CHAPTER THREE
Sidney slipped into her robe, padded down the concrete center aisle of the quiet barn, and headed back to her room. An orange tabby cat lay sprawled across a hay bale, lazily flicking its tail. All the horses were out in their pastures tonight, except Eli. He had a run off the backside of his stall, but she hadn’t had time to find him a turnout paddock so he could be out with the other horses.
She stopped at his stall and scratched his soft nose through the bars. Unimpressed, he pawed at the wooden door.
“Tomorrow,” she told him. “I promise you can run your heart out.”
He thunked his hoof against the stall door again and pulled a hard, angry bite of hay from his hay bag.
She shuffled past and made it to her room before hearing the rattle of metal behind her. “Don’t even think about it,” she called out, but even as she said it, the latch on the stall door clicked free. This was a relatively new barn. The latches were supposed to be horse-proof.
Horse-proof and Eli-proof were not the same thing. Eli could have given Houdini pointers.
Her horse wedged his nose between the bars on the door until he could slide it open enough to stick his head through the opening and slide the door back. He squeezed into the aisle and walked over to her, the clomping of his hooves echoing through the building.
The front barn doors were open. If he went through, he could potentially find his way to thousands of acres of open range, because, just like how the latches on the stall doors were nothing more than an interesting puzzle for him to figure out, fences were just an obstacle course.
Teaching him how to jump had seemed like a good idea at the time.
She wasn’t worried that he would run off. Normally he was perfectly happy with his pasture mates, but when he decided he wanted to be with her, short of putting him in a straightjacket, there was very little she could do to stop him.
He lowered his big, blocky head and sniffed the pockets of her robe. Shook his head as if he couldn’t believe she didn’t have any treats, reached out, and sniffed again. Then he raised his head and stared at her, like he was trying to hypnotize her or do the Vulcan mind meld without hands.
Which was nonsense. Star Trek was way before his time.
Not that she had any delusions he wanted to know what she thought. He only aimed to implant one word into her brain—treat.
She found a treat. After he’d eaten it, he blinked and blinked at her, then sighed and looked over his shoulder as if looking for another horse to confirm how dense his person was.
“Okay, okay, you win,” she said. “Wait here while I get dressed.”
She came out in her jeans, boots, and a hoodie, sans bra—it had been a long day and she wasn’t putting it back on for her horse—glad the hoodie was big enough to hide the important bits.
She got another treat from the feed room, then walked over to the hay bale and straddled the cat with her feet. She looked back at Eli. He was still standing by her door, his bottom lip hanging loose.
“You coming or are you sleeping?”
Blinking, he blew out a sigh, stepped over to her, and stretched his front legs out to lower himself a few inches. She grabbed a fistful of mane, swung her right leg back and forth a couple times, and then threw it over the top of his back. He straightened after she settled, then reached his head around for another treat.
She gently squeezed with her calves and he started forward. “It’s late, so we’ll take a quick spin around the property, then I’m going to bed.”
He didn’t bother replying.
They stepped out into the night. The chill was heavy in the air, but Eli beneath her was all the heating she needed. The moon was up and almost full. With her legs, she guided him between the paddocks and over to the holding area for the mustangs, and then she relaxed into the gentle sway of her horse’s body.
All the horses in the mustang pen ran to the other side when she approached, except the donkey. He trotted over to them and stuck his nose through the bars to sniff Eli. They blew into each other’s noses the way they do—the equine version of sniffing butts.
So much more civilized.
The donkey nipped at Eli. Eli nipped back. Then they stared at each other until one of them won, and then the donkey dropped his head and started grazing again.
Eli turned to go without any prompting, bringing her by the trailers and her dead truck, down past the hay barn, then back up past the big house. The back porch light was on, but the rest of the house was dark.
They ambled by, heading down the two-track dirt road toward the cabins. She passed the empty foundations with two huge piles of lumber, which must have been the delivery Bryan had mentioned that morning.
She smelled smoke in the air. The scent grew stronger the farther down the road they went. Then they came over a rise and she caught sight of the campfire in front of one of the cabins. Eli headed in that direction, because where there were people, there were treats.
“Pull up a log,” Bryan said as she got closer.
She just wanted to get Eli back to the barn and settled, and then crawl between the sheets. She heard laughter, and two men walked up out of the shadows behind her. One was Santos.
“Señorita!” Santos called out. “Come have a cerveza.”
“It’s kinda late.”
“Never that late,” the other man said. He was tall and lean and came at her with his hand outstretched. “Alby, ma’am.”
“Sidney,” she said taking his hand.
“I won’t let ’em get outta line,” Alby said with a broad grin on his face. His eyes sparkled in the firelight and his blond whiskers practically glowed.
“One beer,” Bryan said as he popped the top on a fresh can and held it out to her. The plop-fizz made her mouth water.
Santos reached out to tap Eli lightly on the butt to encourage him forward, but Eli was already moving.
Eli loved his beer. Maybe as much as Bryan did.
She swung off her horse and managed to grab the beer before Eli could. She poured a taste into her cupped hand and offered it to him. After he’d slurped it up, she sent him a few feet away, wiping her slobbery hand on her jeans as he started munching on the grass.
Bryan was sitting on the ground, his back against a large log, his legs stretched out before him, his prosthetic propped up beside him. She took an empty spot next to him. Santos and Alby opened their beers and settled on the second of four logs surrounding the fire. The flames burned high, but the cool air at her back kept her from overheating.
“He’s not gonna run off?” Alby tipped his can toward Eli.
Sidney shook her head as she swallowed the cold brew. The first sip out of the can was always the best. Eli had better appreciate that she’d given it to him. Though the second sip wasn’t so shabby either.
“You boys run into any trouble out there today?” Bryan asked Alby and Santos.
“Saw something a little loco,” Santos said. “Up by that box canyon. Three sets of tracks in the mud by the creek. Two shod, one not.”
“Two riders and a donkey, I reckon, by the size and shape of the bare hooves,” Alby said. “Ain’t no one been up that way since before the rains last week. Least ways not from the S.”
The S being the Lazy S ranch, Sidney assumed. “Could it have been someone from one of the neighboring ranches?”
Alby shrugged. “Eh, maybe, but don’t see no reason why they’d be hauling a pack animal with ’em.
“See anything else?” Bryan polished off what looked like his fourth can, according to the pile of empties by the cooler, and helped himself to another.
Sidney wasn’t even a third of the way done with her first one, which included what she’d given Eli.
She tried not to judge. This was his off time, after all. Wasn’t any of her business. Her business was the new mustangs, and her new job. Nothing else.
“We didn’t see nada,” Santos said. “No trash, no campfires, no cut fences.”
“Makes my skin crawl,” Alby said. “After what happened two years ago, I don’t like seein’ evidence of nobody on this land ’cept us.”
“What happened?” Sidney asked as she sunk down onto the ground so she could lie back against the log and rest her head. “This what the sheriff was talking about this morning?”
Both Santos and Alby’s faces hardened and the men looked to Bryan. Sidney did also. He drew in a deep breath and blew it out. Then he told her about some trouble on the Lazy S that involved revenge on the part of the previous foreman’s ex-wife and the old sheriff who had loved and enabled her. Thanks to Mac and Bryan, and their military training, it had ended with only one person wounded and several sitting out the next few years in jail.
“Sounds like everyone is lucky to be alive.” Sidney shivered. “So, that’s how you know Mac? You two served together?”
“Yep,” Bryan said, too quick, too casual, too nonchalant. He rubbed at the end of his stump. There was a whole lot more to the story about how he’d lost his leg, but she’d promised herself she wouldn’t pry.
Everything got quiet and awkward. Bryan’s gaze locked on the fire. Alby stared down at his beer. Santos eyed the thick blanket of stars above and said. “Best be turning in, amigos. See you mañana.”
Alby jumped at the opportunity to leave. “Wait up.”
Bryan half grunted a reply.
“Good night,” Sidney called out after them.
The wind shifted, swirling smoke in their direction. The fire now burned low, so the smoke wasn’t bad enough to make her move. Eli edged closer, nosed through Bryan’s empties, then stretched his neck out and scruffed Bryan’s short hair with his lips. Eli stood there with his face a few inches from Bryan’s cheek. The damn horse always knew when someone was upset.
The fact that the man smelled like a microbrewery probably didn’t hurt any either.
“Guess I’m calling it a night too.” Sidney finished off the last of her beer and stood. Already feeling a slight buzz. As small as she was, she made for a cheap date alcohol-wise. “You good?” When he didn’t answer, she nudged him in the thigh with the toe of her boot. “Hey, you all right?”
He blinked as if bringing her into focus. “Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” If he’d been a dog, his lip might have raised in a half snarl.
She raised her hands, taking a step back.
“Sorry.” He blew out a breath and pushed himself up, balancing on the one leg. “I’m good. You need a leg up, or are you walking back to the barn?”
“I’ve got it,” she said.
She clucked to Eli and when he stepped over to her, she tapped him on his front knee with the edge of her boot. He folded his legs beneath him until he was lying on his chest. She grabbed a handful of mane, straddled him, and clucked again for him to rise.
“Impressive.”
“He’s that nerdy kid in elementary school who skips grades and graduates with a PhD before he’s twenty with an evil plot to take over the world.”
Bryan’s lips twitched. About as much of a smile as she would get tonight. “Not your average horse.”
“Not even close.” She gave Eli a squeeze and he stepped forward. “G’night.”
“Yeah,” he said, but he didn’t look her in the eye when he said it. Like good nights were elusive for him.
“Those tracks Santos and Alby saw, should I be concerned?”
She waited for him to dismiss her fears. Her stomach flopped when he took a beat too long to say, “I doubt we have anything to worry about.”
* * * *
Lucky. That’s how Sidney would describe landing a job training horses. And the facility. Holy cowboys. What the Lazy S had built was ideal for the mustangs. A large paddock with a gate leading into a fifty-foot-round pen, both with six-foot-high fencing to keep the wild horses from jumping out if they got spooked. Which was easy for them to do before they learned to trust.
Around midday, Sidney headed over to get Eli so he could help her cut the last mustang from the herd and get it into the round pen for its first lesson.
Eli must have been content with the bag full of hay and the trough of water beneath a man-made shelter, because he hadn’t bothered untying himself to find something better.
She freed him, tightened the cinch, and climbed into the saddle. She’d saved the buckskin mustang for last. The one the burro had attached itself to. The one for whom the burro had made her job difficult.
Once inside the mustang paddock, she cut the buckskin from the rest of the herd, but getting it through the other gate and into the round pen without the donkey was impossible. After wasting fifteen minutes trying to separate the two of them, she finally drove them both into the round pen and slammed the gate closed.
She’d worked two horses together in a round pen before, but not a horse and a donkey—both of which were wild. She would have to be extra vigilant to stay out of striking distance.
After returning Eli to his hay, she picked up her lunge whip and climbed over the top of the pen. The horse was running the perimeter, trying to find a way back to the rest of the herd. The burro tried to keep up.
By the time they’d finished their lesson she’d panted and sweated as much as the buckskin and the burro.
Of all the horses she’d worked that morning, the buckskin was the wariest. Sidney smiled as she pulled her Astros baseball cap off and wiped the sweat from her brow, determination running thicker than blood through her veins. This guy was going to make her earn his trust and earn her keep. Bring it on.
If she’d wanted easy, she’d have married a prince.
When the buckskin came toward the center, toward her, she backed away a few more steps, standing relaxed, relieving the pressure with her calm body language. The horse and donkey stood still, staring at her, their sides heaving, their nostrils flaring, but the buckskin was licking his lips. The first sign she’d seen of him relaxing.
She waited until their breathing slowed, teaching them that if they looked at her, they would get rewarded with no pressure. It was a start. Teeny tiny, but a start.
The buckskin raised his head and sniffed the air seconds before boots scuffed in the dirt behind her.
“Hey.”
She recognized Bryan’s deep timbre without looking over her shoulder.
“Just finishing up. Man the gate so I can get them back into the paddock.”
He walked around the pen, four large, wary brown eyes watching. When the gate slid open, the buckskin took one moment to calculate the risk of running past Bryan with the reward of being back with his herd. The herd won.
The burro followed at a walk. He stopped at the gate. Bryan pulled a treat from his pocket and held it out. The burro sniffed the air, then he eased a couple of steps forward, then another and another, and giraffed his neck all the way out, his body and legs leaning back, ready to flee.
Donkey stole the treat then disappeared through the gate.
“He likes you.” Sidney closed the gate. “I couldn’t get within twenty-five feet of him.”
“Maybe it’s my hat he doesn’t like then.” He removed his hat and messed with it again. He’d managed to get the shape closer to normal, and as tall as he was, the hoofprint on top of the brim was hardly noticeable. At least for her.
“Maybe.” She pointed to the extra water bottle in the crook of his arm. “Please say that’s for me.”
He looked around like he didn’t want anyone to overhear. “It’s vodka.”
“V-vodka? It’s the middle of the freaking day? What if Mac catches you? Or Dale or Lottie? Or you fall off the ladder and break your neck or you get someone else hurt or—”
“Take a breath, Irish.”
She swallowed her tirade and glanced around them, hoping no one had seen, no one had heard. Her breath came in short, rapid inhalations. Her heart raced and blood swirled in her ears, making sounds dull and far away, and she wasn’t even the one drinking on the job. She bent over, her hands on her knees, her head lowered to keep her from passing out.
Too late. Stars shot across her vision, bright volleys and strobe flashes. She barely felt it when she plowed head first into the sand.
When she came to, Bryan was kneeling beside her, wiping the sand off her face and shading her with his hat.
“What the hell?” he asked.
She blinked him into focus.
“You keep sleeping on the job and I’m gonna have to report it to Mac.”
“You’re an ass,” she said, but it made him smile.
She tried to sit up, but her hand slid out from beneath her in the deep sand. He grabbed her beneath her arms and sat her up, leaning her against one of the rails.
“Here, drink this.” He handed her the bottle.
She eyed him.
“It’s water. Promise.”
She’d panicked. Over a bottle of water. A joke. Idiot.
He unscrewed the lid and held the bottle to her lips, tilting it up for her to drink. She guzzled half the bottle. Feeling her strength return, she took the bottle from him and scooted herself up higher.
“Sorry,” she said. “I must have gotten a little dehydrated. Dry mountain air and all.”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit what?”
“You didn’t pass out because you were dehydrated,” he said.
“You suddenly an expert on my body?”
He waited a beat before answering. She expected some kind of smart-ass remark, but his eyes never left hers. Then his expression shifted, softened. “No. But I’m an expert on panic attacks, on PTSD, on things that go bump in the night.” His voice was quiet, sincere, unexpected.
“I don’t have PTSD.”
“Or dehydration.” He settled against the rails beside her. “But that was one fucker of a panic attack.”
She pulled another long, defiant swallow from the bottle.
“What gives?” he asked.
Laughter escaped her, incredulous and full of derision. “Seriously? Mister goes silent and deep like a nuclear sub when asked about his leg, his service, then expects me to take my own knife and gut myself? Fat freaking chance.”
He nodded once at that, leaned back, rested his head on the rail, and settled his hat low on his head, like he was shading his eyes from the sun and was about to take a nap, though his body vibrated with tension like a support wire on a suspension bridge. At the base of his neck, his pulse thrummed.
“I was stationed in Fallujah, Iraq. Camp Baharia.”
She leaned nearer to hear him better.
“A big, fat, fucker of a boil on the hairy ass of the world. It was a day like every other day, hot enough to fry your brain in your head, sand whipping and grinding into sweaty cracks and crevices you didn’t even know you had.”
She edged closer still, afraid if she moved too fast, he’d realize what he was revealing and stop talking.
“Went to a briefing that morning with my commander, my CO, two other enlisted, and a trusted Iraqi informant the US had been working with for over a year. We were gathering intel on a safe house where the insurgents had some of their high-level leaders stashed. Mac was running late and my CO was about to lose his shit.”
He let out a short, strangled laugh and tilted his head to look at her. “My CO was always losing his shit.
“And then…” Bryan’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down and his jaw muscles contracted as he struggled to maintain his composure. “And then…nothing.”
Bryan gripped his knee above the prosthetic. Sidney reached over, lacing their fingers together. His hand curved and held her fingers tight. He felt so strong, so alive.
She knew how the story ended, knew he’d survived, knew he’d lost his leg. Still, her chest tightened and her gut knotted. She didn’t know if she really wanted to hear this, the reality of it, the pain of it, but she wouldn’t stop him.
“Rahim stripped my CO’s weapon from his holster and blew his brains out.” He scrubbed at his face with his free hand. “Brains, blood, bone splattered my clothes, my face, in my mouth. I raised my weapon, but he was already firing on me, on the others in the tent. I took one in the leg, one through the armhole of my body armor.
“I was still moving so he aimed the gun at my head. Mac came in.” Bryan leveled his hat, his sight landing thousands of miles away in the desert of a hostile country. “She was shot, but still managed to take him out. I owe her my life.”
Sidney didn’t know what to say. She barely knew him, yet he’d trusted her with his story, with the worst moment of his life. It humbled her. In comparison, her troubles with her parents seemed so insignificant.
At the thought of telling him about her panic attacks, about something so personal, her pulse pounded. She took a shallow breath. “My dad—”
“Shhh.” His grip on her hand had eased, but he didn’t let go.
“You don’t want to hear—”
“Yeah, but not like this,” he said. “This isn’t some kind of I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours.”
Because the lump of relief in her throat was too huge to talk around, Sidney managed a half smile in thanks. The lasso constricting her chest eased and her blood pressure dipped out of the yellow zone. She swallowed the last of the water then crushed the bottle in her hand.
A truck pulled up near the big house, the two front doors opening and thunking closed. Bryan stood, pulled her up, finally releasing her hand.
She wanted his hand back. Crazy. She didn’t even know him, but even while her head warned her about his drinking, her heart stuffed cotton in its ears and refused to listen.
“That’s Hank with Mac,” he said as a man and Mac walked their way.
“Was Mac upset about the burro?”
“I haven’t told her yet.”