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He gave me a smirk, and I shot him back a look. I wasn’t going to let him tease me about this. He didn’t know Raya, and he didn’t know the drop-dead gorgeousness that was her. It wasn’t as easy as just telling her to get out of the barn. Especially since she was the one with the paycheck.

“Still. I hope Romeo retains what work we’ve done with each other all week so he’s ready to move forward Monday,” I said.

“I hope you told them to leave him alone for the weekend,” Ham said.

I kicked myself. I was so eager to get out of there as soon as Raya had said she could finish up with the chores, I hadn’t told her to make sure nobody went into the stable with Romeo in it. But then, she had been so worried about me and my leg and the liability she could face, I could see her making that call on her own.

“He’s fine,” I told my friend. “Now I need to make myself fine. I’m tired after the week, not going to lie. What are you doing tonight?”

“Well, I just finished with my own work around this place, and I was thinking of heading back into the City to get a drink. You want to come?”

“I don’t want to go into the City, if that’s where you’re going,” I said. “I’ve been twenty minutes outside it all week, going in to get my coffee and morning paper daily. I don’t want to go into the city to socialize.”

“Fair enough,” Ham said. “Since I’ve not been able to see you all week, why don’t we go down to Mama Tia’s? They’ve got good drinks. And food, too, if you haven’t eaten yet.”

“That sounds heavenly,” I said.

I made my way over to Ham’s vehicle and slipped inside, annoyed that my brain went back to thinking about Raya. There was so much about her I found so attractive, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. But, I didn’t want to fill in Ham too much on my thoughts about the woman. I knew he’d tease the hell out of me, and I wasn’t in the mood.

I just wanted to go out and get that drink, then come home and pass out in bed.

I knew I’d be sleeping a lot this weekend, but not so much I wasn’t able to take care of the horses who belonged to me or my clients who were willing to drop their horses off. I would make absolutely certain things were going okay for them and Ham didn’t have any questions for the next week.

This was a chore for both of us, and while I was grateful for him picking up the slack here, I wished I could work with Maveric as much as I was working with Romeo. Both horses were in need of the same kind of help, and I would love for Maveric to see how Romeo was picking up on his lessons.

It could very well do both of them good. I was sure of that. But, I wasn’t going to bring a horse that didn’t belong to me anywhere without the explicit permission from the owners. And that wasn’t going to happen. They were worried about Maveric settling down. I didn’t know if I could explain the fact that he would benefit from the help of another horse with issues.

So I just let it go.

Ham was doing a fine job with Maveric, and I was doing a good enough job with Romeo, it wasn’t necessary to bring the two of them together. Just a thought of how it would help.

But, I wasn’t in the mood to talk about horses. I was in the mood to talk about Raya. And if I was going to make sure I kept her in perspective, I wasn’t going to talk about her in terms of her being the hottest woman I’d ever seen. More that she was being a little too hands on with the training process.

“Sounds like you have your hands full with this whole thing,” Ham said when I’d finished relating my story.

“Agreed,” I said. “And I’ve still got a few more weeks.”

“Keep your head up,” Ham encouraged. “You’ve got this.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I appreciated the confidence. After all, this was my job. It was my duty to get through to both animals. I was stuck in this for better or for worse, depending on how it went.

I just hoped it’d get better with both of them.

And Raya too, for that matter.