Page 45 of Cowboy in Colorado
“Same as trotting. Click your tongue and tell her what you want.”
I do so, and the surge into a canter is, as he warned, jolting. It takes far more work to find the rhythm and the balance, and I’m nowhere near as steady or sure in my seat, but the thrill is exhilarating and the wind feels good in my face, if not on the cold wet clothing I’m wearing.
I nearly fall several times, especially when Molly unexpectedly veers of her own accord around a seemingly innocuous patch of grass, but when we’re past it and I regain my seat, I see a pair of reptile eyes watching me from the patch of grass. We ride for a long time at that pace, until Clint slows his horse and I do the same. We’re at a stream running merrily through the grass, and Clint gets down, lets his horse drink, and I follow suit.
“Gotta give ’em a good drink and a rest, and then we can head on out again. Walk and trot from here on out, though.” He gestures in the direction we’ve been going. “Another hour or so, I figure, and you’ll be back at the Big House.”
“And then you have to get back to Alpha Camp, and the herd you guys are working on?” I say.
He nods. “Yep. The herd is pretty much culled, but we’re gonna go through them again, and then run them down to Charlie, where Tanner and his boys will start breaking them.”
“So you had to ride across the ranch to get me, and now back across it to deliver me back to the Big House, and thenbackacross it again to get back to work?”
Clint nods. “Yep, that’s about it.”
“All to do Will’s dirty work for his cowardly ass.” I shake my head. “And the Big House is straight this way?”
He frowns at me. “Ain’t doing nobody’s dirty work, Miss Brooklyn. We lost a whole day on that storm, and he had to check the other herds, so he couldn’t spare the time.”
“I can make my way back alone, Clint. You can go about your business.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, thank you, ma’am. I’ll see you all the way back. You could fall and hurt yourself, and have no one to help you.”
I sigh. “You’re too good a man, Clint.”
He spits, laughs. “Nah.” He’s quiet a while, and the only sounds are the drinking of the horses and the chuckle of the stream, and the twitter and singing of birds, and the wind. “He’s a good man, Miss Brooklyn. Never seen him this upset before, so don’t take it personal.”
“But that’s just it, Clint. He’s not taking it personally enough. I wasn’t asking for…” I trail off. “He ran off like a scared dog, tail between his legs. He’s a good man among men, maybe, but he’s not so great from where I’m standing.”
Clint sighs. “I’ve worked for the Auden family my whole life, and so did my dad. Grew up with Will, and I’m closer to him than the others. He’s never let a woman settle him down, though plenty have tried.”
“I wasn’t trying, and I’m not going to. Not now, not ever. I didn’t want to. But he owed me more than to just…vanish in the middle of the night, leaving me with wet clothes, no horse, and no clue how to get home, much less breakfast or even fucking coffee.”
Clint rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, that wasn’t his best move.” He tugs his horse back from the stream when it’s done drinking, and mounts up; I follow suit, and we move across the stream, walking our horses. “I won’t defend that decision, but I’ll just say that it’s not like him, not at all.”
I don’t answer that, but my mind is whirling. What happened last nightwasscary. I’m freaked out myself by what happened, and if he hadn’t left, god knows how the situation would have devolved. We would have had sex again, for sure, and that would have confused things even more…
I don’t dare dwell on the sex—it’s far too much to sort through here and now, and even thinking about sex with Will has me feeling unsettled and squirmy.
When Clint trots his horse, I follow his lead, and we spend the next hour trotting for a while, and then walking a while, and eventually I start to recognize some of the landscape. A fence line comes into view, with a dirt road on the other side, the hills rising and falling with familiar rhythm—the approach to the Big House.
Sure enough, within another ten minutes, the house and the massive barn rise from the horizon, and grow larger as we approach.
When we’re at the crest of the last hill before the descent into the valley where the house and barn are, I rein Molly to a stop. “I’m good from here, Clint. Thank you—for everything.”
He nods. “You’re a hell of a woman, Miss Brooklyn. Don’t know many who could get through what you’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours.” He scrapes his hat off his head and rubs his black hair till it stands on end. “Natural with a horse, too. That business with Demon was the damndest thing I ever seen. Even I’m scared of that big ol’ brute.” Another pause. “Just so you know, next time I see Will, I’m gonna tell him I think he’s a damned fool.”
I shake my head. “The only fool in this situation is me—for ever coming here.”
“All the same, I’m going to tell him.” He replaces his hat, lifts his chin at me, and pulls his horse around. “Best of luck to you, Miss Brooklyn.”
“You too, Clint.” I wave at him, and then trot Molly back down the hill toward the barn.
When I get there, Theo is standing in the open stable doors, wearing a chagrined expression.
“Look, about Tinkerbell,” she starts.
I slide off Molly and hand the reins to Theo. “Don’t.” I have no more kindness in me, at the moment. “That was a dirty trick, and you’re lucky I wasn’t hurt or killed. Your family would have been sued into poverty if that had happened, liability waiver or no.”