All the King's Horses E-Book

Lauren Gallagher

• Herausgeber: GallagherWitt Publishing LLC
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

2014 EPIC Award Finalist

Amy Dover’s dream of training horses has come with a price. The pressures of her career—not to mention an oppressive husband and business partner—have sucked out all the joy the horses used to bring her. After her husband’s sudden death, Amy leaves that world behind and takes a job as a farmhand so she can find her passion—and herself.

Dustin King has more than enough on his plate. He’s got a full barn and a packed training roster that includes rescued horses who need more attention than he can spare. The last thing he wants to deal with is a woman who’s unnervingly indifferent toward horses, no matter how attractive she is.

Except Amy isn’t as indifferent as Dustin thought. In fact, working with two traumatized horses might be just what she needs, and as Amy and Dustin bond with the rescued horses, they also bond with each other. Dustin reignites something else Amy thought she’d lost forever. No matter how much they try to resist, the spark that draws them together keeps getting hotter.

But Amy has known from the beginning that she’ll one day go back to her old life. She just didn’t plan on having someone to leave behind this time…

This 91,000 word novel was previously published, and has been lightly revised.

Leseprobe

All the King’s Horses

Lauren Gallagher

Copyright Information

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All the King’s Horses

Second edition

Copyright © 2017, 2023 Lauren Gallagher

First edition published by Samhain Publishing, 2013-2017.

Cover Art by Lori Witt

Editor: Linda Ingmanson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Lauren Gallagher at [email protected]

ISBN: 978-1-943426-55-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-535082-38-9

Contents

About All The King’s Horses

1. Amy

2. Dustin

3. Amy

4. Dustin

5. Amy

6. Dustin

7. Amy

8. Dustin

9. Amy

10. Dustin

11. Amy

12. Dustin

13. Amy

14. Dustin

15. Amy

16. Dustin

17. Amy

18. Dustin

19. Amy

20. Dustin

21. Amy

22. Dustin

23. Amy

24. Dustin

25. Amy

26. Dustin

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by Lauren Gallagher

Also by Lauren Gallagher

About All The King’s Horses

2014 EPIC Award Finalist

Amy Dover’s dream of training horses has come with a price. The pressures of her career—not to mention an oppressive husband and business partner—have sucked out all the joy the horses used to bring her. After her husband’s sudden death, Amy leaves that world behind and takes a job as a farmhand so she can find her passion—and herself.

Dustin King has more than enough on his plate. He’s got a full barn and a packed training roster that includes rescued horses who need more attention than he can spare. The last thing he wants to deal with is a woman who’s unnervingly indifferent toward horses, no matter how attractive she is.

Except Amy isn’t as indifferent as Dustin thought. In fact, working with two traumatized horses might be just what she needs, and as Amy and Dustin bond with the rescued horses, they also bond with each other. Dustin reignites something else Amy thought she’d lost forever. No matter how much they try to resist, the spark that draws them together keeps getting hotter.

But Amy has known from the beginning that she’ll one day go back to her old life. She just didn’t plan on having someone to leave behind this time…

This 91,000 word novel was previously published, and has been lightly revised.

Chapter One

Amy

I didn’t go to my husband’s funeral.

It was a closed-casket service, so there’d be no closure from seeing him one last time. I didn’t care to see him again anyway, closure or no. All the tearful sentiments—he was so young, it was so tragic, he was such a wonderful man—would have sent me right into the ground with him. I couldn’t stomach the thought of one more person patting my shoulder and telling me how sorry they were, how horrible it must be for me, and to call if I needed anything at all.

The night before they buried Sam, I quietly packed the few things I couldn’t live without into my truck. Whatever belongings didn’t fit, I left in the too big, too quiet house. The next day, at a little past noon and right around the time my family and friends were probably all dressed in black and filing into the church, I climbed into the cab and drove out of town without looking back.

I didn’t know where I was going.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I had an address entered into my GPS. I had a job lined up, a place to stay, a destination in mind. But beyond that? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything anymore except that I needed to get far, far from here so I could collect my thoughts and…and I didn’t even know. I couldn’t even say I needed to sort out my feelings, because I didn’t feel anything. No pain. No grief. No anger. Nothing but the restlessness reverberating through me and telling me to just get the hell out of here.

So I drove.

I was forty-eight miles from home and two from the county line when my cell phone rang. If the caller ID had showed any other name, I’d have ignored it, but since it was my older sister, I answered.

Cringing, I said, “Hey.”

“Honey, where are you?” Mariah asked in a hushed whisper. Voices murmured in the background as she added, “The service is starting any minute.”

The service. My husband’s memorial service. There should have been a lump in my throat or something, maybe even some hot, seething anger, but I felt absolutely nothing. Even the makeup-concealed mark on my face wasn’t throbbing anymore.

“I’m not coming.” Ugh. Could I have sounded any more like a petulant brat? Stomp, stomp, I’m not coming, and you can’t make me. As if it really was that simple or that petty.

“You’re not coming?” Anyone else would have read me the riot act, but Mariah just lowered her voice a little more and asked, “Why not?”

“I…can’t.”

She was quiet for a moment. I thought she might be chewing on what I’d said, thinking of a response, but soft movement on the other end suggested she was relocating to someplace where fewer people might overhear. The voices in the background quieted, and Mariah said, “What’s going on?”

“I can’t do it,” I said. “Look, there’s a lot I can’t explain right now. I just, I need to get away from…everything. Clear my head, I guess.”

“Get away? Meaning…?”

“Meaning I’m—” I paused. “I’m leaving, actually.”

“Where are you going?”

“I need…” I glanced at the rearview, meeting my own eyes for a second before I focused on the road ahead. “I just need to go away. Get myself back together.”

“Okay, but where?”

I gnawed my lower lip. I really didn’t want anyone to know because I didn’t want any of them to try to find me. I just needed to be as alone as I could get for a while. Taking a deep breath, I held the steering wheel tighter. “Just don’t worry about me, okay?”

“You know I will.”

Leaving Snohomish County. The sign whipped past my truck, and I slowly exhaled.

“I’ll be fine,” I said.

“You’re blowing town while we’re burying your husband.” Mariah’s voice was gentle but insistent. “That’s not fine, Amy. That’s going off the deep end.”

“Well, maybe that’s what I need to do, then,” I said quietly. “Maybe I need to go off the deep end.”

My sister was silent for a long moment. “When you get a chance,” she said finally, “could you at least e-mail me and let me know where you’re at with the horses on your training schedule? So I can work with them for you?”

Guilt twisted under my ribs. I’d been in such a hurry to get away, I hadn’t thought about everything else I was leaving behind. “Oh, man, I’m sorry, Mariah. I’m leaving you in a lurch, aren’t I?”

It’s not too late. I can turn around. Hardly anyone even knows I’m gone yet. King’s Ranch probably won’t have any trouble replacing me. Farmhands are a dime a dozen.

“Amy. Honey.” Mariah’s voice was the closest it could be to a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “If this is what you need to do, then I’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone. I’ll bring in an extra pair of hands if I have to, but you just go. We’ll all be here when you come back.”

When I come back.

Am I coming back?

I swallowed. It hadn’t even occurred to me before this point how long I might be gone, or if I might go back at all.

But all I said was, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie,” she said. “What should I tell people?”

I gritted my teeth. “Just tell them I’m okay, and I need some time to deal with everything.”

“How much of that is true?”

I rested my elbow beneath the window and rubbed the back of my neck. “Well, the last part at least.”

“That’s what I figured.” Mariah sighed. “Take care of yourself, all right?”

“I will.”

“And you can call me any time. You know that.”

“Thanks.” I paused. “You can call me too. I’ll still have my phone.”

“I’m sure I will,” she said. “I have to go. The service is about to start.”

I exhaled. So I was really doing this. My husband’s funeral was starting, and I was really driving seventy-five miles an hour in the opposite direction and wondering if I could possibly get away any faster.

“Okay,” I said, gripping the steering wheel tighter as I pressed down on the accelerator. “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Aside from the engine and the hum of the road beneath my tires, the truck’s cab was hollow and silent without my sister’s voice. I flipped on the radio, but the music just annoyed me, so I went back to silence.

And I kept driving.

My chest ached with guilt. Part of me wished I could think that ache away, but part of me was admittedly glad to feel something for the first time since long before Sam died, even if it was just guilt that I’d left my oppressively huge workload in my sister’s lap. Maybe I should have done this sooner. While he was still alive and could have dealt with the fallout of me leaving.

Yeah, right. I wouldn’t have made it past the end of the driveway.

But Sam couldn’t stop me today, and I would find a way to make this up to Mariah, so I drove, and I kept on driving. Mile after mile, city after city, over the ear-popping mountain pass and down into the desert scrubland while the familiar evergreen trees faded in the rearview. An off-ramp took me from the interstate to a rural highway, and that highway wound between cornfields, wheat fields and dry brown hills that lounged across the landscape like lazy Shar Pei dogs.

The highway narrowed, and the speed limit inched down from fifty-five to forty-five to thirty-five. It dipped into the twenties as I rolled through a no-name town with dusty pickups parked along the sidewalks in front of places with names like “Mom’s Diner” and “Aunt Edna’s Groceries.” On the other edge of town—the first edge still being visible in my rearview—the speed limit picked up to forty-five again, and I continued weaving and winding my way past the fields and hills.

With every mile, I was less and less sure about this. It wasn’t like me to just drop everything and run, especially without saying a word to anyone until the wheels were already in motion. The more unfamiliar scenery I passed, the more real it all became, and this strange brand of newfound freedom became almost suffocating in its uncertainty.

But I couldn’t turn back. If I’d thought this through before I left, I’d have talked myself out of it, and now that I’d come this far, pride wouldn’t let me face my family yet, not after they’d probably heard what was going on. What I was doing. How badly I was losing my mind.

And anyway, I told myself, I had a job waiting for me out here. A menial one in which I was very, very replaceable, but still one I’d committed to start tomorrow. If I decided to go back to the world I’d just left--and the job to which I should have been way more committed—fine, but not at the last second. I’d left enough people high and dry this week.

And I had to do this. One more second within those familiar walls and fences and I’d have gone even more insane than I was apparently going right now.

Of all things that could have offered me some kind of comfort today, I found relief in the moment I turned off the blacktop and onto a dirt road. When my back tires bumped from the lip of asphalt onto the rough, pothole-littered gravel, I rolled my shoulders like a huge weight had been lifted off them.

I was no longer connected to the never-ending knot of pavement that tangled and twisted together in one giant rat’s nest of streets and highways. I was no longer tied to the loops and straightaways and exits and off-ramps that, no matter how far I’d driven, always bound me to that one blood-stained intersection. As dust kicked up from my tires and I navigated around potholes the size of grain buckets, that intersection no longer haunted my rearview mirror.

I wasn’t free. Not yet. But I was a mile closer to it.

“Next left,” my GPS announced, and I took the turn.

I was in one of the river valleys now, and the dirt road took me past more fields and—thank God—some forested areas. Not as thick and green as on the other side of the state, but not quite so desolate and scrubby as every uncultivated stretch I’d seen for the last few hours. Off and on, between small clusters of trees, white fences surrounded herds of cattle. Then horses. Then cattle again.

And finally, long after the sun had settled behind the distant mountains, I turned down a long, dusty driveway and drove under an arching sign that read King’s Ranch. Twin fences lined the driveway and guided me to the heart of the ranch, where two log houses and a large barn with pale aluminum sides stood in front of a covered arena.

I pulled up beside the barn. When I turned off my headlights, the milky glow of a few mercury vapor lamps kept the night from closing in.

As I got out of the truck, a light came on behind me, and I turned around as an older gentleman in dusty jeans and a cowboy hat stepped off the front porch of the larger house.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked, Texas dripping off every syllable.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m Amy Dover.”

He stopped, straightening like I’d just shocked the hell out of him. “Are you, now?”

“I am.”

“Well. How about that.” He continued toward me and extended his hand. “I’m John King.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “We spoke via e-mail.”

He smiled, the weathered corners of his eyes crinkling. “We did. Now, Dustin owns the place—I’m mostly retired now—but I can show you where you’ll be staying.”

“Is Dustin here?” I asked as we started walking across the gravel driveway.

“Not tonight,” John said. “He’s down in Oregon picking up a couple new horses. I imagine he’ll be home around noon tomorrow, so that ought to give you some time to settle in.”

In spite of the voice in my head that decided—again—to question everything I was doing, I managed a smile. “Sounds good.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Ms. Dover,” he said. “We’ve been hurtin’ since the last hand left, especially with Dustin being away this past week.” He gestured at himself. “These old bones can’t do all this nonsense anymore, I’ll tell ya.”

“Glad to help,” I said.

You have no idea how much you and Dustin are saving my sanity right now…

John led me across the driveway to one of the two log houses. The one he’d come out of a moment ago was two-story, while the one he led me toward was single-story but wider than the other. Almost like two small ranch-style houses pressed up against each other. When I’d agreed to take this job as a live-in farmhand, I’d expected a tiny apartment, maybe a converted loft over the barn or a mother-in-law suite beside the house, but, by the looks of it, this was a full-size duplex.

As we walked onto the porch, John said, “Dustin lives on that side.” He gestured at the door on the far right of the wide porch. As he started toward the left side, he said, “And this side is yours.”

“Interesting setup,” I said.

“Well, we built the duplex so the kids had places to stay,” he said. “It was cheaper, you see, building one instead of two. But our daughter decided she didn’t want to stay on the farm, so we decided to use her half for farmhands. Ain’t a lot of other places for someone to live around here, and it meant we didn’t have to convert the barn office into an apartment, so it worked out nicely.”

He pushed open the door and made an “after you” gesture.

I went inside and looked around.

The cabin was small but cozy. It was pleasantly decorated in a country style that matched the old, probably antique furniture. From what I’d heard about Eastern Washington’s winters, I had a feeling that wood-burning stove would come in handy in a few months.

Not that I planned to be here that long. I didn’t think so, anyway.

“I hope this will do for ya.” John took off his weathered old cowboy hat as he stepped inside. “Ain’t exactly a New York penthouse, but it’s what we’ve got.”

“It’s fine.” I took in my surroundings. In fact, I liked the tiny place. It was small, and it was—more or less—mine. After sharing a house that was simultaneously way too big for two people and entirely too small for Sam and me, this was perfect. Turning to John, I said, “It’ll be just fine. Thank you.”

“Good, good.” He put on his hat and inched toward the door. “Well, I’ll let you get settled in. In the morning, I can show you around the farm.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He went back up to the main house while I grabbed a few things out of the truck. Not a whole lot—I hadn’t brought much anyway—but just the bare minimum to tide me over until tomorrow. Then I went into the tiny, warmly decorated bedroom that was mine for the foreseeable future.

Just the sight of the queen-size bed made me doubly aware of how exhausted I was. Every muscle ached, and my eyes were heavy like I’d just come home from a grueling, weeklong competition. Time to get some sleep. I could deal with thinking and all of that when the sun came up.

I went into the bathroom and, without looking in the narrow mirror above the sink, washed the concealer off my face. It was only when the water swirling down the drain was clear, devoid of even a single trace of color, that I forced myself to look at my reflection.

The bruise had faded, but not by much. The edges had expanded a little, radiating out from the darker center that covered my cheekbone, and the farther they reached down my cheek and up to my eye, the lighter they were. At least it was more of a sickly blue-green today rather than the deep, furious purple it had been the morning after. Another week or so of applying and reapplying concealer—wonderful when I’d be working outside in dusty summer heat—and it would be gone.

My gaze drifted from the bruise to the leather string suspended around my neck and dipping beneath my collar. Swallowing hard, I reached up and pulled it out from under my shirt, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end when my gold wedding band caught the light from the single bulb above the mirror. The heavy ball of lead that had taken up residence in my stomach sank a little deeper, and I let my gaze flick back and forth from the ring to the mark on my face.

One would go away on its own. The other, only when I took the initiative and took the damn thing off. And left it off this time.

Sighing, I let the ring drop onto my chest, wondering how a band that thin could be so heavy. One of these days, I’d take it off. Maybe even get rid of it.

But tonight, I just… I couldn’t. Not now. It was too soon.

Too soon? I should have taken this thing off years ago.

Maybe so, but I had my limits. Skipping town and blowing off Sam’s funeral pushed those limits, but taking off the ring? I wasn’t ready for that yet.

I closed my hand around the ring, the metal cool against my skin and the guilt hot in my otherwise numb chest. Closing my eyes, I could still hear the rumble of his motorcycle fading into the distance. I could still taste the venomous whispered prayer that it would be the last time I heard that sound, that he really wasn’t coming back this time.

Guess you should be careful what you wish for.

John met me outside the next morning to show me around, and my God, was I in a different world. King’s Ranch was the polar opposite of Dover Equestrian. It was like being on another planet, and not just because Eastern and Western Washington may as well have been Mars and Earth. It was dustier out here, with areas of sparse desert-like areas interspersed with the grassy pastures and huddled clusters of trees, as opposed to the blanket of evergreens and lush fields that covered the western side of the state.

At Sam’s insistence, our facility was far more immaculate and coordinated than any working horse facility could realistically be for more than ten minutes. He wouldn’t even tolerate the natural wear and tear on cross-ties, rubber floor mats and the white-painted walls. Two of our five full-time employees did nothing but keep up on his never-ending “fix, paint, dust, replace” list.

If he’d ever set foot on this property, Sam would have been horrified. The barn wasn’t flawlessly painted and kept, but it sure wasn’t what I would have called rundown. It showed its age in a few places—faded paint, some uneven spots in the packed-dirt aisle, a few chewed doors that didn’t quite hang straight on their rails—but what building full of half-ton termites didn’t have a few teeth marks? Well, besides one where a co-owner went crazy whenever anything showed the slightest disrepair. Heaven forbid a barn look lived-in.

Just walking through this place, where horses had kicked and gnawed here and there, I couldn’t help feeling more weight sliding off my shoulders. Like it was finally settling in that I didn’t have to ride on eggshells anymore.

John continued showing me around. The indoor arena was attached to the side of the barn by a short aisle. It was a nice-size arena with excellent footing, but there wasn’t a jump in sight and certainly no letters on the arena walls for practicing dressage tests. From what I’d gathered in the thirty seconds I’d spent reading up on this place before jumping on the available job, Dustin King mostly bred, raised and trained stock horses. Some for competition—both western pleasure and working western—and some for use on ranches. He probably had as much use for jumps and dressage letters as I did for chaps and cattle chutes.

The sliding door at the end of the barn groaned as John pushed it open. Fences extended as far as the eye could see over rolling hills, and there was an outdoor arena and round pen not far from the barn, but immediately outside the rear door was a smaller pasture with a single horse in it. The boards and posts were dark brown, almost black, and gave off that familiar more-bitter-than-sweet odor of creosote.

John led me to the pasture and rested his elbow on the fence. Beaming at the horse on the other side, he said, “This is Ransom. King’s Ransom. He’s Dustin’s foundation stud. Ain’t ya, buddy?” He patted the stallion’s neck as Ransom put his head over the fence.

Ransom had a lovely quarter horse profile. In fact, he was a beautiful stud all around. Dark bay, almost the same color as the boards penning him in, without a speck of white on his face. Fit and stocky, with good solid legs and big, well-proportioned hooves instead of the little teacup feet a lot of quarter horses had these days.

He was friendly too. When I held out my hand, Ransom searched my palm for treats, brushing his prickly chin whiskers across my skin.

“He’s gorgeous,” I said, wondering if my voice sounded as flat to John as it did to me.

If it did, he didn’t notice. He just patted Ransom’s neck again and said, “He is and he knows it. Throws foals that look just like him too. Three of his babies are headed to the world championships this year. One’s defending a title there.”

“Impressive.” And he was, but as I watched Ransom examine my hand like a curious puppy, I wondered when simple things like this had stopped making me smile and swoon. There was a time when I couldn’t interact with a horse without feeling some kind of warm, fuzzy connection. Now? I felt nothing. I knew enough to draw my hand back before lips became teeth, and I knew how to reach up and mechanically stroke his neck without startling him, but…that was it.

Maybe, I’d told myself when I’d sent the e-mail inquiring about this job, I could find that connection again. Every horseman in my family would be horrified knowing I’d gone from a respected trainer to a lowly—in their eyes—farmhand, but my gut feeling, impulsive as it may have been, said this was the way to go. A Hail Mary to bring back a piece of myself that may have been dead already.

This could work. It had to. And in its own way, this made perfect sense. Now that I wasn’t interacting with the horses as their trainer, I wouldn’t be asking anything of them. They wouldn’t be asking anything of me. Maybe that would clear the way for me to reconnect with them.

Or maybe it was just a convenient excuse to take off and disappear for a while.

I winced. My husband’s untimely death was hardly something I should be calling “convenient”. Truth was, I should have left long before that night, and I—

Enough, Amy. It can’t be changed.

“Ms. Dover?”

I shook my head and looked at John. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted to have a look at the rest of the property?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

He showed me all over the vast acreage, explaining when and where various horses were turned out. There was a schedule in the barn, he assured me, but it was good to know where the gates were and which gates required some jiggling and swearing to get open. New ranch, new routine.

New ranch, new horses too. Paints, quarter horses, even the odd Appy grazed in the broad, grassy fields. There were some thoroughbreds and I swore I saw an Arab too, so I guessed those were clients’ horses. Boarders, maybe.

I really was in a different world now. Dover Equestrian may as well have been on another continent instead of two hundred fifty miles and some mountains away. The place even smelled different—dust and grass instead of pine trees and beauty bark—and the air was dry and hot instead of cool and wet like I was used to. I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing here.

“That’s not fine, Amy,” Mariah’s voice whispered in my ear. “That’s going off the deep end.”

“Well, maybe that’s what I need to do, then. Maybe I need to go off the deep end.”

And here I was. If there was a deep end, this was it, and I hoped to God I wasn’t just digging myself into an emotional—and professional—hole I’d never be able to get out of.

A flicker of sunlight on metal turned my head, and I looked to see a black-and-red pickup with a sleek, matching two-horse trailer pulling a dust cloud down the long driveway.

“That would be Dustin,” John said in his thick Texas twang. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

Chapter Two

Dustin

I was lucky I didn’t snap off the goddamned gearshift when I put the truck in Park. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have cared. That or I would have just been more pissed off than I already was, so whatever.

I shut off the engine and picked up the travel log from the passenger seat. I’d write down the mileage later, but at least wanted to jot down the time before I forgot.

Behind me, the trailer shook as hooves slammed against rubber mats. I closed my eyes and sighed. God help me, if I had to drug these two to get them out of the trailer, I’d drive back to Klamath Falls just to choke the man who’d given them to me.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, tossing the travel log back on the seat before grabbing my hat and getting out of the truck. I brushed some dust off the black felt brim just to do something with my hands that wasn’t putting a fist through a wall.

With my hat on and blocking out the blazing sun, I looked at the trailer. A twinge in my left side reminded me of every place on my rib cage that was probably black-and-blue by now, and my right kneecap still smarted. And that was from after the gelding had been sedated.

Calm down, I ordered myself. Just calm the fuck down and take care of the horses.

Calm down. Right. Easy. Especially when every breath reminded me of the debacle of getting the horses into the damned trailer in the first place.

The trailer rocked, and the stomping and snorting made me curse into the dusty summer wind. I willed myself to stay completely calm. I could release my frustrations later. Now was not the time.

Most of the commotion came from the left side of the trailer, so I went around to that side, stepped up onto the running board and opened the top door above Blue’s manger.

He swung his black head out, nearly knocking me off the running board. His eyes were wide, showing damn near as much white as brown. His nostrils flared, and he snorted loudly, the sound echoing off the nearby barn and startling him.

“Hey, easy,” I said softly, and slowly held out my hand. “Easy. Calm down, buddy.”

He eyed me warily and fidgeted again, but when he snorted this time, it was with less enthusiasm.

“That’s it.” I stroked his face. “Take it easy.”

So he was here now. He’d made it into the trailer and across the two hundred miles between McBride’s farm and mine. Now, how to get him out of the trailer? It had taken two sedatives just to get him in, and even then he’d put up a fight. If I had to give him an injection now, when he was already confined and claustrophobic, he was liable to hurt himself, not to mention me or Star, who stood calmly on the other side of the divider.

A tube of Calm & Cool might take the edge off, but it had taken four people and a twitch on his upper lip to get both tubes into him at McBride’s place. And even then, on the way into the trailer with a double dose of that herbal shit along with two injected sedatives in him, he’d still managed to inflict a few bruises and rope burns on all of us in between getting a long—but fortunately shallow—gash on his own shoulder. No point in trying to give him that or a medical sedative now.

I idly smoothed his unruly black forelock as I played out every possible scenario in my head. A horse like this, anything could happen once the door opened. He could surprise us all and back out calmly. Or he could take two steps back, then freak out, fly up, hit his head or tumble backward down the ramp. If he tried to spin around inside the trailer—and I’d seen panicked horses do it—there was a chance he could fall and get tangled up in Star’s legs, which could be a two-horse disaster. If I took Star out first to keep her out of the line of fire, Blue could come unglued because she was gone. Leave her in, she could get hurt if he freaked out.

Running my fingers through his forelock, I looked in his wide, scared eye and thought, and once I get you out of the trailer, then what do I do with you?

I sighed and stroked his face again. As I did, I looked past him. The trailer’s rubber pads were covered in the same sweat that drenched the gelding’s blue-gray coat. He hadn’t touched the flake of alfalfa in his manger. Judging by the way he kept licking his lips, he was probably thirsty, but I doubted he’d touch any water he was offered until he was out of the trailer. All the more reason to get him out sooner than later.

Blue’s ears pricked up, and he snorted again, and the crunch of boots on gravel behind me told me why.

“Need a hand?” Dad said.

“I could use all the hands I can get,” I said over my shoulder.

“Well, I’ve got two sets for ya,” he said.

I turned around, and had I not been hyperaware of the agitated animal I was trying to calm, I probably would have jumped clean out of my skin.

Who the hell was this? No way I’d seen her before, because a woman like her, I would have remembered. Clearly. Her hair was dark and gathered into a loose ponytail in the back of a blue baseball cap, and maybe it had been too long since I’d let myself look at a woman, but I did give myself a second to take in how her jeans held on to her slim legs and curvy hips.

“This here’s Amy.” Dad gestured at her as if I could have possibly not seen her. “She’s our new farmhand.”

“Our—” I blinked. “You’re the new farmhand?”

“I am,” she said with what sounded like a mix of irritation and amusement.

“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Well. Great. Welcome aboard.” Blue stomped and fidgeted in the trailer, so I turned back to calm him down again. And maybe calm myself again, because holy hell.

Focus, Dustin. Focus. Horse, not girl.

Horse. Not incredibly hot girl who’s going to be here, on my farm, and—

Horse. Trailer. Now.

To Dad, I said, “I am going to strangle that son of a bitch McBride.”

“What’d that idiot do this time?” Dad asked.

I looked over my shoulder. “Told me these two were almost done being rehabilitated. Totally ready to be finished under saddle.”

Dad groaned. “They’re basket cases, ain’t they?”

“Ooh, yeah.” I shook my head. “I had to sedate this one just to get him into the trailer, and he still just about took McBride’s arm off.”

My father sniffed. “Serves him right if he told you he was almost finished with these two.”

“No kidding.” I grimaced sympathetically as I watched Blue warily take in his unfamiliar surroundings. “At least they’re sound. Guess it took a good two years to get the gelding’s feet and legs back on track.”

“What happened to them?” Amy asked.

“Abuse cases,” I said. “Both came from a Tennessee Walker trainer in California.” I stepped off the running board and reached into the tack compartment below Blue’s manger. As I pulled out a pair of lead ropes, I said, “Let’s get ’em out of the trailer before he rips it apart.”

“Where do you want ’em?” Dad asked. “Stalls nineteen and twenty are both empty but have bedding in them already.”

I nodded. “Nineteen and twenty are fine. Probably help these two adjust if they can see each other.” I set one of the lead ropes aside and gestured at Blue. “We should take him out first. The mare’s not quite as fired up, so I think she’ll be okay staying in for a few minutes after he’s out. Assuming he doesn’t throw a fit and hurt her in the process.”

“You’re the boss,” Dad said.

I opened the escape door on Blue’s side but didn’t get in with him yet. I clipped his lead rope to his halter while Dad and Amy lowered the ramp and opened the rear doors. Blue stomped and danced, swinging his head back to look behind him. Breathing faster, eyes wider than before, he tried to go backward, snorting and fidgeting each time he hit the butt bar.

I tugged his lead to keep him facing forward and spoke softly to him. “Easy. You’ll be out in a second. Take it easy.”

“Ready?” Dad asked.

“Yep.” Moving as carefully as I could, I unclipped the chain connecting him to the trailer and eased that into the manger. Keeping my every move as calm as I could, I stepped into the trailer with Blue. He eyed me but stayed still.

I reminded myself to breathe slowly and evenly in spite of my pounding heart. If things went badly from here, both horses and I could be in a world of hurt, and if Blue caught even the slightest hint of uncertainty from me, things could go badly in a hurry.

Dad and I made eye contact over Blue’s back, and I nodded.

Dad unfastened the butt bar.

He barely had time to get out of the way before the gelding flew out of the trailer backward, nearly tumbling off the side of the ramp before skidding to a halt and spraying gravel against the side of the trailer, which startled him all over again.

I followed him out, holding the lead rope by its knotted end and trying to keep as much slack in the line as I could so he didn’t jerk against it and scare himself further.

Blue halted. His legs twitched like he was ready to take off, but he didn’t move. Snorting loudly, eyes still wide and nostrils still flaring, he looked around.

“Well, my, my,” Dad said. “Ain’t you a looker?”

I grinned as I slowly approached the horse. “He is, isn’t he?”

For all the work it would take to get him ready to sell, one thing I definitely couldn’t say about Blue was that he was unsightly. He was a striking blue roan, and he’d be even prettier once the uneven black mane tumbling over one side of his neck grew out. His abusive past didn’t show in his physical condition—the show horses were still fed well and generally cared for, anyway—but it was undeniable in his demeanor. The exposed whites of his eyes contrasted sharply with his mostly black head, and his muscles quivered like he was this close to bolting.

“Easy, Blue.” I still kept the rope slack and continued my slow approach, keeping my free hand extended and palm up. “Take it easy.” I inched closer, pausing whenever the horse tensed. I stopped when my hand was maybe six inches from the gelding’s mouth.

He finally sniffed my hand. He was still agitated, but with the trailer ordeal over, he calmed down.

Over my shoulder, I said, “Amy, get him some water. Half a bucket, no more.”

Behind me, Dad said, “There’s a bucket by the hose. Go ahead and use that one.”

Amy didn’t say anything, but the quiet crunch of gravel beneath boots answered well enough.

While I waited for her, I looked Blue over again. Good Lord, but he was a gorgeous animal. He didn’t have that Roman nose a lot of Tennessee Walkers had. Instead, his profile was straight and smooth. He stood about fifteen-two, so not huge, though he must have been immense when he still had the massive shoes and painfully long hooves during his show days.

Sons of bitches, I thought as I patted his neck.

A smear of partly dried, partly fresh blood darkened his blue-gray coat just above his shoulder. I rested a hand on his neck and leaned in to take a better look at the cut.

“Hurt himself in the trailer?” Dad asked.

I nodded toward the trailer’s open door. “Caught himself on a latch while we were trying to load him. Looks like he managed to get it open again while he was flailing around on the trip.”

Great. That’ll make him that much easier to load in the future.

Amy returned with a bucket just slightly under half full of water. She approached slowly and then carefully set the bucket in front of Blue so the water didn’t slosh more than absolutely necessary. Blue regarded it suspiciously for a moment before he shoved his head into the bucket and drank heavily, draining it in a few quick, deep gulps.

I patted his withers and looked at Amy. “Take the hay from his manger to his stall and make sure he’s got enough water in there.”

Without a word, she went to the trailer and pulled out the untouched flake of alfalfa. She disappeared into the barn, but not before I sneaked a quick look at her. Damn, she was just as hot from the back as the front. And I was supposed to be a consummate professional while she was around? Not in this lifetime…

“Should I get the mare out?” Dad asked.

“Uh, yeah. Go ahead.” I shifted my attention back to the horses. “She’s pretty mellow about this sort of thing.”

“Well, she went in easy.” He raised an eyebrow. “Sure she’ll come out without throwing a conniption?”

“Okay, maybe we should wait until Amy comes back.”

When she came back, I had her hold Blue’s lead while Dad and I took Star out of the trailer. As I’d figured she would, the filly backed out easily. A bit too quickly, maybe, but that was a habit that could be remedied with some practice and patience.

“She okay to lead?” Dad asked as he took the rope from me.

“Just watch your feet,” I said. “Girl’s gonna need some work on ground manners.”

“Hmph.” He eyed her. “One of those, are ya?”

I laughed. “They both are. She’s not too bad, though. Just doesn’t pay attention.”

“Noted.”

Dad took Star and walked her around the driveway, and I did the same with Blue. Once both horses had stretched a bit and shaken off the long hours they’d spent in the trailer, we led them into the barn. While Dad put Star in her stall, I stopped and cleaned out the cut on Blue’s shoulder. It wasn’t deep and probably wouldn’t even scar, but the last thing he needed was an infection.

Once the horses were situated, Dad and I unhooked the trailer, and he left to gas up the truck.

It was good to be back. I’d only been gone a few days, but there was nothing quite like coming home to my farm and its serene familiarity.

Footsteps behind me reminded me I wasn’t the only one here, and I turned to see Amy on her way back into the barn after filling the water troughs like Dad had asked her to do while we’d unhooked the trailer.

“Sorry we didn’t get a chance to be properly introduced.” I extended my hand. “Dustin King.”

She brushed her hands off on her jeans, then shook my hand. “Amy. But, I guess you already knew that.”

“Yeah, I did.” I smiled and hoped she didn’t see the goose bumps rising along my forearm. “But, anyway, good to meet you.”

“You too.”

We released each other’s hands but exchanged another glance, and any skin of mine that wasn’t covered in goose bumps before sure was now. And I was supposed to concentrate on working horses and giving lessons while this woman was wandering around my damned farm?

Good God, I was screwed. So screwed. “So.” I cleared my throat. “How much has Dad shown you around?”

“He took me around the property,” she said. “Showed me the turnout schedule, feeding schedule, all of that.” She paused. “I just got in last night, so I’m still learning everything, of course.”

“Shouldn’t take you long. We keep things simple around here.” I chuckled. “Only way I can keep track of anything.”

Amy gave a quiet laugh, but I couldn’t decide if it was unenthusiastic or shy, only that it made me shiver.

Oh my God, what is wrong with me?

“Well,” I said, “why don’t I take you around and see if Dad missed anything?”

She said nothing. Just nodded and followed me back into the barn.

Chapter Three

Amy

Well, apparently I was still capable of feeling something. I was numb to the bone, but obviously it didn’t go so deep I couldn’t notice a man who was physically attractive.

And Dustin King? Oh, yes. Physically attractive wasn’t even the half of it. When I first laid eyes on him, that custom-shaped, well-worn black cowboy hat had tilted just so, the brim masking his face as he stood next to the trailer, stroking Blue’s neck and speaking quietly to the agitated gelding. A man who was good with animals was sexy in his own right, and that black cowboy hat was the icing on the cake.

Then he’d turned around and faced us, and I’d pulled in a lungful of arid, summer air. He was scruffy and looked exhausted, but even his unshaven jaw and the circles under his eyes couldn’t undermine his leg-liquefying features. Just his blue eyes were enough to bring a few long-dead nerve endings tingling back to life.

And now? Now I was following him around the property, and thank God John had already shown me the place because I only caught about half of what Dustin said as we walked. If there was one thing I hadn’t counted on when I came here, it was trying to work for someone who made me trip over my words and my feet.

Oblivious to my distraction, Dustin went over some instructions as we walked through the corridors between pastures.

“Any mare with a foal at her side goes in this pasture”—he gestured at the one on the left—“or the one at the bottom of the hill. We’ve made sure everything in there is extra safe for the babies, so I don’t like them in any other pasture until they’re at least a year or two.”

“Good to know,” I said.

“And foals who are being weaned don’t turn out at the same time as their dams,” he said. “Mares in the morning, foals in the afternoon. They don’t like it, but—”

“But then they don’t see Mom and try to crash through the fence to join her. I know.”

He glanced at me, either annoyed I’d cut him off or surprised I knew what he was talking about. “All right. Then let’s—”

A squeal stopped him, and we looked to see two of the weanlings galloping toward us. Their mothers looked up. One went back to grazing while the other strolled after the babies.

“Hey guys!” Dustin squatted by the fence and reached between the boards as the pair of foals skidded to clumsy halts in front of him. He scratched their fluffy necks, and one nuzzled his face with its long-whiskered nose while the other nibbled the brim of his black hat.