Page 4 of His Wilde Little (Saddle Up #2)

I was so used to being given work and nobody interrupted me, but it seemed like everyone wanted to talk to me here.

I got that this wasn’t like it was in the South, these people were different, and for starters, they didn’t have any cows to herd.

It made calling myself a cowboy a little silly, and we were so far away from the Saddle Up event in Texas that I wasn’t even going to begin with the logistical nightmare I knew was going to be posed to me soon.

Tom, the ranch owner was firm on his ideas of what he wanted to happen.

He wanted to bring horses back and he wanted this place to be like the place it was when he was growing up.

I didn’t know what any of that was, but I didn’t question it.

I wasn’t even questioning it now when he told me that there were three horses instead of the one.

At the guesthouse, Tom stood with his hat in hand and a wry smile on his face. “It was thrown on us as well,” he said. “I hope you can handle three horses.”

I nodded. “You wanna come in?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “My daughter already beat me with her words, so I expect the same from you.”

“With all due respect, sir, you are my boss, and I will do nothing like that,” I said as we walked into the small lounge that had been untouched since I arrived, only for a brief moment where I sat and found it was a little too comfortable.

“Ok,” he said, sitting and sinking slightly into the leather sofa. I stayed stood. I’d gotten so used to thin mattresses and hard chairs that anything softer made me feel like I was going to shit myself and be covered in dookie.

“I would need some assistance,” I said.

“Jace hates horses, and Olivia is more business focused,” he said. “I would help, but I’ve got this sore back. I haven’t been able to ride a horse in years.”

Nodding, I didn’t want to come across as ungrateful for the job, but three horses that I didn’t know what condition they were in; it was going to be a challenge. “Perhaps you could see if Jace is willing to overcome those fears,” I said.

He nodded. “I will see. And the other good news is, I will compensate you further for the extra work,” he said. “So, if it’s about money, know you’ll get what you deserve.”

It definitely wasn’t about the money. “And when do they arrive?”

“Two days,” he said. “The government have them with a veterinarian and checking their medical records before they come over here. Two male and one female. Apparently the two male horses are in bad shape, but I believe you could nurture them back to full health.”

I nodded, a continuous bob. “I can,” I told him. “And I will, but they will need round the clock care.”

“If there’s anything you need, we’ve got a sizeable grant to help,” he said, standing again, and almost struggling to find his footing on both of his feet.

“Also, Martha wanted to extend an invite for dinner,” he said.

“I know you told Jace you like to keep things separated, but I don’t think a dinner will hurt. ”

If I accepted this now, then it would be a slippery slope into more dinners. “It’s not something I think I want to get into,” I said. “I need to get into my own schedule, but I thank you ever so much for even extending the invite.”

“Ok, well, I will talk to Jace about helping with the horses when they arrive,” he said. “And I’m sure he’ll be happy to help. Especially if it’s just to help feed and clean them.”

“That would be great, I can get them exercising, fit and strong on my own, trust me, but with three, I’ll need a hand with the maintenance.” I also believed Jace had a way with animals, and I hadn’t seen that with anyone else yet.

Once Tom left, I heated up some soup and ate it with some of the bread rolls I’d bought. It was going to be a different pace of living here, I could tell that much. The wind blew in different ways, and it carried a distinct smell with it. Albeit a nice smell.

That night, I prepared my clothes for the following day, and I read a couple chapters of one of the gay romance novels I was reading on my Kindle.

I kept it bound in this inconspicuous leather wrap that people assumed was a large wallet.

Much like myself, I kept it all hidden. I read my romances to feel the open emotions spread throughout, knowing I was far from those people, but in the same vein, I felt them.

Early mornings meant I was up, showered, and pounding back a cup of bitter black coffee before the sun had chance to break through the surrounding mountains. I think I’d even made it out of the house before Jace, the self-confessed early riser of the family.

My first stop was seeing the mare in the stable. She stood on shaky legs to greet me in her stall. She shook the hay off her body and then bowed her head to me. I gave her a stoke, all the way to ruffle through her hair.

“I think we should get you out on the grass,” I said. “You’re losing a lot of muscle there.”

She let out a small whine and a neigh.

“Ok, ok, I’ll get you a treat,” I told her.

In the stable there was a small box on the side of the wall with peppermint canes and a bag of sunflower seeds. I grabbed one of the candy canes and approached her with it. She was immediately filled with excitement, neighing and wagging her head out of her stall.

“Good girl,” I said, feeding it to her and stroking her face.

It felt like I was talking to her for ages. There was never an explanation as to why I felt horses could talk to me, and they definitely didn’t come with voices, it was a look in their eye, or the way they lit up around me. I just knew what they were trying to say.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Jace said, startling me from the door into the stables. “I usually come by, or my mom and Diane actually come by, feed her, take her on a walk around, let her do her business. You know.”

“After what you told me, I’m surprised you came by here first thing,” I said.

He tipped his Stetson, hiding his face, but beneath it, there was a smile.

“Go on,” I said. “What do you want to tell me?”

“My dad mentioned you wanted my help yesterday.” And there it was. “Olivia is still irate about throwing two extra horses into the mix, but apparently, since we reached some type of threshold for financial aid, vet bills and such aren’t going to weigh on the ranch’s books.”

“If you want to overcome that fear of horses, I can definitely help,” I told him.

“It’s not a fear, it’s just a—”

“Whatever it is, a real cowboy knows how to speak to a horse, and he also knows how to ride on,” I said.

“Mary hasn’t been ridden in a long time,” he said, shaking his head as he continued to approach me. “And while I haven’t ridden a horse before, I’ll help with getting the horses fed and cleaned, but I’m drawing the line there.”

I nodded. “That’s absolutely fine. As long as you know, it might keep you up all night.”

“Are you trying to convince me not to help?”

That wasn’t the case at all. I laughed. “You’re a hoot.”

“Speaking of helping, are you coming on the morning rounds? We’ve got eggs to collect, goats to milk, and feed to spread.”

“Absolutely. I’m ready to get down and dirty.” I lifted a leg and slapped at the side of my boots. “But if those alpacas start spittin’ again, I’ll need to have serious words with them.”

Milking animals was never something I’d done before; it was a little too intimate for me. I didn’t mind helping see new life into the world, especially foals, but squeezing on those fleshy nipples was something else entirely.

Jace made it fun, and almost a competition. “You take those, I’ll take these. Whoever gets the least out of them has to transport it down to processing.”

“What’s so bad about processing?”

He just laughed.

Touring around the ranch had been a scratch the surface type of deal.

I hadn’t been to the milk or cheese processing area which was behind the giftshop.

I also hadn’t stepped foot in their either.

And since I didn’t manage to fill my bucket quite as much as Jace, it fell to me to transport them down.

“I guess I’ve had more practice,” he said.

“Sometimes I think that type of hand motion comes naturally to people,” I said with a smile.

He gasped. “Are you throwing shade?”

“Uh. I don’t—no, I don’t think so. It’s pretty overcast, so, maybe.”

He laughed so much, I wondered if he was going to fall to the ground and begin pounding fists into the dirt. “Ok, so enjoy taking these.”

“Is the factory just open?”

His brow twitched. “Balls. I guess I’ve to come and open it then.”

Transporting the metal buckets with their lids, we had a small cart. I hauled it along behind us as we walked past the alpacas who came running up to the fence, ready to strike, mainly me. Their eyes and pursed mouths, ready to shoot with precision. Thankfully, they didn’t.

“They’ll get used to you,” Jace said. “Plus, once you begin feeding them by hand, they’ll know you’re a friend.”

“That all depends on if I want to be their friend,” I grumbled. “The goats, I can deal with, they’re small creatures. And their little head rams are like one of those muscle massages, you know, the hard ones that beat sore muscles.”

“What? They beat the muscles? Not how I’d take a massage.”

At the building, I could understand why Jace hated it. The place had a pungent smell to it, which was just what cheese smelled like. I didn’t quite mind it, I’d smelled much worse, especially around sick horses.

Jace kept a healthy distance from the building as I was forced to navigate the inside of the factory myself. It was all pretty straightforward with a chilled room for the milk awaiting the pasteurization. I didn’t know that, but the signposts said it was.

I spent about five minutes looking around, and seeing all the information posters dotted around on the walls.

Jace was outside talking the alpacas that had approached the fencing. “I’ll feed you in a second, and don’t spit at our new friend. He’s just trying to do his job you know, plus, I think he might even help us get new alpaca friends.”

“I will,” I asked, this time startling him.

“Uh, yeah, when we use the money, we make from the horses at the livestock show, we can bid higher on the alpacas,” he said, rolling his eyes as if it was the most obvious idea in the entire world, and maybe it was.

“Then that give you more reason to work with me,” I told him.

“Maybe it does,” he said. “And maybe my dad already promised me if I helped you, we’d get more alpacas.”

Now it was beginning to make a lot more sense.

He’d been coerced into helping. I didn’t blame him, he was probably one day going to inherit this place, and I’d seen firsthand how bratty some kids could be when it came to getting what they wanted.

But I might not have branded Jace with that same bratty brush, he was actually putting in the work.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” he said, clapping his hands together. “First up, the coop. I saw a couple of the hens out and around annoying the rabbits, so fingers crossed they’ve laid a whole bunch of eggs for us to collect.”

Another thing I wasn’t used to but found surprisingly fun. I was definitely going to enjoy getting used to it.

Jace had all these fun facts about all the different hens, and I couldn’t tell any of them apart from each other.

He’d also called out to a couple of the elusive barn cats that would apparently patrol the surrounding areas at night and keep wild animals away.

At first, I thought he was describing panthers of cheetah, you know, big cats.

And when they came out of hiding, two giant black Maine coons.

They looked like small beasts; I’d give them that.

They approached Jace, purring up around his legs.

“These are Raphael and Donatella,” he said. “After the Ninja Turtles, except Donatella is the female version.”

“Oh. And they’re not vicious, it seems.”

He laughed. “Oh, they’ve got claws. And they are brother and sister, both of them fixed, which is an awful way of putting it, but they cannot you know, breed.”

I almost went to kneel, but realized underfoot was all the chicken poop. In a slight squat, I reached out and stroked one of them, their fur was incredibly soft. Playing with it between my fingers, I found myself unable to stop smiling.

“Just don’t go for their belly,” he said.

“Why not?” And my hand slipped around the side to see before he could answer. The cat answered for him, swiping a claw at my leg before both of them skittered back off into the barn.

Jace laughed. “They don’t like it,” he continued to giggle.

“And how do they interact with people at the petting zoo?”

“Oh, they don’t come out. They’re rarely seen, so count yourself lucky,” he told me. “Anyway, back to the coop. These eggs are not going to collect themselves.”

“Right.” It was reciprocal. As long as I got down and dirty with touching freshly laid eggs, he’d help me with the horses. And I was going to need it. That was for sure.