“Yes, you can,” he agreed. He found himself being charmed despite all his best efforts to remain detached and distant. There was no denying that the woman was getting to him. “Let me know whenever you’re ready to go riding,” he told her, although for his part, he would have been content just to continue watching Hailey pet her mount.
Hailey’s eyes sparkled as she turned them toward Dillon.
“Now. I’m ready now,” she informed him with enthusiasm.
“All right, then I’ll get them saddled up and we can get going,” he told her as he went to get the equipment.
Hailey watched as Dillon returned with a saddle, a blanket and a bridle, setting them down in the stall. Then he did the same for Rawhide. The man did keep surprising her, Hailey thought, leaving Delilah’s stall and making her way over toward Dillon’s stallion.
“You saddle your own horse?” she asked.
He laughed at the expression on her face. To him there was nothing unusual about what he was doing.
“It’s part of the total experience. Why?” he asked. “What were you expecting?”
Hailey shrugged as she petted Dillon’s horse. “I thought you’d have one of your stable hands saddle up the horses,” she confessed.
He didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “In case you hadn’t noticed, despite our last name, we like to get our hands dirty,” he said as he slipped a bridle on the stallion.
Once he did that, he put a blanket on Rawhide’s back, then placed his prized hand-tooled saddle onto the blanket. Securing the saddle in place, he checked each cinch in turn, making sure none was too tight or too loose.
“Okay, Rawhide’s ready to go,” he announced, hitching the stallion’s reins onto a post in the stall. “Now let’s get Delilah ready.”
“You’re going to have to walk me through this,” she told Dillon, following him into the mare’s stall. “I’ve never saddled a horse before.”
Surprised, Dillon turned around to look at her. “But you have gone riding before, right?” he asked, realizing that he had taken some things for granted.
“I have, but they always saddled the horse for me at the stable. I don’t own my own horse,” she interjected, in case he had gotten the wrong impression.
“Well, don’t worry. I was planning on saddling your horse for you, too,” he told her.
“Thanks, but I’d rather you just showed me how to do it,” she said. When he looked at her, she added, “This way I’ll know how to do it the next time.”
She was planning on a next time, he realized. As for him, he wasn’t planning on anything beyond this afternoon that they were going to be spending together.
For a second, he thought of saying something to make her understand that there was nothing long term in the making here. But for some reason, he just couldn’t get himself to say the words. Part of him felt that it would wind up terminating this ride before it even happened.
So instead, he just said, “Sure. If that’s what you really want, I can show you how to saddle Delilah.”
With the same equipment ready—a bridle, blanket and saddle—he got started. Gently holding the mare’s head so that it remained still, Dillon talked Hailey through all the steps. As he guided her, she slipped the bridle over the mare’s muzzle and ears. Putting a blanket on the mare’s back was simple enough, but when it came to positioning Delilah’s saddle, that turned out to be a little trickier.
When she first slipped the saddle’s strap in through the cinch, she wound up not tightening it enough and the saddle slid when Dillon tested it.
“No, it needs to be tighter,” he told her. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to hurt her,” he said, second-guessing what Hailey was thinking.
Getting in behind her, Dillon placed his hands over hers and told her, “This is how it’s done.” With that, he carefully showed her exactly what she needed to do.
Hailey was independent and preferred doing things for herself, but even so, she could really get used to this, she thought, her eyes slipping closed for a second as she absorbed the moment and the feeling of Dillon’s hands on hers.
The close contact generated a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Hailey released the breath she realized she had been holding and then drew in another. “I think I have it,” she told Dillon, looking at him over her shoulder.
Her mouth was so close to his, for a split second Dillon was really tempted to give in to the desire that even now was growing more and more demanding.
And he probably would have if a ranch hand hadn’t picked that exact moment to stick his head into the stall to look in on them.
“Is everything okay here, Mr. Fortune?” Manny Salazar, the caretaker at the ranch, asked, peering into the stall. “Do you need anything?” He smiled politely at the woman with his boss. “Can I get you anything?”
The answer to the man’s first question was yes. The answer to his second one was no. Without his knowing it, the ranch hand had managed to rescue him from making another mistake, Dillon thought.
“No, we’re good to go, Manny,” he assured the man. “Thanks for asking.” He looked at Hailey. “Are you ready to get into the saddle?” he asked, holding the mare’s reins in his hand.
“That part I know how to do,” Hailey answered with a smile. The next second, she swung herself into the saddle and then took the reins from Dillon. “Now all I need is you—to get on your horse,” she added, realizing that her pause, coming where it did, had made for a very awkward moment. Even though what she’d said was true. All she did need was Dillon, away from his obligations, away from all the
