“YOU need to stop laughing at me!”
Mia glared at her friend, refusing to laugh along with her. They were sitting outside, enjoying the warm air now that the sun had gone down and dusk was settling around them. The pool twinkled as light reflected on it, the darkened fields of the ranch slowly disappearing as night blanketed the sky. Mia reached for the half empty bottle of wine and offered Kat more before pouring her own glass.
“He can’t be that bad. You’re just exaggerating because he stepped on your toes.” Kat ran her hands through long dark hair, scooping it up and twisting it away from her neck.
Mia shook her head. “No, he did more than step on my toes. He made me feel worthless.”
“Honey, there are hundreds of women out there who’d like Sam Mendes to make them feel worthless.”
Kat burst into giggles again, laughing at her own joke, and Mia fought the urge to strangle her. Her friend hadn’t seen how goddamn cocky the man had been, but then she couldn’t exactly disagree. She’d been one of those women until today, harboring a crush on the hot Texas bachelor.
“Just because he’s handsome doesn’t mean I have to like him.”
“So you’ve noticed? How handsome he is, I mean.”
“Why am I friends with you?” Mia glared at her, not about to admit how much she’d thought about him since the one time she’d watched him in the past, before she’d met him. Those dark eyes and honey-laced drawl at his exhibitions had been enough to make her fall for him back then, but not now. “Honestly, I’m not sharing my wine or my pool with you again if you keep sticking up for him.” She wished Kat was wrong, but she was so, so right. She sighed. It had only been a couple of months since she’d returned from overseas, and it was nice to just sit and be with a friend, someone she’d known all her life and who knew her well enough to tease. Even if she was driving her crazy right now. The two closest people to her in her life were Kat and her sister, but with Angelina working up a storm as an attorney in California, it wasn’t like they had much time to talk, let alone hang out in person.
“Come on, I’m only teasing. And besides, if he gets through to the horse, then isn’t this as much about Kimberley as anyone?”
Kat was right. Mia took a slow, tiny sip of her drink as she stared at the pool shimmering under the lights. She missed Kimberley so much. They’d always promised one another that they’d never let their favorite horse be sold if anything ever happened to them. Only neither of them had ever truly expected anything terrible to happen, and yet here she was with her own favorite horse, Indi, safely stabled for the night, and her best friend Kimberley’s stallion behaving like a madman out in the field.
“I miss her so much,” Mia confessed, not bothering to fight the tears that began to pool in her eyes as they talked about the friend they’d lost.
“I know, so do I.”
They sat in silence a while, the mood between them oddly somber where earlier it had been playful. The three had been best friends since elementary school, and Kimberley’s death had been hard.
“So you think I need to give him a chance, is that what you’re saying?” Mia asked.
“I don’t know why you were so prickly in the first place,” Kat said. “Sorry, but it’s true.”
Mia loved Kat because she was always brutally honest with her. She was a straight shooter and she didn’t sugarcoat her words.
“Even if he shuts me out and won’t let me deal with my own horse?”
“If it helps the horse, then yeah. Don’t you want help getting through to him?”
Mia thought about it for a moment. “Fine, I’ll stay out of his way and keep my mouth shut.”
Kat gave her a wicked grin. “You know,” she said, drawing the words out slowly, “it has been a long time since you dated.”
“Oh my god, are you kidding me?” Mia pushed her, wondering if she should push harder and shove her in the pool. “I do not want to discuss my love life right now.” Especially in the same breath as talking about Sam. She wasn’t going to let herself think about him like that, not ever again. “Besides, you have no idea who I’ve been sleeping with. I could have some hot cowboy in my bed waiting for me right now. Maybe I’ve told him to stay quiet while you’re here?”
Kat laughed. “Yeah, but you so don’t. Maybe you should lighten up a little and bat those pretty little lashes at the horseman next time he’s here.”
Mia could have killed her, but instead she took a big sip of wine and got up to put some music on, padding across the concrete. She had homemade pizza in the oven, another bottle of sauvignon blanc chilling in the fridge, and her pretty fairy lights were twinkling all around the outside of the house and down to the pool. It was a beautiful night and she wasn’t about to ruin it by getting all grumpy about Sam arriving on Monday morning.
No matter what Kat had just said, she wasn’t going to let him take over the one thing she was good at. She’d been in charge of all the horses on this property since her eighteenth birthday, when she’d proven herself to her father and both her brothers, Tanner and Cody, that she knew what she was doing. As far as she was concerned, it was going to stay that way, even if it did mean having to beg Sam to let her learn from him and be part of whatever training he had in mind.
Tex was a handful, he always had been, but when he’d been Kimberley’s horse, he hadn’t hated every single human he laid eyes on. It wouldn’t be so bad if she didn’t blame herself for the angry, unpredictable beast he’d turned into.
“I shouldn’t have laughed at you,” Kat said, surprising her. Mia hadn’t realized she’d gotten up, or that she was standing so close.
“Don’t be silly. I can handle it.” Mia walked inside and checked the pizza. She decided it was ready and took it out, pleased with her culinary efforts for the evening.
“You know, if this guy can’t get through to Tex, then no one would blame you for…”
“I’m not giving up on that horse, Kat. Not now, not ever.” She owed it to Kimberley to look after him, and she would find a way to get through to the difficult horse even if it took her years. “When I received that phone call when I was away, that he’d finally been found, it felt like a reason to come home. I want to give him a real chance.”
“Well, let’s get another bottle of wine, stop talking horses, and eat that pizza. I’m starving.”
Mia grabbed her friend and gave her a big hug, holding her tight. “Thank you.”
“For what?” Kat mumbled against her.
“For not giving up on me even when I’m a pain in the ass.”
They both laughed and Mia finally let her go. Things had been rough for a long while now, but she’d always had Kat to make her laugh and get her through the hard times, and she wouldn’t have survived without her friend by her side.
“Just promise me that if he hits on you, you won’t go all mean girl on him again.”
“Kat!” Mia yelled, sliding the pizza expertly onto a plate before she followed her friend out the door.
Kat was holding the bottle of wine she’d retrieved from the fridge and sporting a smile so innocent it was ridiculous.
“I’m just saying. He’s a handsome guy and you’re a gorgeous girl. Sometimes…”
“I know how the world works, Kat. I don’t need the birds and the bees talk, okay?” She grinned. “Right now I think he hates me, but I promise, if he deals with Tex then tries to rip my clothes off and take me to his bed, I won’t say no.”
Kat giggled, and Mia felt like they were teenagers talking about a crush all over again.
“See, it wasn’t that hard to admit he was hot, was it?”
Mia groaned. “Seriously, tell me why you’re my friend again?”
* * *
Sam had his arm slung around his dog as he turned into the River Ranch driveway for the second time. The big, dominant trees waving their limbs above the extravagantly wide driveway still caught his eye, and he admired the pristine timber fences and perfectly mown grass. It was one hell of an entrance.
Earlier in the day, when he’d been sitting out on his porch watching the sun come up, sipping his coffee before going down to the horses to feed out, he’d wondered what the hell he’d agreed to. But something about the stallion had stuck with him, something he couldn’t shrug away, and there’d been a look in Mia Ford’s eyes that told him the horse was special. He’d probably been a jerk to her, but he’d met her type a hundred times over, except for the getting her hands dirty part, although he hadn’t actually seen her do that yet. It wasn’t that he was jealous of the money she’d grown up with—his best friend had his boots firmly planted on the ground, and his family was worth a fortune—but then his friend had forged his own way in the world. He doubted Mia had ever gone a week without using daddy’s credit card.
“We’re here,” Sam muttered to his pooch, raising his eyebrows as he looked at Blue. They’d been glued at the hip since he’d arrived back, and his dog had taken the seat beside him and ridden shotgun the entire way. “How the hell am I so damn good at training horses, but I can’t ever get you trained to sit in the back?”
He scratched Blue’s head and then signaled for the dog to wait in the vehicle. He received a whine in response, but the dog did lie down, head on his paws, looking woefully unimpressed.
“I won’t be long. Let me see if you’re allowed out first, huh?”
Sam crossed the gravel forecourt outside the stable complex and looked around for Mia. She’d said the horses were her domain, but he didn’t see her. He walked over to the stables and smiled when three sets of noses poked out over the wooden half-doors, checking out the stranger. It was one thing he loved about horses, how innately curious they were, and how settled they always seemed to be in his company for some strange reason. Around the stables was immaculate, freshly swept and free of anything out of place. He wondered if Mia kept the place herself, or whether she was just a fussy boss to a poor ranch worker.
He spoke softly to the horses under his breath as he passed and kept walking, out the back, towards where he’d met the stallion the day before. And then he saw her.
Sam moved a little closer to the arena, not wanting to disturb her, but it was obvious it was Mia. Her blonde hair was in a long plait that hung in a straight line down her back, a black velvet helmet shielding her face from him. She was as elegant in the saddle as she was on the ground, and he admired her straight posture and steady hands. He smiled. It was time to see her in action.
He leaned on the fence as she cantered around, moving fast around the arena. Her horse was stunning, and he recognized it as the mare she’d been giving attention to the other day. The horse was unusual looking, with a pure white mane and tail and a warm, rich brown coat. Aside from a tiny star on her forehead, she had no other markings that he could see.
Mia had a course of show jumps set up around the arena, and he was impressed at the height of them. He’d never jumped himself, other than the odd fallen log or fence in his way when he’d been younger and working on ranches, but he knew good style when he saw it.
The horse was compact and much smaller than many of the show jumpers he’d seen before, but her ears pricked and her speed accelerated the moment Mia pointed her toward the jump. He watched as they soared over it, not missing a beat and heading toward the next. He liked the way she rode, was impressed with how soft she was with her hands, not yanking the horse around the course but working with her, using her legs as aides, her straight back showing how confident she was. But he could see they’d started to travel too fast, and the mare had knocked the last two rails of the bigger fences.
Sam ducked through the low timber fence and moved closer to the center of the big arena, never taking his eyes off the duo. The mare glanced at him, but she was loving her work. He could tell that she was a natural and loved jumping as much as her rider seemed to. He wondered who’d planned the arena and surroundings out—it was slightly elevated and it gave an impressive view of the sprawling ranch, endless acres of fields dotted with trees as far as the eyes could see.
“You’re letting her get away on you,” Sam called out, focused on Mia now. “I love that you’re gentle, but you need to be more firm with her when she pulls like that. Sit up tall and force her to go deeper into the fence before taking off.”
He didn’t know if Mia heard him because she never acknowledged him, but he saw that she did ride more aggressively into the next fence and they soared over it. Sam grimaced when they went too fast into the next one though and took a rail. He walked over to collect it and place it back on top, impressed with how perfectly the striped poles had been painted, all red and white like candy canes.
Mia had slowed now, her canter turning into a trot, and he watched as she let the reins slide through her fingers until she was only holding the buckle, before transitioning into a walk. He’d expected a smile, but she looked fierce, and not in a good way.
“She’s a beautiful horse,” Sam called out, wanting to break the ice. He’d been tired and ready to get home the first time he’d met her, and this time he was hoping things wouldn’t be so tense between them.
“I didn’t realize you were a show jumping coach,” she said dryly, riding over to him and halting beside him. She dropped her reins and dismounted, landing beside him with a soft thud.
“I’m not,” he admitted. “But sometime it’s a hell of a lot easier to see the problems on the ground than it is when you’re the one in the saddle.”
“Is that right?” she asked, still looking frosty. “Because until you showed up we hadn’t taken a pole, and I’m not exactly an amateur.”
He shrugged, wondering if he was supposed to know of her show jumping reputation. The truth was, he only followed rodeo and Western riding, which meant he knew very little about her area of interest. “I was only trying to help. The truth is that you’ll never get her clearing fences any higher unless you tweak the way you’re riding her.”
Mia glared at him. “Are you serious? We’ve jumped bigger than this before and won.” She paused, but he could tell she wanted to say something else. “In fact, we regularly win over bigger fences than this. I ride to beat the competition and that’s exactly what we do.”
He hadn’t meant to annoy her, but somehow she looked more pissed than she had when she’d first met him.
“I’m guessing you compete then?” he asked, taking the reins over the horse’s head and holding them for her. She snatched them off him, holding her own horse, and he stepped back to give her some space. “Have you been…”
“Yes, I compete. I thought that was obvious,” she said. “And Indi is my best horse. She might be little but she has a big heart and she never lets me down. We’ve actually just returned from a season in Europe and I have a career as a show jump rider, Sam, so if you’re wondering why you’re managing to annoy me so much treating me like a beginner, that’s why. I compete all show jumping season, and when I’m not competing I’m here training.”
Sam nodded. “Got it.” He should have done some research about his new boss.
“Any other expert comments?” she asked dryly.
“My suggestion was about tweaking the way you ride her, not changing anything dramatic,” Sam said, impressed now that he knew she was obviously good, and serious, about her riding. “She has a lot of guts, but you’re relying on that instead of riding her into the jumps. I bet you ride her differently than you do your others, and I don’t have to know anything about show jumping to help you ride your horse better. My job is to improve the relationship between horse and human, period.”
She looked at him, her anger seeming to slide away and be replaced with something less fiery. “Maybe I do. I’m not sure.”
“My guess is that you ride them more instead of just trusting them, and with this horse? It’s a fine line between you telling her what to do, without interfering with her natural ability.”
She stared at him, and he wondered what the hell she was about to say, she had such a serious look on her face.
“Maybe you can watch me ride again later then,” she said, clucking to Indi as she started to walk off. “So long as you don’t try to tell me how to ride a goddamn jump again.”
Sam followed alongside her, falling into an easy pace and trying not to laugh. “I don’t make a habit of apologizing, but I think I judged you too harshly the other day. You’re a damn good rider, so don’t go taking my tips as criticism.” He was fast realizing he’d underestimated her actual riding talent, and her personality.
Mia stopped walking and he glanced at her. The horse halted beside her.
“Too quick to judge a book by its cover, right?” she asked, looking smug, or maybe she was just surprised by his words and felt the need to say something smart to avoid showing her embarrassment. He didn’t care either way.
“I give praise where it’s due, that’s all. You did good out there, and yeah, maybe I was a bit hasty in my judgment.”
She nodded. “You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I’m not.”
“We all get judged, it’s part of life.”
She sighed, audibly, and he stood back so she could walk Indi into her stall and take her gear off.
“Can you imagine working your ass off all your life to prove yourself, and then all you hear is negative crap about how you’d never have gotten where you were without help from your father?”
He shrugged. “No, but I do know what it’s like to be judged because of who your daddy is. Mine was an alcoholic asshole who failed miserably to look after us when our mama ran away. It’s fair to say he did a really crappy job of it, and I’m damn lucky I didn’t end up tarred by the same brush.” Sam paused, wondering if he should say more and deciding not to. His father was gone now, but he still felt the need to work extra hard to prove that he was nothing like the man who’d raised him.
“Ah, so maybe we do have something in common.”
He liked the sound of her laughter, and how much softer her voice had become. “Tell me, it can’t be all that bad. Living here, having all this. Is it worth being pissed at the world for judging you on this one?”
Mia looked at him over the half-door of the stable, her blue-green eyes meeting his. “Yeah, it is. Because, aside from my first horse and that stallion you’ve come to work, I’ve bought all my show jumpers myself, from my own prize money, and I paid my own damn flights to Europe and worked hard to keep myself over there. I fund my own team of horses, I always have, and I don’t even have a groom so I never have to ask anyone for money. I work as hard as anyone out there on the show jumping circuit, but it doesn’t seem to count for anything. Sometimes I wonder why I’ve always been so stubborn, since people’s opinions of me have never changed. Maybe I should just cash in my trust fund checks?”
Sam was quickly starting to comprehend how wrong he’d been about little miss rich girl in more ways than one, and he liked this side of her. Sure, she was mouthy and quick to judge, but then so had he been, and he appreciated a straight shooter. Maybe they’d both judged one another all wrong.
“No, that’s not right,” he said. “Because you know, and it’s you who matters.”
He listened to her sigh and then looked in, curious about what she was doing. He watched as she brushed her horse down, using a soft body brush over the mare’s sleek dark coat, bending low to follow the grooves of her legs. Sam followed her movements then glanced up, noticed the soft curve of her butt in her skin-tight breeches.
“So what’s our plan with the stallion today?” Mia asked, and Sam stepped back, folding his arms and leaning against the outside wall.
“Well, my plan is to not have a plan,” he said. “I feel my way as I go, and I have no idea how long it’ll take to crack this one.”
Mia had let herself out of the stable, and she looked distracted, her eyebrows drawn together as she stared past him.
“What’s that noise?”
He listened to the howling before grinning. “Oh, that’s my dog. Blue,” he said. “I’d say he’s not so happy that I left him in the truck.”
“You were worried I wouldn’t let you have your dog out? On a ranch?” she laughed. “Funny, you don’t strike me as the type to ask first.”
“What does that mean?” he asked, arms folded as he watched her.
“It means that you’re probably used to doing what you like and asking questions after.”
“You’re now an expert in human behavior?” he asked, trying not to laugh at her.
“Hey, sometimes it’s easy to see faults from standing down here than up there,” she said, repeating his own words back to him and putting the brush in her hand back in the box before walking off.
He’d give her that one. She was fiery all right, and he was starting to think the job here might be more interesting than he’d thought.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To get your poor dog out of there before he dies from lack of oxygen.”
Sam didn’t bother to tell her that he’d left both windows down for air to get through, because he was fairly certain she was trying to rub him up the wrong way just for the hell of it. And she was doing a damn fine job of it, only he was also certain that she’d have no idea how much he was enjoying it. It’d been a long time since anyone had been outright rude to him or spoken their mind. It was one of the things that frustrated him the most right now about his career. He didn’t want to be surrounded by yes people so often, people who liked to stroke egos and make others feel more important than they were. He liked real, and he liked sassy, and there was one particular little cowgirl who was trying very hard to get on his nerves, and was doing the exact opposite right now.
He glared at his dog when he saw him leaning into Mia, gazing up at her as if she was the love of his life. She was making such a fuss of him the dog was as good as mesmerized. Sam whistled and saw Blue’s ears prick, but he didn’t move, loving the attention too much to bother listening to his master.
“Damn traitor,” Sam muttered, half laughing and deciding to head down to the stallion on his own.
He had to admit, being petted by Mia wouldn’t exactly be torture, but he still expected more loyalty from the dog. He’d rescued him from the side of the road, chained up, skinny as a bag of bones and with the biggest brown eyes Sam had ever seen. He’d been working a new job and driven past the dog maybe half a dozen times, and on the day he finished up on the ranch, a two-hour drive from his home, he’d pulled over, broken the malnourished dog free, and taken him with him. And the pooch had been by his side almost every day since.
A wet nose touched his hand and Sam looked down, wanting to growl at the dog for his disloyalty but giving him a pat on the head instead. He had his tongue lolling out, big grin on his face like he was the happiest damn dog in the world.
“Hey, wait up!” Mia called out.
“Not my fault you’re too slow to keep up,” he shot back.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I was only trying to rescue your dog!”
Sam chuckled. “And I’m here to do a job. Keep up if you can.”
He strode ahead, not slowing for her, and when he stopped outside the stallion’s pasture he turned and noticed Mia, red-faced and breathing hard from running after him. He smiled when she blew a stray piece of hair from her face, the escaped tendrils wisping around her cheeks.
“What are you going to do first?” Mia asked.
“First?” Sam repeated, elbows to the timber, leaning low and meeting her gaze when he looked sideways at her. “First you’re going to tell me what the hell happened to this stallion, and how in god’s name you ended up with him.”