Cowboy Crazy

chapter 30



Sarah stared at the horse. If she’d died and gone to heaven, this was exactly what she would have wished for: a second chance with Flash. A chance to start him fresh, before whatever had damaged him had done its work.

But it’s impossible. He’d be old. This horse isn’t old.

She shrugged off her doubts and fumbled to undo the latch. There was no point in second-guessing this. Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe she really had died.

She didn’t care. When the gate closed behind her with a metallic clang, she felt like she’d shut out the real world and walked into the dream. The round pen was its own universe, a place out of time.

She straightened her shoulders, an almost imperceptible movement, and took on the leader’s role in her mind. The horse reacted instantly, arching his neck and backing one step away. He stood stock-still, poised between submission and flight.

He chose flight. Good horses always did.

Sarah heeded him around the ring, keeping just behind his flank, urging him into a lope with nothing but her own intent and the subtleties of body position. He moved beautifully, his mane and tail sailing behind him as his hooves ate up the ground.

Anyone watching would have said they were just a woman standing still and a horse running, but there was so much more going on beneath the surface. They were testing each other, deciding who would lead and who would follow. She could feel the horse considering his options, and finally he slowed almost imperceptibly. The circle grew smaller as he bowed his body and eased into a trot, bobbing his head down once in a while and working his mouth.

He was getting tired of running. He was asking to stop.

But it wasn’t time yet. She stiffened slightly and took a step backward. Breaking into a lope again, the horse kept one eye on her, watching for permission to slow. She stepped left, and like a dance partner he caught the cue and dropped into a trot, neck arched and tail high. He was flirting with her, trying to charm her into giving way.

Not gonna happen, buddy, she thought. Not yet.

She took another step and he dropped his head and smoothed out his gait. She remembered riding in the round ring while Roy stood in the center offering advice.

Move your right leg back. He’s not flexing.

Get back on your seat-bones, girl—you’re not a jockey.

Relax. Stop thinking so hard. Let it be.

She so wished he could share this moment, see this horse. She wished she could finish this training session and sit in the barn with him afterward, dissecting every move she’d made, talking technique, figuring out what worked for the horse, what worked for her. Roy had trained her like he’d trained the horses, with deep understanding and an almost eerie sense of what she was thinking.

God, she missed him. She blinked away tears, realizing she’d lost her concentration. To work with horses you had to be present, a conscious participant in the process. She’d broken that rule and the horse had stopped. She swiped at her cheeks, chiding herself for losing focus, but when he stepped up and pushed at her with his nose the tears started again.

The horse shoved the length of his muzzle against her arm and she rested her head on his neck, feeling a rare, easy kinship with the animal. She’d never been able to bond with Flash like this. Never. He’d always held a piece of himself apart. Now he was giving his whole heart.

She buried her face in his mane, breathing in the sweet scent of him and struggling to smother her tears. He stood patiently, letting her recover, easing her turmoil with his own level calm.

Stepping back, she sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. She didn’t know where Lane had gone, but she was glad he hadn’t witnessed her emotional breakdown. And she was glad she’d had a chance to be alone with this horse—whoever he was.

Because she knew it couldn’t be Flash—he was too young. Flash had to be his sire, so whoever had bought him had bred him.

“Where did you come from, baby?” she murmured to the horse. “And what happened to your daddy?”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

***

Lane stood a few feet from the gate, watching Sarah perform the intricate dance of teaching a horse to be tame.

Much as Lane loved rodeo, bronc bucking was a sad reminder of the old way of training horses—the fast, brutal method of riding an animal to a standstill. In the real world, a horse that had been bucked out gave up, and then he wasn’t a whole horse anymore. He’d be your servant, but he’d never be your partner.

The new methods were respectful but not soft. There was no doubt who was the leader and who had to follow, but neither horse nor rider was diminished by the process if you did it right.

And Sarah did it right.

He’d been worried the sight of Cinnamon Chrome would freak her out. There was no way anyone who’d ever seen Flash wouldn’t know this was his colt. It was like the sire had been reincarnated into the son—like Flash had come back to life again, whole and healthy.

Lane’s grandfather had offered to buy Lane a horse the summer he’d turned twenty-one, hoping the idea of training horses would lure him away from the rodeo ring before he got hurt. He’d been willing to pay a high price to keep his grandson safe, and Lane could have bought any horse at the sale.

But the moment he’d seen the big red dun snorting and racing in manic circles around the sale barn corral, he’d thought mine.

Flash had been his first rescue. He couldn’t figure out why nobody wanted the horse, but there was no telling where he would have ended up if Lane hadn’t bought him. Maybe he’d have gone back to his owners, whoever they were—but it was also possible he’d end up on a truck en route to a Mexican slaughtering plant.

He’d never been able to ride the horse—but he’d been able to breed him and keep those bloodlines alive. Cinn was just one of the colts that looked like clones of their sire.

He watched Sarah crying and resisted the urge to help her. She wasn’t the kind of woman who appreciated sympathy. He should go, give her time to recover.

But if she was going to have an emotional breakdown in the ring, somebody had to look out for her safety. You never knew how that kind of thing might affect a horse. Cinn didn’t have the unpredictable blowups that had made his sire so dangerous, but he was still a stallion.

Lane watched from a respectful distance as she rested her cheek against the horse’s neck. Judging from her heaving shoulders, she was having a hard time getting hold of herself. He’d never seen her like this—broken down and utterly beaten.

He was relieved when she bowed her head, blinked, and straightened her shoulders. She patted the horse a few times as if assuring the animal that she’d recovered. Then she stepped back and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

He moved toward the gate and Cinn whinnied in recognition. Sarah spun to see what had riled up the horse, and he was hoping she’d smile when she caught sight of him. But her face was still streaked with tears, and she looked anything but happy.

“Tell me where he came from,” she said, nesting her fingers in the horse’s dark mane. “Who bought Flash? I need to know. Because whoever bought him ruined my family’s life.”