River's End (River's End Series, #1) (7 page)

Jack rubbed his neck. “I thought about it. But no. Besides, that’s not what I meant. Today, I heard her screaming. Like terrified screaming, not kidding around screaming. When I got to the yard, that little shit, Chance, had his own sister pinned to the ground, and was rubbing a snake all over her. She was terrified of the snake. It was just a blue racer, but she didn’t know that. She was really afraid, Ian. He bruised up her wrist. Never seen anything like that in my life.”

Ian sat back on a sawhorse, and crossed his arms over his chest. He was quiet a long while. Finally, he said, “I don’t think she’s like him.”

“She also told me she isn’t a college student visiting her brother that she first claimed to be.”

“Well, sure, considering who Chance is. We knew that, Jack.”

“Then what is she?” Ian stared at him through the gloom of the barn, and Jack shifted his feet. “What? Spit it out.”

“Right now, she’s Joe’s girlfriend, Jack, whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t care who Joey’s with.”

“You do. You’ve cared ever since you laid eyes on her.”

Jack paused and looked up at Ian with the hammer he’d been swinging raised in his hand. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Ian shrugged. “Just saying you seem to care a lot that Joe is with the girl. But you don’t have any cause to ruin it for him. Now, taking care of her brother, yeah, we have the right to do something about that.”

“Why is Joey so hell-bent that he stay here? Doesn’t he see it? What a shit Chance is?”

“He’s just trying to prove himself to you.”

“How did you get that from this situation?”

“He’s looking to prove himself around the ranch. He’s more like your son than your brother, yet his stake in the ranch is the same as yours, and he knows he can’t pull the weight you do. No one can. He’s looking to make decisions, and throw his weight around. I’m not saying he’s right; I’m just saying he’s putting himself behind decisions that aren’t so good so he doesn’t look wrong.”

Jack had a feeling Ian was right. “But will the ranch survive while Joey figures all this out before we get rid of Chance?”

Ian shook his head. “It’ll last. It’ll last as long as any of us are alive.”

Jack took comfort in his brother’s quiet words.

“Leave Erin out of it, Jack. She’s not Chance, and she’s Joey’s business right now. If you want to make more of it than it is, then keep criticizing Erin. If you want Joey to bore quickly of her and move on, as he always does, then let it go.”

Jack nodded. “Okay. You have a point. I just don’t trust her.”

“You’re just not used to girls like her.”

“Maybe not. She’s nothing like the girls from around here.”

Ian grinned. “I’m sure you could find a girl or two who’d sleep with Joey just ‘cause he smiled at her. Joe’s that pretty. It’s not his fault, Jack, it just is.”

Jack grinned back. “He is pretty.”

Ian picked up a board and started hammering it in. They worked together for the next couple of hours. Jack always appreciated Ian’s silence, along with his presence and steadiness. Especially, when compared to the drama evoked by their handsome, flaky, little brother who brought trouble onto the ranch in his childish need to declare his independence from Jack. Jack again felt the tension in his neck. He was getting sick and tired of rebellious teenagers.

Erin didn’t see Chance that night. Glad to escape him, she went outside to greet another brilliant day. She could easily get used to all this sunlight and aridity. Seattle rained so much, she sometimes felt like moss could sprout from her toes. Who knew that driving four hours could bring her to a place that seemed as far removed from Seattle as if she’d traveled to Arizona?

She breathed in the soft morning air. The sun was warm on her face, and the quiet so intense, she nearly sighed at the sheer pleasure of it. The air was cool and the land was still, other than the occasional sounds of horses and insects.

She glanced towards the barn. Of course, Jack was already out there. The barn stood a couple hundred feet from the house. From there, a long, rectangular, covered arena, filled with sand and lined with more stalls was the place where Jack spent most of his life. If not working somewhere on the ranch, or in the barn, Jack could always be found in the arena. She could view it from the couch side of her trailer. Watching Jack work with different horses, nearly daily, she observed him doing strange things with them, and in return, they did strange, un-horse-like things for him. For example, right now, he had a horse circling him one way, then going the opposite direction by the mere flick of his wrist on the whip-like wand he held. He never touched the horse with it. Then the horse suddenly stopped, and sank down to the sand, before it rose back up. Erin almost applauded.

She avoided going close to the barn, where she knew she wasn’t welcome. She learned to spend most of her time down towards the river. She was, however, still an outsider like she’d never been in her life before. The air was so fresh and invigorating, she felt different being there. Healthier and more aware of her surroundings.

But the horses intrigued her. She watched Jack with them all afternoon. Chance came in at one point, but didn’t speak to her. She sighed.

Putting her tennis shoes on, she went out to report to Jack that her brother was back. She assumed Jack wanted to know when he came back in order to fire him. She dreaded leaving the ranch. She had no idea where she’d go next; but knew she had no choice. Jack was leading a horse around in a circle. She walked closer and paused along the fence. He stopped and glanced at her.

“Need something?”

“Chance is back. I thought you’d want to know.”

He nodded and looked her over. “I don’t think Joey’s ready to fire him yet.”

“And you’re willing to let that be?”

Jack shrugged. “Not my call right now.”

She looked down at her shoes.
Why now?
When she wanted to write Jack off as an unfeeling asshole, why was he then so not like that? Giving his little brother so much leeway, on a ranch that was clearly Jack’s, surprised her. Most men like Jack would not put their egos aside.

Erin looked up when Jack started moving again and watched for several moments. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t look up at her as he turned the horse. “This filly is only two years old. She hasn’t worn a saddle very much, so I’m introducing it to her. Each day a little more, and a little longer, until eventually, she’ll be riding me around.”

“The training takes infinite patience, doesn’t it?”

“Sometimes,” he said, stopping the horse. He walked closer to where she stood. “Surprised you haven’t gotten Joe to take you on a ride.”

She stepped back. “I can’t ride. I’ve never even touched a horse before.”

He jerked his head with a startled expression. “How can that be?”

She grinned. “I didn’t have one stored in the local parking garage. This is as close as I’ve ever been to one.”

He regarded her. “Go into the barn.”

“The barn? I thought I wasn’t allowed in there.”

He frowned. “Who told you that?”

“No one. I just thought, since, well… I just thought I shouldn’t.”

“Let me put this filly away. Then I’ll show you a horse.”

After walking the horse through a gate, he turned and headed into the barn. She went in through the front door. Her stride was unsure. It felt strange to be stepping into a place she’d spent so much time watching strictly from the outside. It was cooler in there, and it smelled, but not unpleasantly. It smelled earthy. Several horses peered at her over their stall doors. The stomping of hooves and thrashing of the beasts filled the silence. Jack came from the other end of the barn and shut the door behind him. He put the leather strips in his hand onto pegs nailed into the barn’s walls. Finally, he looked at her and she shuffled her feet, feeling awkward.

“Are you afraid of them?”

“Not afraid… exactly. Maybe just intimidated,” she said with a small smile of self-deprecation. “They’re awfully big.”

“They are. Being aware of their size is always something you should remember. Know where your body is when compared to theirs. They startle easily, and their first natural reaction is to run. So they can be jumpy, and having a nearly half-ton animal getting startled near you is something to respect. I always respect that and I’ve worked with them continuously since I was boy.”

“Have you ever been hurt?”

He turned and tugged his gloves off before walking over to a workbench and tossing them down. “Probably more than I should admit. But not from touching them. From doing things I know better than to do with them.”

She eyed him. “Like how hurt?”

He grinned and she stepped back.
God. He was so different looking when he smiled.
His eyes changed, and his whole face lost that usually sour, grumpy exterior. His smile took years off his age. “Like a few broken bones, some sprains and bruises.”

She gulped. “Broken bones?”

He shook his head and chuckled when he noticed her reaction. “Don’t worry; nothing like that will happen to you. Come here.”

She stepped towards where he indicated. The stalls lined both walls of the barn and each had a door with wood on the lower halves and metal bars on top. That allowed the horses to stick their noses through the openings. Their breaths filled the barn with warm humidity. She was short, standing next to Jack, and came only to below his shoulders. Her throat constricted at being so close to him. He wore blue jeans, as all the men on the ranch did, with his brown, worn cowboy boots, and a button-up, flannel shirt. Looking up, she noticed the faint shadow of red hair along his chin. He couldn’t grow a thick beard. His black cowboy hat covered his red hair. She felt like she just stepped into a western historical novel. Who knew men like Jack Rydell existed nowadays? It was so odd. Yet, he looked so right there, in the barn, and in command of all the horses around them.

Standing next to a stall, he reached in to pet a black horse whose head had streaks of gray running through it. “This here is Georgie. She’s as sweet as they come.”

He handed her a carrot and she gently took it from his hands. They were big, tan hands with calluses on his fingertips.

“Open your hand flat out and let the horse take it from you. She won’t bite you, so don’t jerk your hand away.”

She looked up at him before eyeing the long nose of the horse. And the teeth that were as big as quarters up close. She swallowed, but opened her hand, feeling too embarrassed not to do as Jack said.

She closed her eyes in trepidation until she felt the carrot lifting out of her hand. She opened one eye, then the other as she watched the horse munching through the carrot, almost transfixed by the grinding of the horse’s jaws. She glanced up at Jack.

“Can I pet her?”

“Sure. Put your hand out.”

The horse nudged her hand, and Erin assumed she was looking for more carrots. She gently touched the top of the horse’s nose. The skin felt soft and warm. She smiled at the horse, and was surprised when the horse let her touch her. The horse nudged her and urged her to rub harder.

“Hi Georgie,” she said finally. The horse seemed to look at her, and even right into her. She felt like she had to talk to it. “You want more carrots, huh? Maybe we can talk Mr. Rydell into one more for you.”

Jack was looking at her. She could feel him looking down at her as she stared, utterly transfixed, at the horse. He probably thought she was crazy talking to the horse like that. But it was impossible not to. Like looking at a baby and talking baby talk; it simply had to be done. He didn’t comment, but turned and came back with another carrot, which he handed to her. She smiled up at him in appreciation and fed it to Georgie as Jack taught her. She reached her other hand out when Georgie took it to eat.

“How many horses do you have here?”

Jack looked from the horse into her eyes. “It depends on how many we are training or boarding at any given time. Right now, we have close to seventy. But we board more than half of those and I’m training twenty or so, and so is Ian. We are pretty well known for being selective. We get people from all along the west coast asking us to train their horses for them.”

Her head spun just trying to figure out the logistics of such an operation. Like how much each horse must eat a day. She kept petting Georgie and the horse turned her head when Erin reached up and scratched her ears. Georgie seemed to really like it. She forgot her hesitation and scratched with more vigor. The horse almost fell over, pushing her head into Erin’s hand, which made her smile.

Jack stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Why do you keep some in the stalls and others outside, running relatively free on the pastures?”

“It depends what they are with us for. Some are merely boarded here. So they are free to roam the pastures, and receive less daily care from us. Others are here specifically for training. While being trained, we have to keep them in stalls to limit contact with the other horses. That way, when I or Ian start working with them, they are eager for the attention and thus more eager to please us.”

“I had no idea they were so sensitive. I always thought one horse could be substituted for another.”

“No. Not unless you don’t give shit who they are. People like that shouldn’t own them. Or breed them. Or train them.”

“Do you train some of them every day?”

He shook his head and leaned on top of the stall. “No. It depends on lots of factors when and how much I train them. Often, I give them several days break in between training sessions. It’s why I can train so many horses at one time… I’m not doing each and every one, every day.”

“Are they all different breeds?” she asked, grinning at the way Georgie turned her head into her hand.

“All horses are different, regardless of their breeds. Work with them enough and you’ll see how different each one can be. But no, they are not all the same breeds. The ones we own are a breed of mustang known as Nokotas. They are pretty rare with only a thousand or so left that are pure-blooded like ours. We are one of maybe only a hundred owners that still breed them. The rest of the horses are here for training or boarding. We do some breeding and redistributing of Nokotas, however.”

“Redistributing? You make it sound like they are just a product.”

“It’s a business.”

She glanced at him and shook her head. Despite his cold, frowning face, she didn’t for a second buy that comment. “It’s a business for Joey, Shane, and maybe Ian. But not for you. I’ve seen you working with them. They aren’t just a business to you. You respect them all. You’d keep them all if you could, I bet.”

His eyebrows wrinkled at her as he frowned. “When have you seen me with the horses?”

“Chance’s trailer overlooks the arena.”

“And you watch me?”

“I watch the horses. I watch you working with the horses. I’m not sure what you do, but Joey’s right when he called you the horse whisperer.”

“Joey called me that?”

“Yes. The first day I was here. He thinks you’re amazing with the horses, you know. I think he resents it too, though. I don’t know; whatever you two have going on is pretty complicated.”

“What would you know of Joe and me?” Jack’s face went stony. She knew she said too much, and rambled too much. She shouldn’t have. It was none of her business. Especially with Jack. Joey was barely her business, and only a degree more than this man here, who was so suspicious of her.

She dropped her hand from Georgie. “I don’t know. I just noticed the tension. I mean…”

“Dad!”

Jack turned at the shout coming from outside the barn. There was a strange rumbling sound. Jack stepped around her and outside.
Damn it.
How could she manage to alienate Jack even more than she already had to date? She didn’t intend to. Especially after feeling how stunned she was to find him willing to show her the horses. Or let her inside the barn, something she considered
his
domain.

Dad.
She forgot for a moment that Jack was a dad. Jack was the authority here. Jack could easily have her thrown off his land. She let out a long breath.

Turning, she went out of the barn and found Ben, Joey, and Chance on four-wheelers. The rumble of the three ATVs filled the air. All wore helmets and goggles that blocked out their faces.

“We’re heading out,” Ben yelled to his dad.