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Chapter Two

“Karen, can you wait for me? I can’t seem to get this dumb horse to want to cooperate,” Amy called out as she watched the other woman’s retreating back moving farther and farther away. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard Karen let out an exasperated sigh, but the other woman did expertly lead her horse back around and come back toward Amy.

“That’s because you’re not letting him know that you’re in charge,” Karen said roughly. “You don’t have to be cruel, but let him know who’s boss or he’ll walk all over you.” Karen snatched the reins out of Amy’s hands and made a sharp clucking noise to the brown, doe-eyed animal, pulling it forward.

“Don’t hurt him!” Amy cried, grasping the saddle with both hands to keep from falling as the large horse lurched forward.

“I’m not hurting him,” Karen argued. “but you have to give him instructions. He doesn’t want to stand there looking like an idiot any more than you do, and if you’re not going to tell him where to go in the only way he understands, he can’t move. Now, move, horse!” She tossed the reins back to Amy, more than a little disgusted by the younger woman’s innate air of weakness. If this drive did nothing more than teach her to grow a backbone, Karen thought harshly. It would have been money well spent.

Amy dropped her face as shame crept up and washed over her, letting her strawberry blonde curls fall in waves over her face. She was always letting other people boss her around, and it had landed her into one failed relationship or friendship after another: work friends, boyfriends, bosses, even professors in school now that she’d gone back to college to work on her graduate degree. It hadn’t always been like this but lately, she’d begun tolerating it when people effortlessly walked all over her, and she knew it was because she let them. She just didn’t know how to stand up for herself. At least the horse isn’t walking all over me, she thought. But she knew that was only because he wasn’t walking much at all.

“Hey now,” Carey said, riding up alongside Amy and ducking his head to see her face under the wide brim of her hat. “Why the long face?”

“It’s nothing…” she began, looking away and blinking back the threat of tears.

“I was talking to the horse,” Carey answered. Amy looked up at him, crestfallen, until he smiled disarmingly. “That was a joke. Get it? You know, the old joke? ‘Why the long face?’” Amy laughed half-heartedly in spite of herself and shook her head. “Never mind. No, I really was talking to you. What’s wrong? You don’t seem to be having a lot of fun out here.”

“I guess I’m just not a natural born horseman. Horsewoman. Cowboy. Oh, whatever.” Amy looked self-consciously at the others from their group, who were planted at various points along the ranks of cattle. Everyone seemed to be engaged in what they were doing, maybe not all of them smiling and laughing as they worked, but at least determined-looking and taking an active part in the drive.

“Well, I heard your friend over there, and she’s only partly right. You don’t have to go attacking the horse, but you do have to tell him what to do. Think of it this way, he really wants to do what you want him to, but no one told him what you want. He doesn’t speak your language. What would you do if I walked up to you and rattled off a bunch of stuff in Chinese? You’d just stand there, looking confused. I could shove you and kick you and make you move, I could even shout at you in Chinese, but you still wouldn’t know what I wanted. Here.”

Carey reached across Amy and took the reins from her hands, causing her pulse to beat that much faster at being so close to someone as rugged and drop-dead gorgeous as Carey. He flicked the reins lightly so that the hanging loop gently slapped against the horse’s front shoulder while nudging the animal’s rear shoulder with the toe of his boot. Amy looked relieved when the horse began to walk purposefully, not rearing or taking off, but moving with purpose along with the rest of the group.

“See there? That’s his language. I just told him to go forward and step with his right leg first. The problem is a sudden jerk of his reins will tell him that there’s a danger ahead but if he doesn’t see any danger, he’s going to be really confused by why you’re acting crazy. Just give your instructions gently but firmly.”

“I just don’t want to hurt him,” Amy said quietly, scratching at the horse’s neck in front of her saddle.

“But now you’re confusing him,” Carey laughed. “You told him to move forward, but then you told him to stand still so you could scratch him! Which one do you think he’s going to do, walk or be petted?” Carey smiled at Amy, understanding that she was so far out of her element that he couldn’t assume she knew what he meant. “He knows you like him, and you can pet him all you want when you’re done working. Remember, these aren’t our pets. Even though we care for them and make sure they’re as happy as they can be, they’re still working members of the ranch, just like all of us cowboys. No one’s coming up behind me and giving me a back rub when I’m out here!”

I’d like to, Amy thought, causing a sudden blush to shine through the fair skin of her cheeks and surprising herself with the brazen thought. I could do more than that, too.

Carey couldn’t help but notice her embarrassment and didn’t let himself even wonder what thought she’d had that caused it. He nodded awkwardly and tipped his hat, then rode back toward the front to check on the others. He looked back once or twice to make sure she was still doing okay, and was taken aback when he caught her looking at him one time.

“How’s the babysitting going?” a ranch hand said under his breath when Carey began to pass around him.

“I think it’s okay,” he answered, looking over the new people and counting them to make sure they were all still with the group. “No one too obnoxious or too incompetent, I’m just worried about a couple of them who obviously haven’t been on a horse before.”

“Hey, if it’s any help at all, there’s a couple of ‘em back there who can ride right up here with me,” the hand said slyly, patting the saddle in front of him. “Wouldn’t mind having to see a few of their faces more closely for the rest of the trip! I mean, only if it helps you, of course!.”

“You say that now,” Carey said with a quiet laugh. “There’s one or two in that group who would rip your chest open with their claws and feast on your beating heart!” The hand, David, laughed so loudly, he startled a nearby steer.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I met that one already. She took offense when I called her ‘ma’am’, then told me not to single her out by ‘labeling her with her imposed gender identity.’ I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I think it’s just safer if I don’t address her ever again!”

“Just don’t make eye contact or speak in her presence, and for the love of Pete, don’t look at her chest. I don’t want to have to scrape up pieces of you from here to Missouri!” Carey slapped David on the shoulder then continued on.