A banging noise next to me causes me to jerk, and Whisky moves back a step, tossing his head, clearly not happy with whoever is making such a ruckus next to us. I put the sling I’m still holding on top of a hay bale next to his stall and move toward whoever is trying to kick in the door.
I stop two stalls down, next to the door that’s shaking, making sure I’m not in the way should the latch, for some reason, break and the door come flying open. Inside, pawing at the floor and door simultaneously, is a gorgeous blue roan, looking mighty pissed for some reason.
As soon as he notices me, he stops his tantrum and walks closer to the iron bars making up the top half of the stall. The window in the door is closed, so he can’t hang his head outside. There’s always a reason why my father doesn’t open it, so I’m carefully watching its body language. He reminds me of my father’s old prized stallion, Saint. Though, he wasn’t much of a saint either. From what I heard, he lost Saint three and a half years ago.
The blue roan presses his nose against the bars separating us. I lift my hand slowly and allow him to smell me. Or more likely smell Whisky.
“Hey, pretty boy. What’s got you in such a tizzy?” I’ve always found talking to horses, animals in general, helps to calm them down. At my words, his upper lip starts searching for something edible in my hand. I move toward the end of the alleyway to the tack room and grab a handful of treats, stashing them inside the front pocket of my hoodie.
As I walk back, I feed Whisky a couple, so he doesn’t feel left out, before I carefully release the latch to open the window to the blue roan’s stall. Still watching him, I hold my good arm out toward him with a cookie, making sure my hand is flat to avoid giving him anything he can accidentally—or not so accidentally—bite.
When he cautiously moves closer and his velvet lips grab the cookie without so much as a hint of aggression, I have to smile, knowing whatever issue he had when I came in isn’t something he can’t get over.
An actual laugh escapes me a second later when he stretches his neck, trying to get to the rest of the cookies in my pocket. I’m scratching him between his eyes while he chews on the treats and simultaneously searching for more, excited he lets me pet him without an issue.
A sudden bang disrupts the stillness surrounding us. The colt’s head jerks up, the loud noise clearly frightening him. The unexpected movement while I’m distracted for a second by whoever made the noise sends me staggering back, only to trip over my own feet. I land hard on my back, jarring my injured shoulder. Pain unlike anything I remember ever feeling before shoots through my body, causing me to cry out and tears to spring to my eyes. I don’t notice the footsteps running toward me; I’m too busy gritting my teeth and trying to breathe through the pain shooting down my body.
I continue to blink at the ceiling, not paying attention to what it is going on around me, until a shadow falls over me.
“Are you okay?” a familiar voice asks me.
“Yeah,” I groan through the pain, still not quite able to make out the face hovering over me.
“Where’s your sling?”
Unable to process his question, I keep blinking until his face finally comes into focus, and I’m stunned stupid. Blue eyes intermixed with a steely-gray stare down at me from a face that reminds me of a Roman god, all sharp edges and straight lines. His dirty blond hair is messy, like he ran his hand through it one too many times. Unable to help myself, my eyes fall to his full lips. It is only when said lips start to twitch into a smile, that I realize what I’m doing and my eyes snap back up to his.
“What?” I stammer, trying to get my brain to work while telling myself it’s only the pain I’m currently in that is making me act like an idiot.
“I asked where your sling was at. You’re supposed to wear it all the time, aren’t you?” The smile is gone, replaced with what looks close to reproach.
Deciding to ignore his question because I know not wearing that stupid sling isn’t smart, and I’m not about to tell this stranger I can’t put it on by myself without crying in pain, I ask, “Who are you?”
“I’m Kade Reed.”
As soon as the name leaves his lips I freeze, and all attraction I felt toward him vanishes into the ether—or so I tell myself. So, this is the guy who thinks talking shit about a person he doesn’t know is acceptable.
What a shame it’s always the gorgeous ones who turn out to be jerks.
He must have felt the change in me because his eyebrows pull together, and he asks, “Are you okay, Montana?”
So he knows who I am. Which means I imagined the friendly, maybe even flirty, smile he sent my way when I was staring at him. Just as well.
“No, this floor is freezing. And my shoulder is killing me. Now move so I can get up,” I say, barely containing the sarcasm. At my tone his face changes, no surprise there since this probably only confirms his opinion of me. But I long ago decided, about the time when I realized I can’t force either one of my parents to love me, to never again try to prove myself to someone else in order to
