Chapter 7 #2
“Just tell me you’ll think about it.”
She blows out a breath. “I’ll think about it.”
“Fantastic.” My shoulders ease up. “Now today, I’m going to teach you how to tack up, and if it goes well, I’ll let you mount up.” I tip my hat at her.
“Tack up? Mount up?” She squints up at the sun, and I’m reminded how very different her world is than mine. It’s like we don’t even speak the same language.
“Tack up. That’s putting on the saddle and bridle. You do know what those are, right?”
Flash pops her head out over the stall door with a soft nicker as soon as I slide the barn door open. Dean leans out of the feed room, mirroring the horse, and gives us a wave and a nod.
Aura stops her tracks. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Dean, one of our ranch hands.”
She pulls her baseball hat down over her eyes and starts backing away. “I…I should go. I can’t stay here.”
When I reach out to grab her arm, she flinches away, and I feel like shit. “Sorry. He’s one of my best friends. It’s fine. He knows. He saw you yesterday and we talked about it. He’s not going to blow your secret. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. Nobody can find out I’m here. It could ruin everything.”
Her eyes are darting back and forth and she’s breathing way too fast.
“I can’t…I can’t breathe.”
Her hand flies up to her chest, and I don’t know what to do for her.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay. I’m here. What do you need?”
“To get out of here… Air… I can’t breathe.”
Her feet get tangled up in her hurry to back up, and her foot catches on a crack in the floor.
It happens so fast I have no idea how I get there in time, but I do.
My hands wrap around her sides before she can hit the ground, and I slowly ease her down until she’s sitting on the hard concrete floor, eyes wide, still breathing too fast.
I’ve seen this before. One of my good friends from college used to get panic attacks. He always said it felt like he couldn’t breathe, like he was dying, when they happened. But we learned how to help him through it.
“You’re okay. I’m here. Flash is here. Check her out? She’s worried about you.” I point to the horse, who still has her long nose hanging over the stall door. She bobs her head in a nod as if she’s agreeing with me.
Aura’s gaze follows my finger pointing at the horse and she gives a slow nod.
“Can you breathe with me? Take a deep breath in. Remember what you told me it smelled like? What was it?”
“Shit,” she gasps.
I almost laugh. At any other time, it would be funny. “What else? Take a deep breath.”
“Hay…leather…horse, I guess.”
“Right. You got this. Anything else?”
“Like a forest. Pine trees. It’s nice.”
Her breathing is starting to even out as she focuses on the smells. Pine trees, though? What’s… My cologne. She’s smelling me. Hmmm. If it helps.
“Good. Can I touch you, or no? Just your shoulder.”
She nods. “Yeah.”
I reach out slowly like I’m approaching a young horse, dropping one hand on her shoulder. “How you doing?”
“I’m okay. I’m fine.” She shakes her head as if she’s trying to reset and starts to scramble up. “I’m good. I’m fine. Let’s get on with this.”
And while she seems better, I can still feel her trembling under my hand. There’s a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead.
“You probably need another minute. Can you stay put for a second? I’ll get you some water.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“You don’t have to pretend everything’s okay. You had a panic attack. You need a minute to recover. It’s okay.”
I suspect from her reaction that she hates me seeing her like this even more than I hate it. But for different reasons.
“Don’t tell me how I’m feeling, or what I need. I said I’d be fine, and I will.” She struggles to get up again.
“Fine. You got this but at least let me help you up.” My thighs burn as I stand up from my prolonged squat and offer her my hand.
She only hesitates for a moment before placing her palm on mine. It’s cold and a little damp but seems steadier. She lets me pull her up.
Her breath brushes my face, she’s standing so close.
Even in the dim lighting of the barn, I can see the dark specks scattered across the lighter brown of her eyes.
There’s a gentle tug on my hand and I realize I’m still holding hers.
Tight. I release it, rubbing my own hand along the softened denim on my thigh.
She shivers, and I study her for a moment to make sure she’s not slipping under again.
But no, she seems okay. A neutral mask smooths her sharp features once more.
The barn is a good several degrees cooler than outside in the sun, so that’s probably the cause of the shiver. That, and the remnants of her anxiety.
I glance around, looking for something to warm her up.
Somehow I don’t think she’d appreciate one of the horses’ sheets, so I pull my hat off.
“Can you hold that for a second?” She looks at the hat in my hand like it’s a foreign object but takes it.
Dragging my hoodie off over my head gives me a staticky shock. I hand that to her as well.
“Here, put this on.”
A series of minute lines appear between her eyebrows as she pinches them together. “You want me to put that on?” She sounds about as disgusted as if I had offered her the blanket covered in horsehair.
“You look cold. It’s just a hoodie. I know things in Hollywood are fancy, but I’m surprised you’ve never seen one before.”
Her lips twist like she’s trying to keep in a smile. “I’ve seen hoodies before, but you don’t need to give me yours. What if you get cold?”
I laugh. “I never get cold. In fact, I’m known to be something of a furnace. I just exude heat. Excellent on a winter night in Calgary. Just take it. I promise I shower every day.”
“That’s not what I was saying.” She rolls her eyes, but hands my hat back and takes the sweatshirt from me, fingers brushing mine as she grabs it.
After wiggling into the fabric, her head pops out, baseball hat missing and hair mussed up.
She bends her neck and I could swear she takes an inhale of the fabric, but I’m not saying anything about it.
The cuffs hang down past her hands, and she’s swimming in the black fabric as she fishes her baseball hat out of it.
But I’m still hit with a pang as the memory from my dream last night flashes through my mind.
The one I definitely won’t mention to her, or she’ll go running out of this barn, probably right out of this town.
She rolls up the cuffs of the sweatshirt, and I blink away all thoughts of the dream.
She looks up at me, her face set with determination. “You ready to start?”