Cowboy Crazy

chapter 37



Sarah tightened the cinch on the Western saddle she’d put on the chestnut gelding, then grabbed the horn and pulled it to one side, then the other. Solid. She’d been amazed at how swift and sure the process had felt, as if she’d been doing it for years.

She had done it for years, but those years were a long time ago.

Pulling out a stirrup, she measured it against the length of her arm. Yup, she had it right. There was no excuse to put off the next step.

The horse turned and watched her as she fussed with the cinch again. He seemed to be wondering why she kept tugging and adjusting everything, why she didn’t just get on and ride already.

She was wondering too. Sure, it had been a long time. She hadn’t really been lying when she’d told Lane she was afraid of horses. But after the session with Cinn, she’d hoped she might be over it.

Lifting the reins from the horse’s neck, she looped them in one hand while she set her foot in the stirrup. Grabbing the saddle, she bounced on her right foot like she had so many times before. Before…

Don’t think about it. Just ride.

The horse turned his head slightly and rolled back an eye to watch her as she bounced again. Flash used to do that. He’d done that the last time she’d seen him, looked back at her with his eye rolling, and then…

She took her toe out of the stirrup and held onto the saddle, resting her forehead on the sun-warmed leather. She could do this. She could. She remembered her sister’s words.

Jeez, Sarah, let it go. What are you hanging onto all this stuff for?

“Sorry, boy,” she said to the horse. He nodded once as if he understood, or maybe he was just trying to ease the pressure of the reins. She fed out a little more and prepared to mount again. As she shifted her weight to the stirrup, the horse stamped one hind hoof. Like Flash. He’d been impatient sometimes, antsy. She felt her heart rate amp up and knew she had to calm herself before she could ride.

She pulled on the stirrup leather, opening the buckle so she’d have something to do if Trevor came out. She’d tell him she’d gotten the length wrong. She’d have to tell him something, because she couldn’t tell him she was unable to ride.

Maybe if she walked the horse a while she could visualize the ride. Roy had taught her to do that over and over whenever she’d come up against a problem—a tendency to run at the barrels too hard, or a subconscious ill-timed tug on the reins. He’d make her walk the course, picturing herself on horseback, doing it right. It helped. When she’d mounted again, the problem would be gone.

She lifted the reins over the horse’s head and led him along the fence. The horse moved at a level, easy pace. He was clearly a cooperative animal, a gentle soul. She pictured herself on his back, moving easily, her body in sync with his. The picture came easily and she wanted to mount up right there, but she forced herself to finish a full circuit of the arena.

She stopped by the gate and set her foot in the stirrup.

You can do it.

The horse tossed his head, picking up on her tension, and lifted one front foot, then the other, rearing up slightly on his back legs. He settled but the image was stuck in her head, Flash dancing, rearing, almost pulling her arm off.

She shook her head, bringing herself back to the present, and rested her head against the horse to take a few long breaths. Then she set about the work of unsaddling the horse just as she’d unsaddled Flash all those years ago. It was bright daylight now, not moonlight, but the feeling was the same.

Defeat.

She still couldn’t ride. In all the years that had passed since that dark night with Flash, she’d been right not to try. The fear was too strong, the memories too vivid. It was time to put the horse away and then go talk to Trevor. She’d had her second chance, and she couldn’t take it.

She was heading for the house when a pickup pulled into the turnout in front of the barn. “Hemsworth Farriery,” it read. “Custom Shoeing, 20 years experience.”

The guy who stepped out of the truck looked like he must have started shoeing horses at age ten in order to get that much experience under his worn leather belt. He was short but broad in the shoulders with impossibly muscular arms. The belt encircled a slim waist and almost bony hips, but his leg muscles swelled under his worn jeans. If she hadn’t known the kind of workout the art of farriery imposed on its practitioners, she would have thought he was some kind of obsessive gym rat.

As he approached, she realized his dark hair was shot with gray and his face was lined from sun exposure, like Lane’s and so many other ranchers’. Men were lucky. Up to middle age, wrinkles only made them rugged, while the shoe-leather look just didn’t work for women.

“Trevor finally hire a new hand?” The man stuck out his hand. “Dan Hemsworth,” he said. “Here to check a few feet.”

“My name’s Sarah. Who do you need to work on?” Sarah decided she’d avoid the question about hiring. She’d just help the guy, and then she’d go talk to Trevor. Find out when Lane was coming back. She’d have to stay until he returned. She couldn’t leave Trevor dependent on Emmy. So in a way, she was a new hand—a temporary one. One who couldn’t ride, but hopefully nobody needed to know that. Nobody but Trevor. She knew he wouldn’t let it go.

The farrier grabbed a clipboard from a toolbox in the back of the pickup. “I need Tally, Ollie, and Trip,” he said.

She realized she had no idea of the names of most of the horses. She’d called all the geldings “boy” and “buddy” in her head while she’d worked, the mares “girl” and “baby.”

He must have seen her confusion. “First day?”

She nodded. For some reason, she was reluctant to explain that she was just a temp. Less than a temp, really. What did you call a stable hand who couldn’t ride?

“Let’s go in and I’ll show you the ones I need,” he said.

He pointed out the horses and she led them out one by one. He worked in the alley, cross-tying the horses back near the sliding doors. The late-afternoon sunlight slanted in and bathed man and horses in golden light as he bent over and held their feet upraised between his muscular thighs, shaping their hooves, adjusting their shoes, and hammering out new ones where needed.

“I’d better take a look at Cinn too,” he said when he’d finished the third horse. “Gotta keep tabs on him. Guess they never did figure out what caused his sire’s problems, but I’m damn sure not going to let it happen to him.”

Despite the sunshine, Sarah felt a sudden chill. “What problems?”

The man shrugged his broad shoulders. “Carrigan didn’t know. Somewhere along the way the horse had probably fallen or something. There were no outward signs ’cept for the way he kicked and bucked. Took a lot of tests to find the problem, but Lane doesn’t give up, you know? He wants something, he sticks, like he sticks to a bull.”

Sarah nodded. Lane was persistent. He’d stuck with her, and she hadn’t made it easy.

“So what was wrong with him?”

“Pinched nerve in his neck.” He led the gelding back to his stall and steered him inside, then unbuckled the halter and lifted it off his head. “You wouldn’t have ever guessed it. Most horses would be short-strided, show it in their gate. But it’s instinct for animals to hide their pain, and that horse was strong enough to keep it covered up. Lane had a hell of a time figuring out what was wrong with him, but he wouldn’t give up.” He stroked the horse’s nose with the effortless camaraderie of a true horseman as he exited the stall, latching the gate behind him. “It’s just lucky that animal had a buyer who could afford to fix him,” he said. “By the time they got it figured out, I think Carrigan spent three times what the animal was worth.”

“What all did he do?”

The farrier shook his head. “A lot more than most people would have. He hauled that horse all the way down to the vet school at Colorado State, and let me tell you, that was no small feat. Never saw a horse that hated trailers the way that one did.”

They were both silent for a moment. Sarah didn’t know what the farrier was thinking about, but she was thinking of Flash and the reason for his fear of trailers.

“So the vet figured out the problem?” she finally asked.

“After a few thousand dollars in tests. That horse spent almost six months there. Once they figured out what it was, there was surgery, recovery, therapy—for a while they had him swimming every day.”

Sarah sat down on a bale of hay, her legs weak. “It must have cost a fortune,” she muttered.

She was talking more to herself than the farrier, but he was a friendly guy and kept on talking. “Sure did. Just figuring it out, let alone fixing it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the stall door. “Guess the folks that sold him didn’t know. Thought the horse was just difficult, and he ran for ’em anyway. Daughter was a barrel racer. Let me tell you, that animal had heart. To get through the pain he was suffering and make those turns—it must have hurt like hell. That horse was a goddamn hero.”

Sarah jerked to her feet, swallowing hard as she steadied herself against the wall. “I need to go get Trevor for you. He’ll write you a check or whatever.”

The farrier waved her away. “No need. Got a contract, so Lane just pays me monthly. Where’s Cinn hanging out today?”

She wanted to get out of there more than she’d ever wanted out of anywhere. She needed to sit somewhere quiet and process the information about Flash. Lane was no villain. Really, she was the bad guy in this story.

Because she’d tortured the horse she loved, tortured him every day. She’d thought she was being patient, working through what she and Roy had believed were psychological issues. They’d had him checked, X-rayed, analyzed—nobody had been able to find anything wrong.

To get through the pain he was suffering and run anyway… that horse was a goddamn hero.

Lane had been the best thing that ever happened to Flash. He’d saved him. Given him the gift of a few pain-free years at the end of his life.

She led the farrier out of the cool barn and over to the sunbaked corral where she’d left Cinn. She could see Flash in the glowing red of his coat, the graceful curve of his back, the breadth of his chest and the elegant beauty of his head.

“How long did Flash live after the surgery?”

“Couple years. Long enough to enjoy being nothing but a stud for a while.” The farrier laughed. “He got the life he deserved after all, even if it was only for a while. Once he recovered from the surgery, he was a sweetheart. Everybody’s favorite. Cinn’s got the same personality.”

Sarah watched him slip a halter over the horse’s head and clip on a lead rope. As he led the stallion back to the barn, the world blurred in front of her, the sharp stems of grass blending into patches of yellow light and blue shadow, the sun blurring to a watercolor glow, the corral fences becoming sharp dark strokes against the light. She tripped over a tussock of grass and realized she’d veered off the path.

“You okay?” the farrier asked.

“Fine,” she said. “I just need to go, um, up to the hayloft. I left something up there. You got everything you need?”

He nodded as the horse’s hooves hit the wood of the barn floor. “Sure,” he said. “Take your time.”

She climbed the rickety ladder to the loft like demons were nipping at her heels. She hadn’t left anything up there. She hadn’t even been up there yet—but she needed to be alone and the loft at her stepfather’s ranch had always been her thinking place. Hoisting herself up from the ladder, she made her way through a narrow space between stacks of hay and straw and finally sat down on a bale positioned near the hay door. Looking out, she could see the drive curving away, the crooked fence line strung beside it. The gigantic house was behind the barn, so from here it looked like any other ranch—a remote outpost on the plains, just one more of the many efforts to fence and tame the West. The grass was scrubby and scattered with sage and rocks, the trees sparse and tortured by the wind. Far beyond the fence posts, a rock outcropping reared up, bronzed by the sun against the darkening sky.

The familiar scent of hay, straw, and dust carried her back to the past. The day they’d packed up and left, relinquishing the house and empty barn to the bank, she’d gone up and sat in the hayloft. She hadn’t mourned that day. She hadn’t cried. She’d just been angry, cursing in her head over and over the man who’d bought Flash. She’d spent her whole life blaming everything that went wrong on that one man, as if he’d been a seed of trouble that grew roots and shoots that strangled every aspect of her life.

Her mother’s retreat from life and the way she’d crawled into a bottle and stayed there. Kelsey’s pregnancy and rushed marriage, her outsized determination to build a happy home. Sarah’s own push for safety and security, the years she’d spent at school struggling to master her new world—she’d blamed it all on the buyer. He was like a bogeyman, hiding in every corner, darkening every incident with his ominous shadow.

And he didn’t exist. Lane was no monster. He hadn’t stolen her horse; he’d saved him.

She plucked a piece of straw from the bale and stared down at it. Why hadn’t he told her about Flash’s problems?

She remembered the way he’d cut off the conversation about the horse, turned away, and left. She’d had the sense he was about to say something and then thought better of it—and now she knew he’d let the chance to defend himself pass. The man who always wanted to win had thrown the game rather than tell her that her troubles weren’t the fault of some outside force. There was no one left to hate but herself.

Lane seemed so rough on the outside, with his jokes and insults, his endless teasing—but somehow, in a very short time, he’d come to understand her like no one else. He’d seen all her flaws, her pride and stubbornness, her determination to hold onto the grudges that defined her past, present, and future, and he’d chosen to walk away and give her time, rather than ripping away the shield she’d carried all these years. He was willing to be the bad guy and bear the blame if it helped her heal from the pain of her past.

Resting her elbows on her knees, she lowered her head into her hands and let the tears fall.

Twenty minutes later, the farrier shouted out a good-bye. She answered in a cracked, quavering voice, then waved from the hay door as he climbed into his truck and drove away. She watched until the plume of dust kicked up from the truck faded away, and then she let herself cry some more.