Chapter 4 #3
“You fell off. You have to get back on. If you don’t do it right away, it’s going to become something that gets in your head. I never would have had you try it, but now that you have, you have to see it through.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” she said, anger, wounded pride, and her sore butt making her mad.
“You do. You’re going to listen to me next time I say you’re not ready to do something. Do you understand me? And now you’re going to listen to me when I tell you to get back on the horse and do it again. But this time do it right.”
“That’s … that’s a terrible way to coach somebody. You can’t just tell them to do it right. If I had known how to do it right, I wouldn’t have fallen.”
“It’s a mind game. You have to get into the right headspace. You can’t be showing off like you were. Otherwise you’re going to end up on your rear. Understand?”
“Clearly.”
“Don’t be cute.”
“You’re being mean to me,” she said. She was well aware that this was the second time she had said that to him.
But he was just so … so mean. Her brothers were the toughest men she had ever known, but they would never talk to her like this.
They would have at least asked if she was okay.
He was acting as if he didn’t even care.
She sat up, then stood up, and brushed herself off.
“You know, my mother abandoned me when I was a kid,” she said. “On Austin’s doorstep.”
He eyed her, cold and implacable. He pushed his cowboy hat back off his forehead. “Yeah, Cassidy, I think everybody knows that little piece of your personal history.”
No one reacted to her story that way. It was sad. She had been a nine-year-old girl abandoned on Christmas Day. It was tragic, even. And he was just … looking at her with totally dispassionate eyes, as if none of that mattered.
“I …” She was about to explain to him that everybody was nice to her because they …
Loved her?
Felt sorry for her.
And suddenly she felt extremely small. Silly.
Because he was looking at her as if none of that mattered, and suddenly she felt the distance between herself and that girl.
She was twenty-five. What had happened when she was nine didn’t define her.
Or at least, it shouldn’t. She was the one who wanted to grow up.
She was the one who wanted to be treated like a woman, and now she was bringing up childhood trauma as if it would insulate her.
Tears filled her eyes. She hated herself for that.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice hard. “I need to keep you safe. That means you need to listen to me. Do you understand?”
She didn’t like the way that he was looking at her. There was fire in his blue eyes, and she thought he could see things inside her that she couldn’t even see. But she stared back at him because she was too stubborn to let him win. Too stubborn to let him have his way.
“I’ll listen to you. But maybe you should try being nicer.”
“Is that going to improve things with you?”
“Maybe.” She was too entrenched to give him any absolutes. She refused, in fact.
“Great. Get your pretty ass back on that horse.”
His words galvanized her. Galled her. No one had ever said anything like that to her. And before she knew it, she was launching herself back into the saddle, trying to keep those words from tumbling over and over in her head like rough rocks she was desperate to polish.
There was no putting polish on them. She shouldn’t feel complimented. Because that was stupid. It was a mean thing to say, and he wasn’t trying to make her feel good about herself. Not even close.
It hadn’t been a compliment.
The horse started moving again, and this time when she stood up her legs were shaking terribly.
But she walked herself through the steps he had already shown her, and when she lowered herself back onto the saddle, she was smooth and steady, and set herself right back down in place without falling or causing herself an injury.
“I did it!” she shouted. And she realized it must seem stupid to him that she was celebrating her accomplishment of the most basic trick imaginable. Except when she looked at him, he was smiling. But as soon as their eyes met, he stopped.
Your pretty ass …
“Yeah. You did it. See what happens when you listen to me?”
“See what happens when you’re supportive?”
“When was I supportive?”
“You smiled. Just now.”
“After you did the trick. Your point is invalid.”
“You …”
“Do you want to run through another trick today?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Great. So let’s move on.”
Pretty. Ass.
Why was she fixating on that?
“First, when do we start performing?” she asked, because she needed to get her head in the game.
“We have three weeks.”
“Oh. So … if I needed to take a couple of days off …”
“You’re not working seven days a week. We do extra performances during the holiday break, but you should be able to take a little bit of time.”
“Okay. I need to go out of town for a couple of days. Toward the middle of December.”
“That should be fine. Just give me your dates.”
“I will. When I get them.”
She pictured Dalton’s face and let herself feel thrilled at the idea of going away with him, because it was a nice break from feeling flayed by West’s intense gaze. But then her image of Dalton got wavy as she met West’s eyes, and she felt she was being … looked into.