Not sure how to respond, Raney just smiled. “You’re always welcome at Four Star, Press. Come anytime.”
“I’ll do that.”
But Raney knew he wouldn’t. And as she watched him drive away, it was like watching the past fade into dust. There would never be another Press Amala, world-class roping champion and unequaled horse trainer. A real icon in the horse business. And another old friend leaving her behind.
“Ready to try out the new mare?” Dalton asked when Raney walked into the barn a few minutes later.
“Sure.”
She leaned against a stall door while he went to the arena to get the mare, thinking about all the changes going on around her: Four Star getting out of the cattle business and into the breeding business, Mama leaving, Joss having a baby, Dalton stampeding into her life, and Press hanging up his spurs. Good changes for the most part. But scary. And she wasn’t always comfortable with changes. Especially the scary ones. Like earlier, in the car, when she’d felt so suffocated and afraid. She still wasn’t sure what that was about. But Dalton had known what she’d needed and had helped her find her balance again. A remarkable man.
A few minutes later, he returned with the mare, tied her to a ring in the wall, and began to brush her down. He shot her a look. “Why so glum? Not thinking about the douche, I hope.”
“Press sold his barn.”
“I heard.”
“I’ll miss him.”
“Me, too. But, hey, little lady,” he went on in an exaggerated Texas twang as he ran the brush over Sassy’s back. “You got me and this here mare. What more do you want?”
She studied him as he bent to brush the mare’s legs. He was so beautiful. Inside and out. How could she bear it if things didn’t work out between them? “I want you to kiss me.”
He straightened, smile fading. A change came over his face. Hunger. Want. Dropping the brush into a bucket, he walked toward her, a predatory gleam in his eyes. “I can do that.”
And he did.
Strangely, the heart-pounding, knee-weakening, mind-boggling, nerve-tingling changes he awakened in her body weren’t that scary at all. If they hadn’t heard footsteps at the back of the barn, she might have dragged him into one of the stalls. As it was, she barely peeled herself off his strong, sturdy, utterly delicious body before Chuey came in with a wheelbarrow of hay for Rosco. Mumbling something about hunting up a saddle for Sassy, she stepped around the befuddled man she’d just been dallying with and went down to the tack room.
Ten minutes later, she was putting Sassy through her paces in the arena.
The mare was amazing. Smooth gaited, responsive, sensitive to the lightest touch on the reins, and a rocking-chair lope. “Oh, Dalton,” Raney said, reining in where he waited by the gate. “She’s awesome! An absolute dream!”
He grinned up at her, so tall she could almost bend down and kiss him without shifting in the saddle. “You like her?”
“I adore her!” And you. A dangerous thought. Too soon, she reminded herself, remembering how Press had said to break him in slow.
“Then she’s yours.”
Raney laughed. “I know. I wrote the check.”
“Then how about I buy her back, then give her to you.”
“How about you saddle up and ride with me. I have a hankering for wide-open spaces, a fast horse beneath me, and the wind in my face. Open the gate, cowboy!”
He did and they shot through. Within moments she heard a horse coming up behind her and looked back to see Dalton racing toward her on one of the geldings, riding bareback, his long legs reaching past the horse’s belly, his dark hair whipping in the wind. He rode like a warrior. Like he was born to it and the horse beneath him was simply an extension of his will.
She slowed until he came alongside, then pointed to a lone pine a hundred yards away. “Race you!” she cried, and kicked the mare into a gallop. By the time they neared the tree, she was laughing for the pure joy of it. This was what she’d been missing, what she needed. The speed. The wind. The pounding of the hooves as the ground swept by. Freedom to run, to escape, to fly.
“God, I’ve missed this!” she said as he pulled in beside her. “I forgot how much fun it is to just ride.”
“I can tell.” He smiled, watching her, his expression almost tender. “You should do it more often.”
“I wish I could.”
“What’s holding you back?”
They continued on toward a watering hole near the back fence line, keeping the horses at a walk to cool them down. “Paperwork. Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in it.”
“Then hire someone to help you. You don’t have to do it all yourself.”
She wondered if she could do that, if she could relinquish control so easily. With the right person, maybe. Someone she could trust to care for the ranch the same way she did. She glanced over at Dalton, wondering if he could be that person. Or if it was too soon to ask.
“Do you consider me a workhorse?” she asked when they stopped at the pond to let the horses drink. “Joss said I was.”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Not a workhorse. More like a sleek, spirited Thoroughbred who’s been penned too long. Or maybe a high-stepping Arabian. Or a—”
Laughing, she raised a hand. “Enough with the horse analogies. Sorry I asked.”
They reined the horses away from the water before they drank too much, and rode on through tall grass already turning brown in the summer sun.
Raney took in a deep breath and let it out. She’d hadn’t felt so relaxed in a long time. It was a beautiful, cloudless
