I crouched to get a better sense of the sores—some well scabbed over and some fresh—and then stood to have a good look at all of her.
“It might just be the way she’s made,” I told the groom, pointing. “See how her shoulders are tight and square. She doesn’t have much breathing room here, behind the elbows, so the girth squeezes close. Don’t put any tack on her for at least a week—no riding at all—just a lunge line for exercising. You also might try some of this.” I reached for a small vial in my pocket, a mixture of oils my father and I had always used with our horses, and which I had been tinkering with on my own, trying to perfect it. “To condition the skin.”
When I turned to leave the groom to his work, I saw that D’s ranch manager had been watching us. His name was Boy Long, and he was exotic-looking for these parts, with jet-black hair and a single gold hoop in one ear. His particular flair made me think of a pirate. “What’s in the tincture?” he wanted to know.
“Nothing unusual.”
He looked me up and down. “I don’t believe you, but you can keep your secret.”
A few days later I was standing along the paddock fence watching the groom lunge Dynasty when Boy came along. Already the mare had begun to heal, and her coat shone. Though Boy only leaned beside me for a while, watching and saying nothing, I felt his attention on me as much as on the horse.
“I thought D was crazy when he told me he’d hired a girl,” he finally said.
I shrugged, not taking my eyes off Dynasty. She was moving well, not at all tenderly. “I’ve been doing this all my life, Mr. Long.”
“I can see that. I like to be proved wrong every now and again. It keeps me on my toes.”
—
Boy was good at his job, I soon learned. He oversaw the workers on both sides of D’s operation, the horses and the sheep, and seemed always to know what was going on, and even what was about to happen. One night I awoke to a commotion outside my cottage and the smell of fire. I dressed quickly and stepped out to find that a lion had been spotted in the paddock.
The night was cold and I felt it gripping around my heart as I thought of a lion slinking full-shouldered and tawny through the compound, past my thin door. “What was taken?” I asked Boy. He stood surrounded by grooms holding torches and hurricane lamps. An oiled rifle was cocked open over his arm.
“Nothing. I got there in time.”
“Thank God. You were awake, then?”
He nodded. “I had a feeling I should be. Do you ever get that sense?”
“Sometimes.” I’d felt nothing tonight. I’d been sleeping like a baby. “Did you hit him?”
“No, but I’ll have one of the grooms sit up to make sure he doesn’t come back.”
I returned to my cottage and tried for sleep again, but a nervous feeling had lodged itself in my shoulders and my neck, and my mind wouldn’t quiet. Finally I gave up and walked to the stable to find a bottle we kept on hand in the office. Boy was there, having already found it himself. He poured for me and I thanked him, and said goodnight.
“Why not stay?” he asked. “We can keep each other company.” His words were offhand, but his look made it clear what he meant.
“What would my husband think about that?” I asked him. I didn’t want any of the men on the ranch to get the idea that I was available, particularly not this one, with his glinting earring and his bold eyes.
Boy only shrugged. “If you were really worried about your husband, you’d be at home, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m here to work.” But that didn’t satisfy him. His dark pupils stayed fixed on mine in a disbelieving way until I said, “The situation isn’t simple.”
“It rarely is. I have someone, too, you know. Back in Dorking. She isn’t built for the heat.”
“Doesn’t she miss you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. In two smooth moves he’d set down his glass and crossed the distance between us. He reached to either side of me, his hands cupping the wall, and leaned nearer until I could smell rye whisky and smoke, his face inches from mine.
“This isn’t a good idea.”
“Nights can get pretty long here.” He bent his mouth to my neck, but I flinched away, my shoulders unyielding. “All right,” he finally said, “I get the picture.” Then he smiled at me lazily and let me slip out of his arms.
When I went back to my cottage and lay down, closing my eyes, the lion wasn’t on my mind any more. I’d never met anyone as direct as Boy. It was unsettling and also a little thrilling to imagine wanting and being wanted so simply, without any claims of love or strings of collapsing promises. Men were a puzzle to me, even after a year of marriage. I knew nothing about love, let alone being anyone’s lover—but for now even a kiss from Boy was a dangerous idea.