely on the job, reading the horse’s emotions and cues. It helps them when I’m able to stay calm too. They learn early on that I’m not here to hurt them, that they can trust me.
I am, however, very aware of the woman’s eyes on me while I ride Lady around the arena, warming up her muscles before I work on the issues at hand .
Dani was all smiles when she and Graham were speaking, joking around with him, and even giving him a hug goodbye when he left for work.
The only thing I could focus on was her telling him they would be working here for his therapy since her horse—and his horse—were here, and her arena was small and hot.
I was itching to ask where she worked, what she did with her life now, if she worked with clients like she always wanted, if she had accomplished all of those goals she dreamed up when we were young.
She’d been vague about it where she worked when she said she had to take off to be here this morning, and I didn’t feel like it was my place to ask. Yet.
I have a flag set up near the middle of the arena. Typically, when you show reining—the patterned part of your ride at a horse show—and cow horse—the cow part—you’ll send the cow down the wall and cut them off near the end.
But since Lady is skittish around the flag, I decided trying her out in the middle might give her a sense of security. If there’s more to her skittish behavior than just being afraid of the flag, I’ll be able to tell.
I take her around at a trot and then ease her into a lope, pushing her faster until we reach a steady pace. She’s a nice horse and a good companion for Dani. I can tell that she loves this horse a lot just from how intently she’s watching us.
I stop Lady in the center of the arena and walk to let her catch her breath. I appreciate that Dani isn’t trying to have a conversation while I’m feeling Lady out. Clients often want to chitchat while I work, and it’s easier if they just let me focus on the horse.
I walk her over toward the flag setup and relax in the seat. It’s true what they say. Horses can sense when you’re tense. When you’re afraid or anticipating things. So, knowing that at any moment she could spook, and I could go flying off this horse—which is highly unlikely—I relax into the saddle and let her lead us, let her sniff and poke her nose at the flag.
I don’t sense her ready to freak out, so I use the handheld part of the device and turn the button on for it to connect to the flag. Then I take her in a circle and give us a little distance before I set her up. I watch her ears, watch as they track me and then the flag. I like how attentive she is. Her attention on the flag shows me that she actually likes this and knows what comes next.
I ease her up, pressing in with my heels and get her a little closer. I tap the button on my thumb, and it moves the flag slightly. She moves toward it at a trot, and I let her take the lead.
Moving the flag again, she tracks it, moving us in the flag’s direction and stopping when it stops.
I move it again in the opposite direction, and she goes again, turning on her back legs to propel us forward. Again and again, we do this, and she doesn’t miss a beat. She’s brilliant at it. Has no issues.
After a while working on the exercise, I let her be done for the day and walk her around to let her cool down. It’s already hot, and it’s only nine in the morning, but if I don’t let her cool down, and she eats or drinks, she could get sick, and the last thing I needed is to make my ex’s horse sick.
When I dismount, I lead her over to Dani, who takes the reins from me, clearly eager to get her hands back on her horse, and immediately the horse rubs her head against Dani’s chest. Lucky horse.
I clear my throat and spread my legs, crossing my arms. “Well, she didn’t seem to have much trouble with me.”
Dani narrows her gaze. “Are you suggesting it’s me that’s the problem?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “No. ”
“Then what? She doesn’t like my flag?”
“I don’t know for sure. I’d have to see your setup. But I’ll try with her tomorrow on the wall and see how she does.”
Dani sighs. “What time tomorrow?”
“Morning.”
Shaking her head, she says, “Okay, well, I can’t make it tomorrow. But I’ll come by in the afternoon to see her and see how it went.”
“Great. And you’ll be back tonight?”
“Is that all right? I’d like to use Graham’s horse. I think he’ll be more comfortable using his horse than anything else. Plus, Lady is my only horse right now.”
I frown. “What happened to Patriot?”
Dani’s face visibly saddens. “He passed a couple of years ago. From colic.”
“Fuck.”
Patriot was her first horse. I remember when she was in middle school, her parents surprised her with him, and he was the horse she did everything on.
Colic was a bitch. Horses couldn’t physically throw up, so instead, their intestines get twisted up, and they can’t get them undone. Sometimes it can be helped with assistance. Sometimes…not.
“I’m so sorry. ”
She shrugs, though it’s not dismissive of the grief, just someone trying to shield herself from the pain. “It happens.”
“Yeah,” I mumble, then watch her, unsure what to say. “Well?—”
“I don’t want you to be watching tonight.”
I frown again and watch her, her teeth biting her lip and her steely eyes are determined. “What?”
“Tonight. For my session with Graham. I don’t want you to be watching. I want it to be a private session.”
I scoff slightly and uncross my arms, resting a thumb in my belt loop and then rubbing my jaw with the other. “It’s my arena.”
“Technically, it’s your dad’s,” she shoots back. “And plus, your brother doesn’t want an audience. He’s not even bringing his girlfriend.”
“Fine,” I grumble, not liking being pushed out. But my brother’s mental and physical health are more important, and I know he’s been dying to ride again. If what it takes is my taking a step back and allowing them to work on this without me, then that’s what I’ll do.
“Good.” She nods. Then, almost shyly, she gestures toward Lady, who is still rubbing against Dani, who has been absentmindedly rubbing her hand over the horse’s head for our entire conversation. “Um, thanks for this. I appreciate the help, CT.”
I nod, biting my tongue, and then give her a small smile. “No problem, Dani.”
Then she takes her horse and walks into the alleyway while I head for my next ride of the day, puzzling over how I’m going to keep working with her when the urge to pull her into my arms and kiss the living daylights out of her was there the entire time we talked.
It is going to be a long few weeks.