Cowboy With A Secret

“Get up,” Colt said tersely into the sudden quiet. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the horse.

Behind him, he heard Bethany climb on the fence, up and over. Colt backed away, still holding the horse with his gaze. Then he vaulted over the fence and jumped down, landing lightly beside her.

Bethany’s face was ashen. She was scared. He couldn’t blame her; she could have been trampled.

“You all right?” he asked sharply.

She nodded and closed her eyes for a long moment. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

“What were you doing?”

“Trying to put a halter on him.”

“Who spooked this horse? Not you, I take it?”

She lifted a shoulder and let it fall, but she wasn’t as nonchalant as she seemed. A slick of perspiration beaded her forehead, and he thought he detected a slight trembling of her upper lip—a very sensual upper lip, it seemed to him.

“You’d have to ask Mott Findley.”

“Who’s he?”

“My neighbor. I took Sidewinder from Mott in trade believing I could help him, but I’m thinking he’s hopeless. Sometimes I’ll be making progress, then something sets him off. If he can’t catch on to what a good horse is supposed to do on a ranch, I’ll have to get rid of him.”

Colt knew what that meant. The roan was well on his way to becoming poodle food. With a marginal operation like the Banner-B, a horse wasn’t worth the feed and vet care it took to maintain him if he couldn’t pull his weight.

He moved closer to the fence, leaned on it. The sinking sun felt good spread across his shoulders. The roan, a gelding about fourteen and a half hands high, had the powerful hind-quarters and deep chest of a good quarter horse, a breed developed for cutting cattle and roping steers. To say this horse was skittish was an understatement—he was downright dangerous. Colt hadn’t seen a horse in such bad shape in years, not since Ryzinski’s. He didn’t have to think about it for more than a moment.

“You mind if I have a try at him?”

Bethany chuckled mirthlessly. “Not if he’s going to kill a perfectly good ranch hand.”

“I know what I’m doing.” Colt turned around and looked at her. She was covered with dust, but she didn’t seem to mind. She’d bundled her hair into a barrette at her nape and tucked her thumbs inside the waistband of her jeans. It drew them tight around her belly. Nice.

“You think you can calm him down, go ahead. Just don’t take any chances.”

“I figure I can help him some,” he told her. She didn’t say anything, so he climbed up on the fence and studied the roan. The horse was blowing air in long huffs and eyeing Colt with trepidation, his ears laid back along his neck. His sleek coat gleamed in the sun.

“What’s his name?”

“Sidewinder. Like the rattlesnake.”

Colt wasn’t sentimental about animals. He wasn’t sentimental about anything anymore. But Sidewinder was an animal caught in a prison, and Colt identified with that. Worse, the animal had no one to help him get out. And a horse only knew to run when threatened. A horse didn’t fight. Block his flight, and you terrified the animal. The horse was beside himself with wanting to be free.

Trouble was, this horse would never be free. He was expected to work. If someone didn’t show him how to work, he’d soon be a dead horse. Nothing free in being dead.

Colt’s shirt was sweaty and stuck to his skin; he stripped it off in one swift motion and flung it over the fence. He alit from the fence, dropping into the corral. Bethany moved closer, but he didn’t look at her. The only power that would hold Sidewinder was the strength of his gaze, and this wasn’t the time to waste it.

The horse rolled his eyes, shook his proud head and took off at a trot, but that was what Colt expected. He strode to the center of the enclosure and kept his body turned fully toward Sidewinder, maintaining eye contact. What has someone done to you? he said silently. He’d never known if horses knew what people were thinking, and he wasn’t sure it mattered if they did. He didn’t need any special ESP with Sidewinder because his body language would do the job. It had never failed yet.

Sidewinder took off at a gallop, and Colt let him run off some steam, facing him all the while, finally allowing himself to break eye contact. Soon he noticed that Sidewinder kept the ear on Colt’s side still, and Colt knew that the horse was trying to understand the situation. In Sidewinder’s world, Colt was a new person presenting a new scent and a new attitude; Sidewinder was intelligent and wanted to know what was going on.

The horse made several more revolutions of the corral. He was amazingly beautiful as he ran, a magnificent horse. Bethany looked on doubtfully from the other side of the fence. Colt couldn’t blame her for being skeptical.

It took a while, but Colt finally recognized the signs. Sidewinder licked his lips and pretended to chew. The horse was ready to calm down.

“Maybe you’d better come out of there,” Bethany said behind him. “He’s looking agitated.”

She’d misread the signs. Lots of people did. Bethany clearly thought that Sidewinder was gathering himself for an attack. Well, her thinking was not unusual.

“He’s fine, just fine,” he said. To his satisfaction, Sidewinder dropped his head and kept trotting. This was a signal.

Colt now broke eye contact and changed his body position. Sidewinder stopped running. The roan stood, his flanks heaving, watching. Colt didn’t move.

“Colt—” Bethany said urgently.

Colt shook his head slightly and she knew enough to keep quiet. The horse took a tentative step forward, then another. He stopped again. Colt waited.

Then Sidewinder, the horse that had almost trampled Bethany Burke less than a half hour ago, walked slowly to him and stood submissively at his side.

Colt spoke to him then. “Good boy,” he said as he reached out and stroked Sidewinder’s nose. The horse remained alert, but allowing himself to be stroked was an admission of trust. Colt kept stroking, moving his hand downward to rub the horse’s neck. This horse was no problem horse. He just hadn’t been handled right.

“Never have I seen anything like that. It’s incredible,” Bethany said from her perch on the fence. She sounded awestruck.

“Tomorrow we’ll try a saddle,” Colt said. He patted Sidewinder’s neck and made a slow turn. The horse followed him when he headed for the gate.

Bethany met him on the other side and waited while he closed and latched it. “Lordy, Colt, what is it you do?” she said.

Colt was feeling pretty good about what he’d accomplished. “Secret,” he said. He didn’t let on how psyched he was.

“Will you really try a saddle tomorrow?”

He peeled his shirt off the top rail of the fence. It had dried stiff, and he didn’t want to put it on so he crumpled it into a ball.

“And maybe more.” Until those final moments, he hadn’t realized how exhilarating it was to be doing what he did best. He’d been aware of Bethany Burke. He’d wanted to impress her. But that wasn’t the main thing.

Bethany studied him, and he wondered if she was assessing more than his resolve. Her gaze dropped to his bare chest, a movement that looked involuntary. Or was he reading too much into this? Maybe he’d better stick to reading horses.

“Well, cowboy, that was some show. I’d like you to tell me how you do it. I mean it.”

“I can show you much better than I can tell you,” he said. “Meet me here tomorrow afternoon at the same time.”

“Is it okay if Frisco watches?”

“How about just you?” So far Frisco had been all hiss and vinegar, and the idea of the old guy’s spectating held no appeal. Colt was determined to cement his place here before setting himself up for criticism. A job was a job, and he intended to keep this one. It was far enough away from Oklahoma, for one thing, and there was plenty to do and no competition. The Banner-B suited him.

“All right, then, just me.” Bethany smiled at him.

Smiles from beautiful women had been few and far between in the last few years, and it was all Colt could do not to turn his considerable charm on her.