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As Troy and Sal sat in companionable silence, trucks and SUVs began to arrive, an assortment of trailers hooked to them. They parked in the roped off area in one of Lou’s pastures. People stepped out of the rigs and began unloading saddled horses from the trailers.
Troy hitched his chin toward the old arena Lou’s ranch hands had spruced up with clean, raked sand. Half-a-dozen metal benches hunkered on one side of the arena. “Time to rock and roll,” Troy said.
“Go for it,” Sal replied. “I’ve got your back.”
Of that, Troy was certain. Sal faded into the background, but Troy never doubted his presence.
He stood, set his empty mug on his truck’s back bumper then folded his chair. Sal did, too, and moved to stand on Troy’s exposed side. What might happen if an assailant showed up Troy couldn’t imagine, but it wouldn’t be pretty.
He gathered hay flakes from a feed bin and plopped them into the wheelbarrow Lou had left him. On top of the hay, he balanced a bucket of oats, then pushed the wheelbarrow toward the small fenced pasture where his horse had spent the night.
Typically, he hauled two horses to his clinics, but today, he brought only one, his favorite mount, Batman. The horse was a seven-year-old stud he had bred and raised. He a true black without a spot of brown or white anywhere. As a foal, when he perked up his ears, he reminded Troy of the Batman silhouette.
Waiting for Troy, the big stallion whickered. He smelled breakfast and already sensed excitement in the air. He liked having something to do.
Troy stopped at the fence and let him hang his head over the pole rail and nuzzle his cheek. “Hey, buddy,” he said softly. He ran his hand down the sleek black neck. “You look like you’re up for it to day. Ready to teach these tenderfeet how to treat their horses, eh?”
Batman snorted and stamped a foot as if he felt important. Troy chuckled.
He opened the gate and wheeled the hay inside. The horse buried his nose in it immediately. While he ate, Troy rested a hand on his back, unhooked his phone from his belt and scrolled one-handed through text messages. Kate ... Dad .... Pic ... Mom ... Drake ... Kate again. They all had texted Saturday night and congratulated him on the win. Today, they must be texting about something to do with Christmas.
He stopped scrolling at Jordan Palmer’s name. He hadn’t seen or heard from Jordan in a while. “Wonder what he wants, buddy,” Troy mumbled to Batman.
Dorinda Fisk’s name appeared. He doubted she wanted to congratulate him for anything or wish him a Merry Christmas either, so why would she be texting him?
He looked up and out over the still landscape. Did he want to sully this nice day so early in the morning by reading what she had to say? She had already said plenty in person when he broke up with her three months back. She had even made a few threats. Ending their affair had taught him one thing: Separating from a well-heeled woman who was used to getting her way wasn’t that easy.
“Shit,” he muttered. He checked his watch and decided he might as well get it over with.
He pressed into her message: Hi. Miss U. Saw ur ride. Congrats on ur win. Horse was great. Not surprised. Call me? Pls? I didn’t mean what I said about Mandy.
Not true. Dorinda had meant every word she had said in a text about Troy’s brother’s wife. Even if she hadn’t meant it, the word “sorry” didn’t erase words that never should have been written.
Troy’s memory zoomed back to the day after Mandy had been stranded alone in a dark parking lot at midnight in Fort Worth. The whole Lockhart family was in a state, but Dorinda sent him a venomous text: ... I can just see the poor dumb bitch standing out there all by her li’l ol’ self, shaking in her shoes...
That had been the last straw. Dorinda had no reason for so much meanness toward a good woman she had never met. Amanda Breckenridge Lockhart had a lot to brag about. She had been a friend to Troy long before she married Pic Lockhart.
Now, even after more than twenty years, Troy still remembered that after he lost his mother in a contest with an eighteen-wheeler. Mandy, a couple of years older than he, had declared that she would be his friend. Before either of them knew the Lockhart family, she had been the angel who had taken him under her ten-year-old wings and tried to protect him.
He didn’t want to talk to Dorinda. She had already brought enough chaos into his life. He had a fair share of patience, but once he severed a tie, he was done. That was how he was wired.
Just then, Louise Beckman, the woman who organized and hosted this clinic, startled him out of his musing. “Mornin’, Troy.”
“Hey, mornin’, Lou.” Troy touched the bill of his cap to the thin seventy-ish woman in an oversize barn coat. He had never seen her in clothing other than jeans and boots. She wore her steel-gray hair in short tight curls. A “wash-and-wear do,” she called it.
Her husband, Carl, as much a horse lover as Troy, had passed on from pneumonia two years back. A soft-spoken, day-dreamy kind of guy, Carl had been a little short on practical sense, but unequaled as a trainer. He was tuned in to how horses thought and why they behaved the way they did. He had been a good friend. His funeral was one of the few Troy had ever attended.
After his passing, Lou carried on alone. Un-distracted by a devotion to highbred horses, she had made the small Beckman cattle ranch more successful than when her husband was alive.
She looked out over the landscape, then up at the sky. “Gonna be a pretty day.”
“Looks like it. Where’d you get the benches?”
“The school lent ’em to me. My boys will be hauling them back to town on Friday though. They got a game.”
Ah. Football. From the look of Roundup, Troy couldn’t imagine that the school could field an eleven-man team. “Six-man?”
“That’s all we’ve had for a while. People keep moving away. Pretty soon, we won’t even have a school, much less a football team. West Texas is dying.”
Troy nodded. The population exodus from rural West Texas towns was a conversation for another day. “I’ve got coffee over in my rig. Want a cup?”
“Already drunk a potful. Just wanted to tell you my horse wrangler and his helper will be out to lend you a hand in a little bit. We got fifteen folks showing up with their horses, so I expect you’ll need some help. Some bringing more than one. There’s even a couple of colts.”
Laughing, Troy slapped a hand against his chest. “Lou. You’re gonna kill me.”
She ignored him and went on. “Weather’s supposed to turn bad by Thursday or Friday. Don’t know what that’ll mean to the workshop.”
Normally, Troy’s clinics ran a full five days. Because of the World Finals, the date being so close to Christmas and the weather forecast, he had decided to try to cram five long days into four-and-a half or even four. “Hm. This close to the holiday, I thought we might have a smaller group.”
Lou’s weathered face split into a grin, showing off her snow-white false teeth. “You’ve got a reputation, boy. A few are driving from quite a distance. Couple from Abilene. One woman from Brady has been to your clinics twice before. Guess she’s a slow learner. Or maybe her interest ain’t really horses. She asked for a discount.”
Troy interacted with so many people at clinics and horse shows he rarely remembered one participant from another. He frowned. “What’s her name?”
“Don’t remember. I wrote it down on that list I gave you. We even got some spectators coming out from town. The motel in town’s plumb full of people come to see what’s going on. They think this is some kind of special rodeo.”
This happened more often these days. No matter how far off the beaten path Troy conducted a workshop, people came to watch the activity. He was flattered but also bothered. In his sessions, he did nothing so exciting or revolutionary that it should call up a crowd of looky-loos. Sal and Dixon probably had their hands full keeping their eyes on so many people.
Still, he returned Lou’s grin. “Is that so? Then ol’ Batman and I’ll try to give ’em their money’s worth.”
“You’d better. I ’magine some of ’em spent their Christmas money on coming to this workshop.”
He patted his horse’s neck. “Sorry it had to be so close to the holidays, but it was the only time I had.”
“Nobody’s complaining,” Lou said. “These are my friends and neighbors. Ever since they found out I know you, they’ve been wanting me to put together a workshop. It don’t make no mind to them what time of year it is.”
They both scanned the students or clients or customers or whatever they were called. They and their horses were starting to congregate outside the arena. All were female.
This crowd had a different look from the ones on the West Coast or in Arizona. Most of the people he would be working with this week obviously weren’t wealthy. Only two or three with fancy clothes or hats and expensive rigs for hauling a horse or horses.
He had no trouble believing they might have spent their Christmas money on this clinic. That fact touched his heart and made him determined to see that they really did get their money’s worth. No doubt they really cared about their horses.
Her voice recaptured his attention. “Do any men ever sign up for your workshops?”
Troy had been accused of being followed by groupies before. He laughed. “Sometimes.”
“Wonder why it’s only sometimes.”
“Don’t know. Guess men think they don’t need the information.”
Louise looked down in a reflective gesture. “Carl used to say some of the dumbest people he ever saw about horses were men. Women are more sensitive.”
“Well, Lou, darlin’, horses are a little bit like women. They’re gentle souls with big hearts.”
She huffed a laugh that held no humor. “Expensive critters, if you ask me. They cost me and Carl a lot of money.”
Troy felt a need to lighten the conversation. “See? Just like women.”
She gave him a challenge-in-her-eye look then turned away. “Anyway, ’preciate you doing this at the last minute. I’m gonna get on over there. Just stopped by to say hey.”
She stopped her trek across the arena and turned back. “I gotta ask, Hollywood. Who’re the two big dudes with you?”
No way could Troy give a short answer to that question, even if he wanted to. “Friends of mine. Don’t pay any attention to them.”
She hesitated. He could tell she had another question, but she turned away and continued across the arena.
“Well, ol’ buddy, this is it,” he said to Batman.
He turned off his phone and secured it in its holder on his belt. He hooked up his wireless mic, pressed his earbud into his ear and walked out to the middle of the arena leading Batman. In the morning sun, the big black stallion shone like a diamond.
“Good morning, ladies and gents! My helper today is Batman.” He touched the horse’s left front leg and Batman made a graceful bow. Laughter arose from the group.
“This week, we’re gonna try to get everything done before the weather moves in on us. We’re gonna start with horsemanship.”
***
FOR TROY, THE MORNING passed in the usual fashion. Horse owner, horse problem, analysis and recommendations. After showing an owner how to stop confusing her horse to the point where he failed to maintain a steady gait, Troy glanced up and across the arena. One of those big retro cowgirl hats stood out from the group, but he couldn’t clearly see who was under it.
Among the flurry of riders and horses, he hadn’t noticed when she came up though he should have spotted that hat right away. Even at a distance, she looked different from the others. Under the big hat, she looked small. Her hair tied back in a long black ponytail hung past the middle of her back. Off and on, he kept his eye on her and her ass-hugging jeans. He did like to see a woman with a nice ass in tight jeans. By noon, he had observed that she walked with a limp.
At first, he didn’t see her horse either, but after a while he figured out that she had brought a pretty little strawberry roan mare. She never mounted her.
A pickup truck hauling a chuckwagon up the driveway disrupted his thoughts. Dinner!
The owner of the only café in Roundup had arranged with Louise to come out and sell food. The café owner himself hauled out a royal chuckwagon meal—barbecued brisket, beans and potato salad and other barbecue fixin’s and hot coffee and cold drinks.
When everyone broke to eat, Big Hat met with the woman she had come with, a cute blonde. Troy pulled the list of paid participants out of his shirt pocket and reminded himself that the blonde’s name was Tiffany Fisher.
She had brought a scruffy blood bay she called Rudy. Troy had seen enough neglected horses to recognize one instantly. Untrained and unkempt, Rudy might turn out to be his biggest challenge of the whole week.
Since he had already met Rudy and his owner, he walked over to where the two women stood. The one named Tiffany hung onto Rudy’s reins. Troy introduced himself to the one who had caused an uptick in his heartbeat and offered his right hand.
She looked directly at him with too-wise icy blue-green eyes. Those eyes showed a powerful streak of vulnerability and defiance. I know you, that look said. Don’t try to baffle me with bullshit. An odd tremor passed through Troy’s gut and he felt nervous.
“Sarah Karol,” she said, shaking his hand.
He had never felt such a profound connection to a woman and especially not to one he didn’t know. Distracted and at a loss for words, he quickly turned to Tiffany. “Does Rudy have papers?”
The blonde ducked her chin and shook her head.
Big Hat, who had stuffed her hands into the pockets of a bright blue vest, glared at him. “What difference does that make?”
Though she had snapped at him, her voice was soft and low-keyed. Sexy even. He turned in her direction and felt that shakiness again. He mentally scrambled for an answer that made sense. “None. He looks like a strong horse. I thought I might know his bloodline. Since he’s not cut, I thought she might be planning on breeding him.”
Without looking up, the blonde named Tiffany wiped something from her eye. Tears? Was she bawling? Uh-oh, trouble. Shit.
Tears happened sometimes in his clinics and he hated it. He hated seeing women crying, period, but he especially disliked it when something he said was the cause. All he wanted to do was make life easier for some poor horse that lived with a foolish owner.
Many horse owners were women who couldn’t recognize their own problems or stand up to the truth about their relationships with the animals. As for today, he didn’t want to have to save a horse from its human’s personal conflict. He wanted to get this clinic over with and get away from this black-haired vixen who made him so damn nervous.
With Tiffany in tears, he gentled his tone. “Look, all I’m saying is it doesn’t look like anybody’s given him much attention or spent much time training him.”
“Burke was busy,” the blonde said, sniffling. “We—he thought he was already broke.”
Troy’s jaw clenched. Though the word “broke” was common when applied to horses, Troy never used it himself. “Broke? Well, darlin’, I’ll be frank. Sometimes a horse’s problems have nothing to do with the horse. It looks to me like Rudy is a green-broke stud that’s been abused. If you’re not willing to take care of him or too busy to spend the time he needs, you probably ought to get rid of him. You’re not being fair to him or yourself. He outweighs you by eight or nine hundred pounds. Without even meaning to, he could hurt you.”
Tiffany began to cry openly and wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. Big Hat gasped, roasted him with another glare, put her arm around the blonde’s shoulder and urged her away, talking to her in a voice too low for Troy to hear.
Women. He shook his head and stared at the ground for a few beats.
He heard his name and turned toward the voice. The guy who had brought out the food held up a paper plate and motioned him to the chuckwagon. He walked over and took the filled paper plate that was offered to him then ambled to another group, picking up on the conversation about horse gear. He was comfortable in any talk related to horses.
He had just taken a bite of potato salad when on a loud squeal, Rudy busted out. Bucking in an arc high in the air, stirrups and reins flying, he kicked the table holding the coffee pots and cold drinks with his back feet. The blonde cried out. Women screamed and scattered. The table collapsed and everything hit the ground with a crash and clatter.
Before the horse could take off toward a barbed wire fence, Troy dropped his plate and ran in Rudy’s direction.
At the same time, Big Hat stepped in front of the blonde and grabbed the horses’s headstall and the reins. The wound-up stallion reared straight up on his back legs, hooves pawing the air, lifting Big Hat’s feet off the ground.
She lost her grip and fell too close for comfort to Rudy’s hooves. An older man appeared from somewhere, and using brute strength, took control of Rudy and settled him.
By the time Troy reached the horse-wreck, it was over and Big Hat was struggling to get to her feet. He reached for her arm and pulled her up. “You hurt?”
“I gotta go help him!” She broke from his grip and fast-limped toward an old rusted trailer hooked to a faded red truck.
Troy followed. He reached the trailer first and opened the gate. The older man tugged and pulled the horse toward the trailer gate. Troy helped him coax Rudy inside. The man latched the gate then turned to Troy, his chest heaving. “Thanks. That horse is a handful.”
The blonde named Tiffany appeared from somewhere. She and Big Hat climbed into the truck with the old man and he drove away.
The episode had happened so fast, Lou’s ranch hand who showed up with a rope missed the show. Besides the mess on the ground, the only sign of the melee left behind was Big Hat’s hat in the torn-up dirt and the image in Troy’s head of her fearlessly standing up to Rudy’s front hooves slashing the air. He could fall in love with a woman with that much guts and gumption.
He walked back to the arena and picked up her hat, dusted it off with his fingertips. Spotting Lou, he handed it to her.
“Oh. That’s Sarah’s hat,” Lou said. “Her husband gave it to her. I ’magine she’d hate to lose it.”
