Chapter 3
WREN
Some people find peace in yoga or long walks or overpriced therapy. I find mine in the corner of an indoor round pen with a half-wild horse who’s still deciding if she trusts me or not.
Juniper’s come a long way in eight weeks.
When she first arrived, she wouldn’t let anyone touch her. Wouldn’t come close. She kicked at walls and reared in the trailer and tried to chew through the lead rope more than once. She’s the type of horse most people write off as too damaged to be worth the trouble.
But the trouble’s always where the good stuff lives, if you’re willing to sit in it long enough.
She’s a red roan, small but built solid, with a deep chest and legs that could outrun anything if she ever decided to trust them again. The scars around her flanks tell me more than her paperwork ever could. Somebody pushed her too hard, too fast.
This morning, I’ve got her in the smaller pen out back.
No saddle. No halter. Just body language and breath and the rhythm we’ve been working on since day one.
I keep my stance relaxed, my eyes soft, my movements predictable.
She watches every shift I make. Her ear flicks toward me every time I take a step.
We’ve been at this for fifteen minutes, and she hasn’t spooked once.
What we’re doing is called round pen work.
Some people call it join-up. It’s the foundation for everything else I’ll eventually ask her to do.
The whole point is to teach her that I’m not a threat—that I’m listening as much as I’m asking.
That I won’t push too hard. That if she follows, it’ll be by choice, not force.
It looks simple from the outside. Just me walking, turning, waiting.
But everything I do is calculated—down to the angle of my shoulders, the cadence of my steps.
Horses are prey animals. They read energy like it’s their first language.
If I come in too strong, she’ll bolt. If I hesitate, she’ll lose trust.
But if I get it right? She stays.
I click my tongue. She stops. Chest rising, head low, her muscles still tight—but not locked like they used to be. I turn slightly away from her and wait.
She exhales. It’s a release that says she’s not just tolerating me today—she’s choosing to stay. And God, that means more than most things do right now.
People always think horses like her need to be overpowered.
That if they’re afraid, the solution is pressure.
But that’s not how trust works. You don’t bully it into place.
You earn it. Inch by inch, breath by breath.
You prove—again and again—that you’re not the thing they have to survive.
And if you’re lucky, they start to believe you.
I take a few more steps. She follows. No hesitation. No flinch.
She’s still scared. But she’s still trying. And so am I.
I stop walking and shift my weight back just slightly. My shoulders relax. I turn my body a few degrees away from her and take one slow step back.
That’s her reward. Space.
The chance to breathe without being asked for more.
She blinks, ears forward, still watching me. But she doesn’t move. Doesn’t bolt or brace. Just stands there, like maybe—for once—this place doesn’t feel like something she needs to escape.
It’s not progress anyone would notice from the outside, but I do. I feel it in my chest.
A shuffle of boots on dirt draws my attention, and I glance toward the entrance of the round pen. Boone’s standing there, arms folded across his chest, waiting.
I lift a hand to get another trainer’s attention. “Hey, can you take over with her for a minute?” I call to Jess, who’s brushing down a bay gelding a few feet away.
She nods, grabbing a lead rope off the post. As she walks toward us, I hold up a hand.
“Slow,” I remind her. “No sudden moves.”
“Got it,” she says gently, keeping her posture loose and low as she approaches.
Juniper doesn’t flinch when I step away. That’s new. I let Jess take over and start toward Boone.
He’s wearing his usual: canvas barn coat with the corduroy collar turned up, a thermal Henley underneath, beat-up jeans, and insulated work gloves shoved into his back pocket.
His long, dark curls are damp around the edges like he just shook off the snow outside, and his breath clouds in front of him in the cold.
Of all my siblings, Boone’s the one who looks the most like our dad—and has that same quiet way of showing up when something needs fixing, even if you never asked.
I stop in front of him and nod toward the doors. “What, you get tired of freezing your ass off already?”
He grins, deep and unhurried. “Nah. I came in to warm up and see you whisper at your horse some more.”
“It’s not whispering. It’s groundwork.”
“Whatever it is, it’s working.” He tilts his chin toward Juniper, who’s still standing quiet, head low as Jess clips the lead to her halter. “She doesn’t even seem like the same horse from a couple months ago. You’ve done a good job with her.”
It’s not a big compliment. Just a simple observation, said in that Boone kind of way—straightforward and steady, like it’s obvious.
But it always hits harder than I expect when someone compliments my training.
This is where I put my worth—in my work.
In doing something hard and doing it well.
I don’t say it out loud, but every horse I help, every problem I solve, every time I earn an ounce of trust—it adds up to proof that I matter. That I’m not just…taking up space.
So I don’t say anything extra. Just tuck that little moment away like it’s mine to keep.
“Thanks,” I say, and I mean it.
Boone gives me a small, knowing nod that says he gets it.
I brush my gloves off and arch a brow at him. “What do you need?”
Boone’s mouth tugs into something halfway between a grimace and a smile. “A favor that’ll probably make you wish you could stay in the round pen all day.”
I sigh. “Awesome. Just let me guess—is something broken, dead, or about to cost us a shit ton of money?”
He snorts. “No.”
I squint at him. “Then are you gonna be a little more specific, or are we playing ranch charades now?”
Boone sighs and scrubs a hand over his jaw.
“I just got off the phone with Vaughn Hart. Their horse trainer bailed a month ago, and they’ve been trying to make do with the others, but none of them are cutting it.
Vaughn wants to know if you’d be willing to help out. Just until they find someone else.”
I scrunch my nose. “The Harts? Seriously?”
Boone shrugs like he knew this part was coming. “They’ll pay well.”
“That’s not the part I’m struggling with.”
“They helped with the Bluebell,” he says, tone soft but pointed. “You remember that.”
Unfortunately, I do. A couple years ago, when Boone’s wife, Lark, was about to lose her diner, the Harts stepped in. They made some calls, pulled some strings. Didn’t ask for any credit. They just helped.
Boone sees the hesitation on my face and pounces. “So I figured we could be neighborly. Return the favor. All that shit.”
I let out a slow sigh, already calculating how much this is going to screw with my day. “When?”
“That’s the thing,” Boone says, hooking a thumb toward the barn. “They kind of want you over there now.”
“Now? Like right now now?”
He nods, completely unapologetic. “They just brought in a new one, apparently. The horse is in bad shape. Won’t calm down for anyone.”
I stare at him for a beat. “What the actual hell, Boone?”
He lifts his hands, all innocent. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
I mutter a curse under my breath and glance back toward Juniper, still standing quiet with Jess.
So much for an easy morning.
“Tell them I’ll be over soon,” I grunt, already turning toward the exit.
Boone nods like he knew I’d cave. Smug bastard.
I call out to Jess, who’s just starting to work Juniper through a few slow circles. “You’re on your own. They need me at the Harts.”
Jess’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wait—what?”
“Long story,” I say, already waving her off. “Keep her moving and don’t let her get away with anything.”
She gives me a confused thumbs up, and I make a mental note to bring her a coffee tomorrow.
I don’t really have a reason to dislike the Harts. Not a personal one, anyway. It’s more of a legacy grudge, passed down from parents who couldn’t agree on where a fence line ended or who owed who a quarter bale of hay back in the eighties.
Honestly, they’ve never been anything but polite to me. But that doesn’t mean I’m thrilled to be pulled away from my own program to fix whatever mess they’ve got going on. This horse better be going apeshit over there to make it worth my while.
I swing into the tack room, grabbing a few essentials—training halter, lunge line, soft lead rope I’ve had for years that’s broken in just right. I throw on an extra crewneck and zip up my thickest jacket, the one with the soft lining and the pockets deep enough to fit snacks and a small grudge.
Outside, the wind cuts sharp as a blade. I yank open the door to my car—my bright yellow VW bug—and slide behind the wheel.
I bought this car when I was seventeen, after saving every penny from summer jobs and weekend chores.
Everyone told me I’d regret it, especially my dad.
Too small, too impractical, not good for a Montana winter.
At thirty years old, it’s still running like a dream. And it hasn’t left me stranded once.
The tires crunch over fresh snow as I pull out of the drive. It’s coming down harder now—lazy flakes swirling in every direction, sticking to the windshield wipers. The roads haven’t been plowed yet, but that’s nothing new.
Montana in winter is both beautiful and brutal.
Wide open fields stretch out in all directions, blanketed in white.
The bare trees line the edge of the road like sentries.
Every so often, I pass a fenceline half buried in snow, a few black cows huddled together.
The sky is the color of steel, low and heavy, like it’s pressing down on everything.