8. Enough to Feel #2
“Only when you repeat it.” Harris stepped away. “Walk her toward the far fence.”
Rain moved with the patience of an animal accustomed to compensating for human incompetence.
“Less rein.”
Jay eased his hands, and her stride lengthened.
“You’re trying to manage every step.”
“I’m sitting on an animal with independent opinions. I’d still like some input.”
“She knows where her feet are. Give her a direction and let her handle the ground.”
At the far fence, Jay pulled back too sharply. Rain stopped hard enough to pitch his weight forward, though he recovered before the mistake became cinematic.
“You hauled on her mouth.”
Rain’s ears angled backward in pointed agreement.
“My apologies,” Jay told her.
“Sit deeper before you ask. Close your fingers slow, then release when she stops.”
Jay tried again on the next circle. He shifted his weight, closed his fingers gradually, and Rain stopped beneath him without throwing him forward.
“Better?” he asked.
“Better.”
The approval produced a ridiculous pulse of satisfaction.
Jay had spent the past week interviewing ranch hands, filming cattle, and learning more about irrigation systems than any documentary director strictly needed to know, and none of it had prepared him for how compelling Harris became when all that exacting attention settled on him.
The quiet no longer felt entirely like refusal. Here it was concentration. Patience. Something perilously close to care, though that was a dangerous word and almost certainly an editorial overreach.
Jay rode another circle without being asked, relaxing his knees and letting Rain choose her footing. When he returned, Harris stepped close and pressed two fingers to the inside of his wrist, correcting the angle of his hand.
“You’ve got bad habits.”
“Some of them are charming.”
Harris’s gaze lifted, and for one strange second his attention seemed to catch somewhere below Jay’s eyes.
His mouth, possibly. Or Harris was reconsidering whether charming could reasonably be applied to a man who had nearly gone over his horse’s neck ten minutes earlier.
The second stretched just long enough for Jay’s pulse to register it.
Static burst from the radio clipped to Harris’s belt.
Both men looked down as the noise dissolved without producing anything intelligible.
“Excellent communication system,” Jay said.
Harris tapped the radio. Another burst of static answered him just before an ATV came around the barn and stopped outside the corral.
Walt switched off the engine. “Why aren’t you answering?”
“Haven’t heard you.”
“I’ve been calling for ten minutes.”
“On one?”
Walt looked at him. “Where else would I be?”
Harris unclipped the radio and turned it over. Jay watched his expression change.
“Wrong radio.”
Walt leaned far enough to see the strip of tape on the back. “You grabbed three? You’ve been pulling them off the same shelf for fifteen years.”
“What do you need?” Harris asked.
Walt’s gaze moved from Harris to Jay, then to Rain. “Didn’t realize riding lessons were part of the filming schedule.”
“I asked him to show me,” Jay said.
“Harris has work.”
The words were mild. Harris’s body received them differently. His shoulders went still, and whatever ease had existed in the corral disappeared beneath the controlled expression he wore whenever Walt pressed too close.
“What do you need?” Harris repeated.
“Evan’s waiting at the south fence. Post pulled loose and the wire’s down.”
“Told him I’d be there after four.”
“It’s four fifteen.”
Jay glanced toward the lowering sun. They had been in the corral longer than he realized.
“I’ll meet him there,” Harris said.
Walt restarted the ATV. “Bring the right radio this time.”
He drove away, leaving dust suspended in the afternoon light.
Harris turned back toward Rain, the useless radio still in his hand. Jay looked at it.
Channel three.
The equipment room came back with remarkable clarity: Harris appearing in the doorway while Jay’s shirt was over his head, going abruptly still, then turning his attention to the radio shelf with considerably more determination than the task seemed to require.
All that concentration, and he’d still grabbed the wrong radio.
The setup was too good to waste.
“Should I be flattered?”
Harris looked up. “By what?”
“Apparently my changing shirts caused a complete collapse in ranch communications.”
Color appeared above the collar of his henley.
Jay smiled.
“You were blocking the shelf.”
“I was three feet from it.”
“You were in the way.”
“Emotionally, perhaps.”
Harris stared at him.
“Get off the horse, Navarro.”
“There he is.”
Jay dismounted carefully. Harris steadied the saddle, one hand resting against Rain’s side while he watched Jay’s movement.
“Better,” he said when Jay reached the ground.
“Careful. I’ll start thinking you believe in me.”
“Wouldn’t go that far.”
Jay passed him the reins. “Thank you for the lesson.”
“Wasn’t much.”
“It was more than I knew an hour ago.”
Harris lowered his attention to Rain and loosened the cinch while Jay collected his camera bag.
“Do you want the footage?” Jay asked.
Harris glanced over. “Why would I?”
“To review your teaching methods. Identify areas for improvement.”
“Go bother Eli.”
“That’s already on my schedule.”
Jay started toward the gate, then looked back.
Harris stood with the saddle balanced against one hip and the wrong radio clipped once again to his belt.
He had spent more than an hour explaining things Jay did not strictly need to know, adjusting his stirrups, hands, posture, and reins after spending the better part of a week behaving as though casual conversation might violate ranch policy.
Harris Shaw remained almost impossible to read, and somehow Jay had decided that was interesting rather than discouraging. A questionable development.
He lifted two fingers. “See you around, cowboy.”
Harris nodded, and Jay made it to the corner of the barn before looking back. Harris was still standing beside Rain, watching him.
Jay lifted his hand again.
Harris looked away.