Chapter 3
CASSIE
The alarm goes off at six, and I'm already awake.
I've been lying in the dark of my cabin since before five-thirty with the window cracked, listening to the ranch shift from night sounds to morning sounds.
Crickets first, then birds, more of them by the minute.
Then a door closes, the soft thud of someone already moving.
Whoever it is, it isn't Levi. That much I've already figured out about him.
I get up and turn on the light. Three days on the staff side and I've already got a routine down.
I grab my jeans off the hook, thermal from the drawer, and flannel from the closet.
The mornings are cold enough that you feel it in the first breath outside.
Sawyer gave me a client file last night.
I went through it before bed, horses, riders, and what each one is coming in to work on.
I know these people on paper before I've ever seen them ride.
My boots are by the door. I sit on the couch and pull them on.
When I step onto the porch, two cats are already there, sitting on the top step like they had an appointment.
Brynn left a half bag of dry food on the shelf inside the door when she moved to Colorado.
I found it on my first morning and put some out before I'd thought it through. Apparently, this is something I do now.
"Don't read into it," I tell them.
One of them meows.
I fill the bowl, leave them to it, and head for the barn.
The path to the barn is still half-dark, the property hushed in a way it won't be in an hour. The arena sits empty to my right. The guest cabins are dark through the pines. The only lights on are the overheads in the barn, and I walk toward them.
Cricket's got her head over her gate when I come through the barn door, watching Kade work.
She lifts her head when she hears my boots on the concrete, looks at me with those dark, quiet eyes, and goes back to watching him.
That's Cricket's version of good morning. It's also her version of most things.
Kade's two stalls down, muck fork in hand, and glances up when I come in.
"Mornin'," he says.
"Morning."
He nods toward Cricket's stall. "Taking her out?"
"Just a short one. Before the session starts."
He nods and goes back to mucking. That's the whole conversation.
I grab her halter and lead rope off the hook and open the stall door. She shifts toward me before I even lift it, dropping her nose into the noseband, like haltering is something she's decided to help with. I lead her out to the aisle, and she walks beside me.
I brush her down, and she lets me work, ears relaxed.
I pick her feet, and she lifts each one the first time I ask.
She's been handled right her whole life.
It shows in a hundred small ways. But mostly it shows in this.
She stands and lets the work happen around her as if she trusts it's going somewhere good.
The saddle pad goes up, then the saddle, and she takes one slow breath when she feels the girth coming.
I pull the cinch snug and wait. She blows the air out, and I pull it again.
Bridle goes last. She opens for the bit when I ask.
I smooth her forelock down over the browband, and she blinks at me, ready.
I lead her out of the barn and mount up just outside the door.
The arena's empty when I bring her through the gate.
The light still low and pale, the ground dragged from the day before.
A lap at the walk to let her settle. Then I ask for the trot.
She moves out forward and honest, ears up and working.
We do figure eights, big looping ones that take up the whole arena, until she's soft in both directions.
Then the canter, figure eights again. She swaps leads clean at the center every time, soft and through.
I bring her back to the trot to cool out, and she comes down easily.
Thirty minutes, and we're done.
I lead her back to the aisle, pull the tack, and hang it in the tack room.
Then I lead her to her stall, slip the halter off, and latch the stall behind me.
I've ridden in the arena all week during the clinic, but that was different.
That was as a client. This morning, it was just me and Cricket.
Nobody needing anything from either of us yet.
I stand outside her stall for a second and let that sit before I go.
***
The dining hall smells like bacon and biscuits when I push through the door. Darla's at the griddle when I come in, and she points the spatula at the counter before I'm all the way through the door. "Sit down, I'll bring it."
"I can get it."
"I said I'll bring it. Now sit down, honey."
I sit down at the counter. That's Darla. Firm and warm in the same breath, and you always end up fed.
Mandy comes around with the coffee pot and tops off my mug. "Morning. First day on the other side of the rail. How's it feel?"
"Good," I say. "Ask me again at the end of it."
She nods toward the window. "How'd she move this morning?" She means Cricket. The dining hall windows face the arena, and she would have seen us.
"Really good," I say.
She laughs and moves on to the next table.
The horsemanship group has been on the property since yesterday afternoon, and most of them have that first-full-day energy, a little cautious, still figuring out where everything is.
Tatum takes the table nearest the window with her husband, Cole, and smiles at me when I glance over.
Cole drops his spoon, picks it up, drops it again.
"New record," Tatum says, eyes on her coffee.
"I'm nervous," Cole says. "My hands do things."
"They do," she agrees pleasantly.
I like them immediately.
Marcus comes in talking before he's fully through the door, something about the square footage of his cabin that has no real point but takes up considerable space.
Dana takes the far table by herself, taking the room's measure.
I've been in enough arenas with enough riders like her to know what that means.
She's holding everything back until she's seen what she's working with.
I can respect that. It's basically my whole personality.
Sawyer sits with me at the counter before anyone else finishes their plates, coffee in hand, and runs through the week directly, nothing wasted. Rhea's with her. Session structure, group splits, and what she saw at check-in yesterday afternoon.
"Dana Wells," she says. "Reining trainer out of Wyoming. She's going to watch you before she listens to you."
"I know the type," I say.
Sawyer looks at me. "Don't perform for her. She'll see it."
"I won't."
She holds my gaze for a second and then nods, like that's the answer she expected. Rhea writes something on the small notepad she carries, and I don't ask what it is.
"You'll work with Rhea today," Sawyer says. "Watch how it moves before you run anything yourself."
That's fine. That's the right call. I know it. I don't say it out loud, because telling Sawyer she made the right call would be a strange thing to do. So I nod, and she goes back to the clients.
Sawyer has a way of asking questions that makes you forget she's cataloging everything you say. She doesn't make it feel like an evaluation. It just is one.
Rhea leans against the counter beside me. "Weston's horse," she says.
"Drift."
"What'd you see at check-in?"
"He's not reactive," I say. "He's just not giving anything back yet."
"Sawyer's going to let Weston work through it himself."
"Good. If she fixes it for him, the horse never trusts the fix."
Rhea gives me a look I can't place that feels like approval. She doesn't say anything else about it, which is its own kind of answer.
That's when Levi comes through the door.
He comes in half a step ahead of whatever he's about to say, already scanning for somewhere to land. He spots Marcus and Cole's table and drops into the empty chair across from Marcus. "What's your horse's name?"
Marcus sits up a little straighter. "Rowdy."
Levi stares at him. "That's not a name. That's a warning label."
Cole laughs so hard he has to set his coffee down. Tatum puts her hand over her mouth. Even Dana glances up from her plate for a second before she goes back to it.
Darla hands my breakfast across the counter without a word.
I pick up my fork and eat. Rhea glances at me from the corner of her eye. I can feel it. I don't look at her, and she doesn't say anything. She's noticed I didn't laugh. We both leave it there.
Cole's spoon hits the floor again.
"How many times has that spoon hit the floor?" Levi asks Cole.
"Three times," Cole says, grinning.
Levi raises an eyebrow. "It's not even seven."
Cole points at him. "I'm nervous."
Levi looks at him. "Buddy, the spoon's not gonna help you with the horse."
The table laughs again. Cole's laughing the hardest of all of them.
That's the thing about Levi. He can needle a person six ways, and they'll thank him for it.
Mandy laughs from behind the counter. I take a bite of my biscuit.
It's a good biscuit. That's the thing worth paying attention to right now.
***
Sawyer opens the session at eight-thirty with everyone mounted and walking on a loose rein, and every horse and rider is already sorted in my head before Sawyer opens her mouth.
Tatum has a quiet authority in the saddle, Briar moving long and easy with her ears soft.
Cole is trying hard enough that his mare is carrying the effort in her back, though Cole doesn't know that yet, and he's cheerful about it, which you can work with.
Marcus and Rowdy are a lot of horse and a lot of rider.
Neither's figured out the other one yet, but they're both interested, and that's more than half the battle.
Dana's correct from her toes to her fingertips, and she knows it.
Reed sits Wrangler at the far end, studying the rest of us more than he's riding.
Then Weston comes around the far turn on his grulla, and that's where my attention goes and stays.