Page 25 of Cowboy in Colorado
“That’s not what I meant,” I start, but then realize I’m just going to dig myself in deeper if I keep trying that route, so I hold up my hand and gesture ahead. “My apologies. I didn’t intend to question your capability, Clint. I would appreciate your help in getting to wherever Will is, and if not, I’ll just have to hope he’s in this general direction.”
With a supremely annoyed growl, Clint angles his horse to the left, breaks into a trot, and leads the way. He’s not waiting, and I’m not at all sure I’m ready for this, but…I nudge Molly in the ribs with my heels, and tell her to trot. Immediately, she lurches into a steady, bouncy trot that makes me feel relieved Will isn’t around to watch.
He’d enjoy it far too much, probably, and that’s not at all business-like.
I snort out loud, annoyed at the lasciviousness of my own thoughts. Stay on track, I tell myself. Business. Focus.
Molly, fortunately, is every bit as gentle and obedient and calm as Will said she’d be, following Clint with basically no guidance needed from me.
We ride for another fifteen minutes or so, Clint following a series of landmarks or trail markings that lead across the rolling hills. The longer we ride, the darker the sky gets, and I feel a vague worry about getting caught out here in the rain, but then realize that while it may be miserable, it’s not like my outfit can get any more ruined. So, I carry on and ignore the darkening sky.
After a while, I begin to hear sounds other than Molly’s hoofbeats and the rush of the wind: voices, shouts, laughter, whinnies and snorts and stamping feet and pounding hooves. We crest a rise, and my breath catches—another scene lifted directly from a western film is spread out before me. A massive herd of horses, hundreds of horses in a many-colored swirl of movement like a cloud of primal movement, painting white and black and brown and tan across the verdant green hillside. They seem to soar, flying across a sky that is green rather than blue, on four churning legs rather than two pulsing wings. I watch as Will and a half-dozen other riders spread out in a curved line behind the herd, keeping them moving in the same general direction via shouts and whistles and movement—Will even has an actual bullwhip, which he cracks now and then. They’re guiding the herd toward a makeshift fence, made from split tree halves. The fence itself is, clearly even to me from here, meant to be temporary, and uses the natural bowl where a hillside curves in a U-shape, the tree halves woven in with trees and bracken and bushes. The fence is built in a wide oval, with one section of split rail left on the ground, open as a gate; I see a seventh rider, dismounted with an end of the makeshift gate in hand, ready to swing it closed.
Occasionally, a few horses try to split away from the herd, but one of the riders is always there to cut them off and head them back toward the group and keep them running in the general direction of the makeshift pen. I sit at the top of the rise and watch as Will and his men work as a seamless unit to drive the herd into the pen. My heart is in my throat, caught and thumping. I’m not quite a hundred yards away, but I still recognize Will even at this distance. The way he sits on his horse, the breadth of his shoulders, the easy mastery in every movement—utter, brazen confidence in every action. God, he makes my heart palpitate and my palms sweat and my thighs clench around the saddle.
Down, girl. This is business, and nothing else.
I settle myself; push my errant thoughts and wayward libido way down, under the cold, hard facade of the businesswoman. Ice in my veins, I tell myself. I’m not a woman, when I speak to him—I’m a businessperson. Without need, without desire, without impulse, except for that which drives efficiency and stimulates profit.
Gah, I shouldnothave used the word “stimulation.”
There will be zero stimulation.
No matter how strong his hands. No matter what he smells like. No matter how tight and round his ass is.
I wriggle in the saddle, trying to ease the burn and ache—which is entirely focused in my seat, and not at all in any other part of my nether regions.
Who’s hot and bothered? Not me, and not my horse.
We’re cool. Calm. Collected. In command.
I’m Brooklyn Bellanger, dammit, and I am master of my world and of myself. I need no man, and I am not ruled by desire.
I snort, and Molly answers with her own snort, which earns me a wry grin from Clint. “Sounds like you and her speak the same language.”
I just glare at him. “Thank you for your assistance, Clint.”
And with that, I click my tongue and tell Molly to trot, and feel proud of how easy it seems. Molly angles down the hillside at a trot, and I’m easy in the saddle despite the soreness.
The herd is nearly contained in the pen as I approach, all but a dozen or so horses who seem the most resistant to going in are trying to bolt this way and that, each time meeting a rider who yells and shout and whistles. Molly feels…antsy, under me. Her back seems to arch a little, and her trot speeds up without my urging, and she points herself toward a gap in the line of the other riders, as if automatically knowing where to go.
“No, no, no, Molly, we’re not here to help,” I tell her, trying to tug her reins to get her away from the churning thunder of the last and most stubborn of the herd.
I see Will, and he sees me, and his face is stormy and dark with raw fury, but he has no time for me. His men have gotten all but four horses into the pen, and the man holding the log, which will be the gate, is slowly walking it closed. The last four horses, however, are the smartest and most wily. They spin and stomp, eying each of us in turn, charging forward to test a gap here, a space there. Each time, one of Will’s riders is there to meet the wild horse, driving it back toward the pen.
And now, Molly has included us in this dangerous dance.
Maybe she knows what she’s doing, but I sure as hell don’t.
The leader of these remaining, wayward horses is a huge black with a flying mane and wild white eyes and pawing hooves, all male, all dominant alpha. Snorting, stamping, wheeling, skidding and cutting, seeking an out, determined to escape, uncooperative, formidable and terrifying in his furious display of independence. He turns to face me, and Molly snorts, whinnies, and moves forward. My feet are away from her sides, my thighs gripping, the reins loose, but she’s acting on her own, on instinct and training.
“GET OUT OF THERE, BROOKLYN!” Will shouts. “Get out! Fuckinggo,goddammit!”
I all too eagerly obey, trying to rein Molly to one side as the massive, snorting black demon of a horse charges right at me. Molly refuses to be cowed, however, turning in obedience to my command but still somehow moving forward—she’s angling to cut him off.
“LET HIM GO!” I hear Will shout. “CLOSE THE GATE, GODDAMMIT!!”
Hooves pound, dirt and grass fly.