Page 17 of Braving the Storm

“Good.”

Kayce doesn’t speak for a moment. “Not your kind of people?”

We reach what looks like a small arena designed for the horses. As we stop beside the wooden railing, Kayce leans an elbow on the highest rung and waits for me to answer. He’s easy to talk to, in a way I don’t know that I’ve experienced before, and I find myself with words bubbling up that I usually would never even consider uttering to someone I’d only met a day ago. “Did you ever feel like you were born into the wrong place? Like everywhere you looked around, you just felt wrong? As if you were wearing a shirt three sizes too small, and it’s itchy as hell, and you couldn’t ever figure out how to get out of it.”

My hand rubs over Ollie’s neck. I’m talking more to the horse than Kayce, yet both of them stand there and listen to my nonsense.

“Weirdly specific, city girl.” He narrows his eyes on me. “Are wetalking itchy like sheep’s wool, or itchy like hay getting stuck down your jocks?”

I roll my eyes back at him. “You know what I mean.”

It’s Kayce’s turn to run his hands over the horse now, stepping in front of Ollie’s nose, he glides both palms up and down her face as if they’re having a silent little conversation.

He gives her a crooked smile as her lips pucker and roll. Ollie grins back at him, and it’s such an endearing little gesture between them. Their bond is evident with each secret glance they exchange.

Kayce readjusts one of the straps on the halter before speaking.

“I didn’t get the opportunity to grow up here. My dad gave me up because he was seventeen and thought it was the right thing to do for me at the time. Except it turned out he couldn’t have picked a worse person than my mom to leave me with.” He methodically strokes and scratches around Ollie’s ears. “So yeah, I get it. My life might’ve been a hell of a lot better if I’d been able to stay here with him, but either way, I’ll never know. All I’ve got is the opportunity to start over and take each day as a fresh opportunity to make better choices.”

“I’m sorry things weren’t good with your mom.”

“Take it you know a thing or two about shitty parents?”

That makes me laugh. “What gave it away?”

“Other than the fact you’ve landed in Crimson Ridge… the fact you’re willing to put up with Stôrmand Lane as opposed to whoever you’re leaving behind.”

I feel my heart kick up, thudding a little harder at the mention of his name.

“Is that what broughtyouhere? Running away?” I ask.

“Something like that… maybe more like trying to outsprint my own bullshit and demons.”

“Are you getting back on the rodeo circuit soon?”

“Hopefully.” He flashes a wide grin, with an immediate lightness filling his eyes at the mention of what he obviously loves so dearly. “I put in a fuck load of work last summer, and then Storm’s given me hell all winter to keep my head in the game. I’ll be backtraining now that it’s spring, gotta get my ass ready for when the circuit kicks off.”

“Does it scare you at all? The competing side of it, I mean.” While I know next to nothing about rodeo, the concept of what he willingly does by getting on the back of an animal determined to throw him off seems like it should, by all rights, be terrifying.

“Nah… horses? They’re easy. They speak a language that’s simple… respect is all they want. When you know the true things to be scared of in life, being in the saddle is the only place in life I know I wanna be most days.”

Hell, after the people I’ve had the misfortune to be surrounded by my whole life, don’t I know exactly what he means.

Chapter 7

“Be a good girl for me. Nice and easy.” My voice drops low. “Just like that.”

The mare at my back huffs before obliging my instruction.

Wrapping my hand around Peaches’ leg just above her hoof, I settle her between my thighs, resting over my chaps, and get to it.

There’s always been something about farrier work for me that has appealed. It’s methodical. Tough. Physical. Quiets my mind being around horses for hour upon hour.

Give me a barn full of chuffs and snorts, sounds of munching hay, and rumbles of contentment; I’ll take that shit over interacting with people any day.

But Christ, this is a job that’s hard on your back at the best of times. Being bent over for hours on end removing shoes, cleaning and checking hooves, heating and forming metal, and then fitting new ones… well, after a couple of nights on a far too small couch staring at the wooden beams of the ceiling until dawn… I feel four hundred years old.

My body aches in places I only ever used to know about after the toughest bulls did their worst. Those hellish days in the arena when my glove would get jammed in the rope, or my shoulderwould damn near dislocate during a ride, or my leap to the ground as soon as that buzzer went off would jar my whole spine wrong.