Chapter 5 #2
By the time she reached the wildflowers, Willow’s leg was in agony.
She just needed to sit down. She looked around but couldn’t see Thunder anywhere.
She scanned the area, shading her eyes, trying to see her among the flowers in the distance where Noah had said she’d retreated every time he’d gone to try and get her.
It was only when she looked right around that her eye caught on the shimmer of glossy black and she almost laughed in surprise. There was Thunder, safely in the paddock, the same one that had been falling to pieces when she’d spied it through the trees, now all fixed up, new wood, new fence posts.
She glanced quizzically back at Dylan who was standing where she’d left him, hands still in his pockets, then back to the now safely penned-in horse.
She walked over to the fence, slower now because of her knee—relieved when she got there to have something to lean against—and stared in amazement at Thunder.
When Willow called out to her, she looked up but didn’t move otherwise, her gaze still wary.
Willow looked again toward Dylan, and this time saw him walking over to where she stood, no massive hurry, like time was endless there.
Overly aware of his approach, she turned away, back to the paddock.
It was almost annoying how good-looking he was, all angular features and lazy gestures.
Shadowy, assessing eyes and a mouth fixed almost permanently in a knowing smirk, like he knew everything a person was trying to hide about themselves.
She shouldn’t have come. She mentally rehearsed her justification to her dad and Noah.
Dylan came to rest his arms on the paddock fence alongside her.
Not too close. He didn’t say anything, gaze focused on the horse.
He clicked his tongue a couple of times and Thunder looked up from the grass.
Then he unlatched the gate and went in slowly, respectfully, his voice low and steady.
It was like watching a dance as he made hand gestures that the horse both shied away from and responded to until Dylan was alongside her, smiling, saying something under his breath that almost made the horse smile.
Willow watched, captivated. Dylan beckoned Thunder gently over to where Willow stood, speaking softly, reassuringly, till they were close enough for her to reach out a hand and touch Thunder if she’d allow it.
Dylan got a packet of peppermints out his pocket and handed one to her. “She responds very well to treats.”
Willow laughed, it was like some miracle had taken place. She held her hand out flat and Thunder, hesitant at first, couldn’t resist. She grinned, delighted, as she felt the horse’s warm lips on her palm snaffling the mint straight from it. “Are you sure this is the same horse?”
“Oh, yeah.” Dylan nodded, reaching over to run his hand gently down Thunder’s neck.
Willow watched, shaking her head, genuinely impressed. “How’d you do it?”
Dylan shaded his eyes with one hand. “Gentle persuasion,” he replied, his attention still on the horse.
Willow was wide-eyed with admiration. “It’s incredible.”
“It’s no great secret.” Dylan glanced at Willow, then back to Thunder.
“She was pretty angry. Uptight, maybe scared.” He reached out a hand and Thunder sniffed it then let him scratch her neck.
“It’s just about helping her see that there’s nothing to be scared of.
Nothing to be mad about. But there’s no hurry, is there?
” he said it to Thunder, but Willow had the awkward feeling that he was somehow talking about her.
She knew it was ridiculous but still it made her spine stiffen self-consciously.
“Well, I’ll be sure to let Noah know,” she said, then pushing off the fence added, “I should get going.”
Dylan nodded, didn’t seem fazed by the sudden change in her demeanor. “Okay.”
Willow’s knee throbbed but she made darn sure to hide the limp as she started to walk away, knowing that he was watching, standing there calmly—almost arrogantly, she imagined, thinking he was able to see every thought as it came into her head.
But then he caught her off-guard when she heard him say, “You want to ride her?”
Willow paused. She looked back over her shoulder.
His words hung in the fresh warm air around them as the world seemed to stop for a second. Her head pulsed with the possibilities of the question; the forked path of options.
Dylan was leaning against the paddock fence, a scrap of hair fallen over one eye, a smile on his face that made his eyes crease boyishly, made it easier to remember what he’d looked like at school. “Doesn’t have to be today.”
She swallowed, felt the prickle of a blush on her cheeks.
The sun glistened between them, seemed to echo off the dry grass.
There was a polite, “No, thank you” on her lips, but the offer was too tantalizing to be dismissed so quickly.
She had to look away from Dylan so as not to be distracted by the girl inside her who sat in the bleachers waiting for football practice to finish just so she could see that look he was giving her right now.
Who lay in bed and listened to the sound of his and his brother’s bikes as they carved up their fields, she remembered the smell of their bonfires, smoke curling in through her window as she slept.
Now she gazed instead at Thunder; those big black eyes watching her unblinking.
Willow thought of the speed the horse had taken off at as she’d galloped away from the ranch.
She thought how fun it would be to race across the pastures, wind in her hair, faster than her brain could keep up.
With her leg how it was, those kinds of speeds were off limits—she shouldn’t be riding at all—but imagine just being up there in the saddle on a horse like Thunder, it would be treat in itself.
Willow’s? ballet? insurance? didn’t? allow? her? to? ride horses—nor motorcycles, nor ski.
She had never skied so that didn’t matter.
She was fond of a motorbike, but it was the horse-riding that had been the toughest ban to swallow—no morning gallops as the sun rose through the mist, no trekking out with Noah and the others to round up the cows in the spring.
She simply didn’t ride—unless it was an emergency—hadn’t since she was sixteen years old.
No one back at the ranch would even dream of asking her to.
But here, all too aware of Dylan, his blue eyes somehow teasing, tantalizing her with the offer, she found herself wondering why she’d ever followed the rules laid out for her by the insurance company.
Why she’d allowed herself to forgo one of the precious joys of her life.
If she was so set on riding, however, it didn’t mean she had to take him up on his offer.
She could wait for Dylan to deliver Thunder back to the ranch.
Once they got her safely back at Silver Sky, though, Noah wouldn’t let Willow anywhere near Thunder, there was no doubt about that.
Nor would her mom, for that matter, she’d be fussing like a hen, even if Willow promised she’d do nothing more than a light trot.
She found herself almost breathless with indecision. The sun warmed her shoulders. Thunder blinked, wide black eyes watching with almost the same interest as Dylan.
Willow’s body urged her to walk away. Instead, she found herself saying, “Tomorrow?” Convinced it was purely about the horse.
“Tomorrow,” Dylan replied.