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Maple snorted and pawed her hoof to the ground.

Grace smiled sweetly and handed Riley the reins. “If you can get Maple out to the corral and do a few laps, I’ll let you have Dolly again. She needs some exercise today since she hasn’t been out yet.”

“Fine.” Riley pulled on the lead, prepared to stomp out of the barn, but the rope went tight and he stumbled back a step. Turning, he found Maple stubbornly standing her ground. “Come on, Maple, let’s go,” he muttered.

She tossed her head and her ears continued twitching.

“I don’t think she wants to go with you,” Grace said.

“You think?” Riley shot her a dark look. “Funny, isn’t it? When people don’t want to do something, they push back. Guess horses are the same.”

Grace leaned her shoulder up against a pole and tilted her head. She nodded to Maple. “What do you suppose she’s feeling right now?”

Riley threw his hands into the air. “I don’t know.”

“Look at her. How is she behaving?”

“She’s being obstinate.”

“That’s an accurate observation. Wonder why.”

Riley let out a frustrated sigh. He knew what she was getting at. She was pointing out that the horse was being difficult just like he was.

Grace continued, “One of the reasons we use horses in therapy is because they don’t usually hide anything. They can mirror our behaviors. You’re just trying to help her. Exercise is good for her. And you’re just doing what I’ve asked in helping to facilitate that. So why is she being obstinate?”

His shoulders drooped and he willed his heart to calm. Taking a deep breath, he really looked at the horse. “She’s being stubborn. Maybe she doesn’t know that it’s good for her. Or she just doesn’t like the way I’m leading her.”

“Both good observations. She can sense your anger and aggression. When that happens, she digs in her heels. Maybe you need to try a different approach.”

Riley moved closer to Maple, holding out his palm with slow movements. He clicked his tongue and murmured, “Hey, girl. How about we try again?”

Her ears twitched forward, then to the side. He rubbed her nose and then moved to run his hands down her neck. Maple pawed at the ground once more, then stepped forward.

Riley shot a surprised look at Grace. “No way. It can’t be that easy.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Maple is special. She’s been trained to set boundaries. She won’t do anything with someone who is showing outward signs of aggression or anxiety. Labeling what you’re feeling inside is important to the healing process.”

His jaw tightened and he moved toward her with Maple following closely behind. He had the training. He could show outward patience and calm. “You want to know what I’m feeling inside? What I deal with on a daily basis?”

Grace pushed away from the pole to stand straight, but she still had to look up at him. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Riley took a deep calming breath. “Depression. Guilt. Anxiety. Oh, and lest we forget, anger. There? Happy? I can label how I’m feeling at a given moment. Does itfixanything? No.”

He said all of that with a cool voice, then brushed past her toward the corral. He’d like to say she pushed him into a corner, forcing him to admit all of that, and it only infuriated him more. But surprisingly he didn’t feel any more or less upset about any of it, which was unexpected.

Grace didn’t push him to speak to her anymore. She watched from the sidelines as he took Maple into the corral and had her trot some laps. Each time he stewed, Maple could sense it, and it was harder to get her to continue her laps which only proved that Grace had been correct. Maple made him more attentive to how he was feeling. What should have been a quick ten-minute exercise ended up being three times as long.

“You can let her wander,” Grace called out. She climbed up onto the bars that separated him from her and perched there, beckoning him to come over.

He unclipped the rope and trudged over to her, resigning himself to the knowledge that once again, he was proven wrong. “Before you say anything, I know.”

She tilted her head in that way that both infuriated him and made him want to… want to what? Whatever it was, it took him off guard.

“I’m in a perpetual state of aggression or something.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. Maple made that perfectly clear.” He leaned against the bars beside her and dragged his focus over to the horse. “I don’t know how you guys do it—training a horse to behave that way.”