arenât my thing. Itâs hard enough for me to hang on to my own damn horse, let alone look after someone elseâs.
But I donât say any of this. Maybe this guy will be able to handle himself.
Being a wrangler and all.
âRides start at nine oâclock.â I glance at him. âYou might as well go in and have breakfast while you wait.â
With that, I turn back to the work of catching horses. And I hope to hell that he canât hear my heart as it tries to pound its way through my chest.
Chapter Two
I work like a fiend. By a quarter to nine Iâve got ten horses fed, brushed and saddled. I stand in the middle of the barn, wiping my brow with my sleeve. Itâs going to be a hot day.
The horses rustle and munch their way through the hay Iâve forked up into their feed baskets. Iâm even more tired than I was when I first woke up. My throat is dry and my stomach is rumbling. But I donât have time to eat. Not yet, anyway.
I unscrew the cap on my water bottle and take a long drink. I cast a quick glance toward the bunkhouse, hoping that Carrie and Laura are on their way over. Please, please let someone show up before this adventure ride goes out. As cute as Mr. Bar G is, I still donât feel like racing across ridgetops with him.
God, I feel like such a chicken sometimes. I hate it. I wish I could be as comfortable and brave on a horse as Carrie is. Sheâs just totally dialed in to what it means to ride. She and her horse are, like, one . Thinking and acting in tandem. I canât help but feel envious.
Iâm still trying to figure out how to run with my reins in one hand instead of grabbing onto the saddle horn to keep from bouncing off. Itâs a wonder James hired me at all.
But I know why he did. It was obvious when we met last April that there was some pretty good chemistry between us. He put me up on a horse and asked me to ride around in a circle. Walk, trot, canter. When I didnât fall off, I guess he figured I was good enough for the job.
Jamesâs parents own the ranch.
And he hired all the summer barn staff. Not surprisingly, weâre all girls around the same age. Long hair. Long legs. James likes his ladies. I could tell he liked looking at me. Not that I minded. He has the hugest, bluest eyes Iâve ever seen. And the way he wears his black hat pulled low on his brow⦠heâs all dark and broodingly handsome.
I still get a shiver when I think of him.
Even now that things arenât so good between us.
James got pretty huffy a few weeks back when he found out I have a boyfriend back in the city. Tyler.
But itâs pretty casual between Ty and me. Actually, itâs kind of on hold. Iâm the one who decided to leave town for the summer. But whatever. When James found out, he got really mad. It was like he thought Iâd tricked him by not telling him about Tyler right away. He gave me the silent treatment for, like, a week. I thought that was pretty lame, especially for a guy whoâs nineteen.
Eventually he came out of his funk and we started talking again. But he stopped spending time with me. And he stopped taking rides out with me. He started hanging around with Carrie and Laura instead.
Yeah, and we all know how much work Carrie and Laura do around the ranch.
That was a couple of weeks ago.
Nowadays, itâs pretty much me and a couple of other wranglersâMartin and Roxanneâwho take out all the rides. James stays back at the barn to flirt with Laura and Carrie. I guess he figures the ranch is kind of his, which gives him permission to be lazy and duck responsibility. And that pisses me right off.
Yesterday, James and I finally had a blowout. It was bound to happen. I had just come back from a half-day ride.
I was hot. Thirsty. My knees hurt after sitting astride a horseâs barrel for three hours. I hadnât eaten since 6:45 that morning, and I was starving.
I figured Iâd be able
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