Must Love Horses. Vicki Tharp

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СКАЧАТЬ cool, like of course she’d gotten the job, but the goofy grin cramping her cheeks blew the cool away. “Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

      Boomer grunted. Gruff. Disgruntled. But he could piss and moan all he wanted. She was there to train horses, not to make him happy.

      “Where do I put my things?”

      “We’re limited on space until Boomer finishes building the new cabins. You can bunk with him, or you can stay in the barn. The caretaker room is practically a closet, and the bathroom is down the barn aisle, but you’re welcome to it if you prefer a place to yourself.”

      “The barn works.” If she wasn’t mistaken, Boomer’s lips twitched a fraction with an infinitesimal smile she read as relief.

      “I’ll help you get settled.” He sounded like the perfect gentleman, but his face was concrete on a hot Texas day—hard, gritty, impenetrable.

      She could have unloaded by herself, but after the fourteen-hundred-or-so-mile haul from Texas, she was too tired and road weary to argue.

      The sun had slipped halfway down the distant ridge line of the Rockies, and a cool breeze kicked up. Her buckskin fox trotter pawed impatiently at the fender of her two-horse bumper pull trailer, making an irritating clang-scrape, clang-scrape as he hit his hoof on the fender and dragged it across the rusty paint because his hay net was now empty.

      “Where do you want me to drop my trailer?”

      He pointed to the left side of a new looking barn, where other trailers and tractors were parked. She headed for her truck while he peeled off and headed for her horse. Her truck was one of those small Ford Ranger pickups with only a front bench seat. At one time the paint had been green, before the hot Texas sun had faded and stripped the color away like a brunette gone to gray. Once the gas tank hit empty and Eli’s last two bales of hay were eaten, the insurance company could declare it totaled.

      Sidney watched Boomer in her side mirror until he had Eli safely away from the trailer, then turned the key in the ignition. The engine spun. She pumped the gas, but the engine refused to catch. It didn’t even sound like it was trying.

      She checked the gas gauge: needle-width above E. A problem she didn’t have the money to fix. She yanked the key from the ignition and banged her forehead on the steering wheel.

      Eli nickered as her door latch clunked and Boomer forced her door open. The rusty, bent hinges creaked and groaned like an old arthritic man. With her forehead still on the wheel, she turned her head as Boomer—no, Bryan, she liked his real name better—leaned on the edge of the open door. Eli stepped up and rubbed his soft nose on her forearm like he was telling her everything was going to be okay, but it was also past his feeding time. Eli did like his pellets. So it could have gone either way.

      “Where’re your bags?”

      “Tack locker of the trailer.”

      They unloaded her bag and tack and led Eli to the barn. Once inside the sliding doors, Sidney dropped the saddle and pad in the aisleway while Bryan dumped her duffel in the room. She let Eli’s lead go and checked out her new home. A counter and sink lined the far wall. It had a foot of prep space, a coffeepot, a microwave above, and a small refrigerator beneath.

      “Breakfast and dinner is served at the big house. Lunch is on your own, but they’ll supply the groceries.”

      Bryan stepped around her, opened the cabinet above the sink, pulled out a giant Ziploc baggie with bedding, and tossed it on the naked mattress. Eli wandered past the open door, sniffing his way down the aisle, checking the place out.

      “Thanks,” she said. “I can take it from here.”

      He nodded, and she saw a flash of buckskin in the room’s only window overlooking the foaling stall. Eli had slid the stall door open; he was bad that way. His legs buckled beneath him and he rolled in the thick shavings, kicking his muscled legs in the air. Then he stood and shook the shavings out of his jet-black mane and tail. He walked over and blinked at her through the window.

      She glanced at Bryan. He had a lazy smile on his face as he watched her horse. Her stomach felt light and wiggly and she waited for it to grumble, to demand to be fed, but it didn’t.

      It didn’t want food.

      Well…crapola.

      Okay, so being attracted to her boss wasn’t so bad. He was easy on the eyes, especially when he smiled like that, but that didn’t mean she liked him. In fact, she was pretty sure she didn’t, and was confident that the feeling was mutual. Still, that didn’t stop her from eying his cargo-shorts-clad caboose as he turned to leave.

      At the door, he turned back. Her eyes shot up to his, but not before he’d caught her ogling. Double crapola.

      His eyes lit with amusement, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he glanced at the watch on his left wrist. It was clunky, with a big face and some kind of dial on top. It looked like it could withstand a nuclear blast and remotely pilot the International Space Station. “Dinner at the big house in fifteen. You coming?”

      She hadn’t had a solid meal since that morning, but the bed called much louder than the food. And she still needed to feed Eli and settle him in for the night.

      Eli nickered as if he was Carnac the Magnificent and could read her mind. He stomped an impatient foot and licked the window.

      “Nah,” she said. “I’ll catch you guys in the morning.”

      Bryan didn’t try to cajole her into coming. Just gave a little-too-quick “suit yourself” as he turned to go. Then he stopped and turned back again. “My cabin is down the hill, far left, if you need anything.”

      He didn’t lower his voice, raise his brows, wink, or pause suggestively before he said the word “anything,” but for some reason that only made it sound even more like an invitation.

      Or maybe that was just her libido talking.

      * * * *

      Sidney woke to the distant sound of her Ford’s engine spinning, spinning, spinning. The only window in her room overlooked the stall Eli had chosen. The one she couldn’t see out of because Eli’s wide ass blocked it.

      She thumped the window with her fist. He swished his tail and cocked a hip. She didn’t fight the smile. Cheeky bastard.

      Light filtered in through the top corners of the window that her horse’s butt didn’t obliterate. In the near darkness of the room, she stumbled to the switch and squinted against the light.

      Her jeans and boots were in front of an armless chair, toes pointing toward her, the cuffs of her jeans over the shafts of her boots, spurs tight against the heel, the legs and waistband of her pants accordioned on her boot tops, like a fireman’s turnout gear ready to be pulled on.

      Sitting in the chair, she tugged on her last clean pair of socks, threaded her legs through the fabric and her feet into the soft leather of her boots. Every morning when she put her boots on it was like coming home.

      She finished dressing, brushed her teeth, and finger-combed her hair. No mirror in the small room, so that was as particular as she got. She threw Eli a couple flakes of hay and he chuffed a muffled thanks around a mouthful as she headed out the back of the barn, searching СКАЧАТЬ