Must Love Horses. Vicki Tharp

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СКАЧАТЬ trust him.

      Not completely.

      Not like before.

      He snatched the glass back. “I’m just keeping an eye on your six, sis.”

      “I’m not your sister and this isn’t Fallujah. No mortar rounds. No sniper fire. What do you have to protect me from, Marine?”

      “One epically bad decision,” he said, about twenty decibels louder than intended.

      Sidney glanced their way, turned the horse loose in the pen, and walked over to them. The horse stuck his neck through the metal rails on the opposite side and nibbled the tips of the long, leggy grass.

      “You have a problem with the way I worked the horse?” Sidney’s words carried a quiet heat, as if all she needed was a drop of fuel to go from a low simmer to a full-on boil.

      “No. No problem,” Mac said, “We were very—”

      “What did you say your last name was?”

      Mac cut him an I’ll-take-you-down look. “Boomer…”

      Sidney glanced away, then crossed her arms and met his gaze. “Teller. Sidney Teller.”

      She looked from him to Mac and back to him. Her shoulders twitched as if she was fighting off a cringe.

      “Why does that name sound familiar?” Boomer asked.

      Sidney drew her body up and sucked in a deep breath. Boomer tried not to notice how her T-shirt tightened across her chest.

      Tried real hard.

      He wasn’t a complete cad.

      Now wasn’t the time to notice her breasts or her pixie face or even her short, red hair—a style that should have looked masculine, but didn’t. She looked like an Irish fairy, especially when those green eyes flashed with a redhead’s fire. Maybe she had Mac under a spell. Would explain why Mac refused to listen to him.

      Sidney’s lips moved, but her words didn’t register as he contemplated how she’d feel beneath—

      Mac elbowed him in the gut.

      “Ow!” He rubbed a hand over his belly and tuned back in.

      “Clive and Marta Teller are my parents.” Sidney’s words came out like a dare. Like she dared him to pass judgment on them. On her.

      “That couple in the news a few years back? The ones who beat and abused their horses, went to prison?”

      At her slight nod, he huffed out a harsh laugh. Vindicated.

      That was one hell of a stink-ass albatross dangling around her neck.

      * * * *

      Shock. Disgust. Revulsion. Boomer’s face flicked through the expressions and settled on contempt. Not a good look for him.

      Those reactions Sidney had expected. What she hadn’t expected was his lack of surprise. Like he’d known something was off about her. Like her parents’ savagery had rubbed off on her, tainted her and made her unworthy. Her heart thumped in her chest, like a kick from a pissy mare—powerful, painful, destructive.

      Because of her damn parents, her career was doomed almost before it got started. Horse training was her life. Long, hard days and short, sleepless nights. Aching muscles and saddle sores. Soft muzzles and hard hooves. She craved it all.

      Boomer gave her a calculated look, as if he was ten moves ahead and reaching across the table to knock Sidney’s queen off the chessboard.

      “Mind explaining what I’m missing here?” Mac asked Sidney.

      Sidney had to look up to meet her in the eye.

      “Spell it out for me,” Mac said. “Big, bold, blocky letters, so I don’t have to read the fine print.”

      Mac’s expression remained blank of emotion. No frustration. No anger. No apparent ego for a boss lady. Had Sidney found someone who would give her the break she needed? There was a tingling in her chest, pins and needles and hope.

      Sidney’s parents’ crimes were all public record anyway. Here goes nothing. The pins and needles pricked and poked, ripped and rent. “My parents were respected horse trainers until they were arrested on multiple counts of animal cruelty—starvation, beating, neglect. They made Michael Vick look like the poster boy for the Humane Society.

      “I wasn’t involved,” Sidney added maybe a tad too quick, “but the truth is, if I hadn’t made excuses, if I hadn’t stayed away, if—”

      “If, if, if,” Mac said. “Ifs are nothing more than half-fleshed skeletons in your closet stinking up your life. Sometimes the best thing to do is bury them.”

      “But if I’d gone home, I would have noticed. Would have done something about it. Before the horses suffered.” Before my family’s reputation suffered.

      The man beside her—Boomer, was it? What the hell kind of name was that?—stood with his arms over his broad chest, his eyes unreadable behind his reflective lenses. His dark hair was close cropped, his full lips now pressed thin, his expression stuck somewhere between a scowl and resignation.

      Probably best she couldn’t see his eyes; she didn’t think she’d like what she would see there. Contempt? Derision? Pity?

      Yowza. Better she didn’t know.

      “I’ll work for a trial period. No charge. Let me show you what I can do, let me prove to you what I am, what I’m capable of.” Her words bumped together as if she’d never learned punctuation. Her stomach tipped and dipped and dived. Her heart thumped a slow, hard, bruising beat against her chest, waiting for Mac to speak. Waiting to hear her fate.

      “No,” Mac said.

      No? Sidney’s gut twisted like it had been hog-tied with a lariat. She opened her mouth to argue. To beg, maybe. No. Not beg. She would fight, would work hard, would graze her horse in hand on the side of the highway if she had to, but she had too much pride to beg.

      “No,” Mac repeated. “If you’re going to work here, you’re going to get paid. Starting wages, plus room and board for you and your horse. A month trial. A raise after that if you work out. You’ll report to Bryan, nickname’s Boomer.”

      The lariat was now a noose. She pasted on a strangled smile.

      “Mac,” Boomer said, a warning and a reproach.

      Mac turned to him. “My decision.”

      Boomer shifted his weight back, then pulled his sunglasses down his nose and eyed Mac over the top with a look that clearly said I don’t want any part of this. She held Boomer’s gaze and Sidney could tell they were having a whole lotta conversation without saying a word.

      Finally, Mac said to Boomer, “So, we good?”

      “Dandy,” he said, the word slathered in sarcasm. He nodded, but the throbbing vessel at his temple СКАЧАТЬ