9. Sawyer
NINE
Sawyer
"Easy…yep, you've got it. That's right."
Bishop moved at a steady lope around the paddock, Daniela balanced and loose in the saddle in a way that would have been unimaginable six weeks ago.
She'd been stubborn about it at first—too much in her head, too much performance—but somewhere around the second week of January she'd stopped thinking and started feeling and after that she'd come on fast.
Faster than anyone I'd trained who hadn't grown up on horseback.
I wasn't going to tell her that yet. She'd get smug about it.
"Okay," I called out. "Bring him down to a trot."
She shifted her weight, subtle, and Bishop responded. Good. She was learning to speak his language instead of forcing the conversation.
She came around the near side of the paddock and pulled up at the fence, cheeks pink from the January cold, hair in a braid down her back.
"Well?" she said.
"Not bad."
Her eyes narrowed. "Not bad?"
"For January."
"I am significantly better than not bad."
"You're better than you were."
"That's not—" She pointed at me. "You're doing the thing where you won't give me a compliment because you think it'll make me sloppy."
She wasn't wrong.
"Ready to try the pickup?" I said.
That redirected her. Her eyes went to the orange cone I'd set at the base of the fence rail—low, simple, just something to reach for. Then back to me.
"Walk me through it," she said.
"You're going to bring him past the cone at a trot. When you're alongside it, you lean out to your left—right hand on the pommel, left arm down. Don't look at the cone. Look through Bishop's ears."
"Don't look at the thing I'm trying to grab."
"Your peripheral vision will do that work for you.
" I leaned against the fence rail. "Your brain can calculate the distance from the corner of your eye better than it can from straight on.
You look directly at it, you start making micro-corrections—your weight shifts, Bishop feels it, the whole thing goes sideways. "
She considered this. "Like how you're not supposed to look at your feet on stairs."
"Exactly like that. You already know where the step is.
Looking at it makes you trip." I nodded toward Bishop.
"Same principle. Fix your eyes on something stable—through his ears, to the fence line on the far side—and let your body handle the rest. It knows where the cone is. You've already clocked it."
"So I'm trusting my peripheral vision."
"You're trusting your training." I held her gaze. "Same thing you've been practicing every time you go limp on command. Stop overriding what your body already knows."
She looked at me for a moment. Something moving through her face.
"You're annoyingly good at this," she said.
"I know." I pushed off the fence. "Go again.”
As she clicked her tongue and Bishop trotted off, I heard footsteps crunching in the dry winter grass behind me.
I turned to see my cousin Dakota coming toward me, wearing a battered PRCA hoodie and precariously carrying three steaming mugs of coffee.
I helped him offload two without dropping them, snickering when he sloshed some onto the ground anyway.
“I told my mom I'm a terrible delivery boy, but here we are,” Dakota muttered. He flung his hand to get rid of the excess coffee, then wiped it on his jeans as he looked up at Daniela. “Shit, dude…she's looking really solid.”
I looked back at her just in time to see her lean perfectly out of the saddle, look between Bishop’s ears, and snatch the cone off the ground.
Dakota hooted and clapped his hand on his thigh. “Damn, girl! Hell yeah!”
Daniela grinned and circled Bishop back toward us. Dakota laughed under his breath.
“Given how many nights you've had that trailer rockin’ I wasn't sure if you were doing any actual training or?—”
“You're gonna want to shut up before you talk about my girl that way,” I cut him off, still watching Daniela, still smiling.
He raises his eyebrows. “Huh…your girl. Okay…”
"Dakota."
"No, no, I think that's great." He took a long sip of his coffee, utterly unbothered. "Your girl. Love that for you."
"I will put you on the ground."
"You won't. My mother sent the coffee and if you spill it she'll hear about it somehow." He leaned against the fence beside me, watching Daniela bring Bishop around for another pass. "She's really good, man."
"She works hard."
"Yeah but—" He tilted his head. "She's got something. That thing where you can tell a person was just made for something they haven't done yet." He glanced at me sideways. “Might have to steal her for rodeo instead.”
I shook my head. “Nah…she's going places.”
“Hey, I go places.”
“Not like her.” I sipped my coffee. “Can't you see it? There's stardom written all over her, and she's just getting started.”
Dakota nodded slowly, watching her. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I can see it." He was quiet for a moment. "She's the real deal."
"She is."
"Gonna be weird watching her on a big screen knowing she learned to ride right here." He tilted his head. "Knowing she's been riding other things right here too?—"
I turned.
Dakota took one look at my face and took a full step back, hands up, coffee sloshing again.
"Okay, okay?—"
"Dakota—"
"I'm walking away, look, I'm already?—"
"Everything alright over there?" Daniela called from the paddock.
We both looked at her. She had Bishop pulled up at the far end, watching us with raised eyebrows. The horse's ears were perked up like Daniela wasn't the only one who'd been eavesdropping.
"Fine," I called back.
"Your cousin looks like he's about to run."
"He's thinking about it."
"I'm not running," Dakota called back, with considerable dignity.
"I'm strategically relocating." He sidestepped toward the gate, still watching me.
"She's great, by the way," he said, quieter.
"I mean it. Not just the riding." He jerked his chin toward Daniela.
"The way she is. With the family. With you. " A beat. "Don't screw it up."
"Thank you, Dakota."
"I'm just saying?—"
"I know what you're saying."
He pointed at me. Then at Daniela. Then gave a thumbs up that she returned from across the paddock with a grin.
Then he left, whistling, hands in his pockets.
Daniela rode up to the fence.
"What was that actually about?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"He looked genuinely scared of you."
"Good.”
She cocked her head. “He look at me wrong or something?”
“Just making comments.” I shrugged. “I was raised to defend a lady's honor.”
She laughed out loud. “I am not a lady. What'd he say?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Well, I'm not gonna repeat it.”
She leaned forward, making Bishop shuffle with her until his nose was in my hand. “Didn't realize you had such delicate sensibilities.”
I snorted and shook my head. Bishop snorted in response and I stroked his head.
“Fine,” I said. “He just made some crass comments about things you've been riding…I told him to be careful how he talks about my girl.”
She bit her lip. “Is that what I am? Your girl?”
“Seems like it." I looked up at her, squinting in the late morning light. "You got a problem with that?"
"Depends." She was doing the thing where she kept her voice light but her eyes were doing something else entirely. "What does that mean exactly? Your girl."
"Means what it sounds like."
"Very specific, thank you."
She was watching me from the saddle with this defiant expression—chin slightly lifted, waiting.
"Means you're mine," I said. "When you're here."
"When I'm here," she repeated.
"You've got a life, Daniela. I'm not—" I shook my head. "I'm not putting a fence around you."
"But when I'm here."
"When you're here."
She considered this. Bishop shifted his weight and she moved with him automatically, easy, without thinking about it. Six weeks ago she would have grabbed for the pommel.
"And what do I get in return?" she said.
"Same thing you've been getting."
Her eyes dropped. Came back up. "The riding lessons."
"Among other things."
"The trailer."
"Among other things."
"The—"
"Daniela." I looked at her steadily. "You know what you get."
She pressed her lips together. Trying not to smile. Losing.
"Say it," she said.
"No."
"Sawyer."
"You know what you get," I said again. "You get me. However that looks while you're here."
She was quiet for a moment. Bishop nosed at my hand looking for a treat he wasn't getting.
"Okay," she said finally.
"Okay?"
"I'm your girl." She straightened in the saddle. "While I'm here."
"Good."
"And you're mine."
I raised an eyebrow.
"While I'm here," she added. Innocent. Completely not innocent.
"Yeah," I said. "That's right."
"Good," she said. "Now tell me I'm a good rider."
"You're an adequate rider."
"Sawyer—"
"You're a very adequate rider."
She pointed at me. "I hate you."
"No you don't." I stepped back from the fence. "Canter. Now."
"We were having a moment?—"
"Moment's over."
"You are genuinely the most?—"
"Daniela."
She turned Bishop toward the far end of the paddock, muttering in Spanish under her breath. I caught my name and something that was definitely not a compliment.
I watched her go.
You get me.
Five weeks until filming.
Not enough time. Not nearly enough.