Cowgirl, Unexpectedly. Vicki Tharp

Santos, and Alby were already at the barn. “You two saddle up and get your assignments from Link,” Dale said to Hank and me. Then to Jenna and Quinn, he added, “You kids police that brass and take them up to the house then head to the barn. We’ll make reloads for target practice later.”

      Jenna’s face scrunched and she opened her mouth as if she was about to protest, but one stern glower from Hank and she closed it again. Heat rose to her face, but she turned and followed Quinn.

      “You still wantin’ me to give Mac that riding lesson?” Hank asked Dale.

      Ugh. I could work around the barn. I didn’t have to ride out. Surely, I could do plenty from the ground. My raw thighs had improved since yesterday, but I was a ride away from returning to a world of hurt and the abrasion on my side had oozed during the night and stuck to the bandages.

      Since I’d woken up late, I hadn’t had the time to change it. Now, when I made a sudden move, the bandage tore at my healing flesh and the pain made sweat pop on my upper lip.

      “Yeah, forgot about that. Throw her in the round pen and get her cantering. I can’t have her falling off and getting herself killed.” Dale was smiling and I hoped he was teasing about the part that included me dying.

      “My pleasure,” Hank said, with a shit-eating grin, and a tone that promised that for me, it wouldn’t be the least bit pleasurable.

      * * * *

      After saddling Sierra, I waited for Hank at what they called the round pen. Which is basically what it sounds like—a fenced in area about fifty to sixty feet in diameter. The fence, welded out of old drilling pipe, stood about six feet high with a good base of sand on the interior. Maybe this was better for the horses somehow or better for the rider in case they came flying off. Though the way everyone around here rode, I didn’t think any of them hit the ground too often.

      Jenna, Quinn, Santos, and Alby had all headed out. Hank was at the barn getting our work assignment from Link. When they finished, Link turned his horse and trotted out the gate after the others. I fiddled with my cinch the way Jenna had showed me, making sure it was good and tight before I climbed on. After yesterday’s fall, I preferred not to come off again if I could help it.

      Instead of walking around to the gate on the other side of the pen, Hank tied his horse to one of the bars, climbed up the rails, and jumped down beside Sierra and me.

      “Okay,” he said. “Gather your reins in your left hand, and place it on the horse’s neck and grab a handful of mane. Put your right hand on the back of the saddle.”

      I hesitated.

      “Don’t look at me like I asked you to kick the dog, Army. Grabbing the mane doesn’t hurt her.”

      I followed orders. He then reached down for my left leg. “What’re you doing?”

      “Giving you a leg up. Bend your left leg at the knee.” He grabbed hold—right hand around my ankle and left hand beneath my bent knee. “You’re going to bounce three times to get your momentum. On the third time, I’m going to help lift you up, and then you throw your right leg over the saddle.”

      Okay. Sounded easy enough. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get enough momentum, and my left shoulder and side were not quite cooperating, so I ended up lying over the saddle, staring at the ground. Hank slapped a hand on my ass and shoved me up.

      Yeah, call me Grace.

      My face flushed. I reached down and patted Sierra for standing like a statue, and I pretended I couldn’t still feel the imprint of his hand on my left butt cheek.

      Hank had a private smile on his face, but cleared his throat after a second and shook it off, ready to get down to business. He started me at the walk and went into more detail about the proper way to steer with two hands, which he called plow reins, and then one-handed, which he called neck reining. Then he had me bump Sierra up into a slow trot that he wanted me to sit.

      “Heels down,” he said. He wasn’t satisfied. “More.”

      “I don’t bend that way,” I complained.

      “Stop, stop, stop.” He stepped up beside me, his movements as sharp as his temper as he eased my boot out of the stirrup a few inches so it ran across the balls of my feet, not beneath my arch. “Having your heels down helps anchor you in the saddle. If you balance on the balls of your feet, it’s easy for you to lose your balance and be thrown.”

      He grabbed my knee. “Relax,” he said, pushing down on my knee and up on the bottom of my boot, bending my ankle into an acute angle. “The tighter you hold on with your knees, the more you’ll make the horse feel trapped and want to take off with you. Sierra will let you get away with it, but you do that on Angel or one of the other horses and you’ll be in the next county before you get them stopped.”

      “I don’t ever plan on riding Angel.”

      “You know what they say,” he said, with an infectious grin, “Never say never.”

      I smiled back at him. I couldn’t help myself. “Angel would be an exception to the never rule.”

      As if placating a small child without the intellect to understand, he cooed, “Sure he is, Army. Sure he is.”

      Where was this Army crap coming from? The smile dropped from my face. “It’s Mac. My name,” I added when he quirked a brow.

      He pointed and clucked and sent Sierra on around the rail. “I know your name.”

      Moving to the middle of the pen, he watched me sit the trot for a round or two then had me bump up the speed and shift into a posting trot. I hissed as I moved up and down in rhythm to the trot, the temperature between my thighs rapidly approached nuclear levels. There would be smoke in a minute if he didn’t let me stop.

      By that sly smile that creased his face, he knew. He knew that I knew that he knew. “Something wrong?”

      What did that old deodorant commercial say? Never let them see you sweat? That’s right, call me Dry Idea. I stared straight ahead. “Nope. It’s all good.”

      He chuckled. “Heels down,” he said as he eased toward the rail.

      “They are down,” I grumbled.

      Then three things happened in rapid succession. Hank stepped in front of Sierra. Sierra skidded to a halt and rudely introduced me to Newton’s first law of motion—something about how an object in motion stays in motion. I flew over her withers and landed on my back in the deep sand and glared up at Hank. What the fuck?

      He turned and walked toward his horse. Over his shoulder he said, “That doesn’t happen when your heels are down.”

      * * * *

      The day was warming rapidly as the sun rose high overhead. We were riding the line of fence Jenna, Santos, and I hadn’t completed the day before. Hank estimated we had less than a mile of fence to check before we could meet up with the rest of the crew to prepare the pens in advance of rounding up the cattle.

      The horses eased their way into a small valley between two hills, completely cutting off the breeze. Within minutes, sweat was pooling between my breasts and sliding down my sides and onto my bandage. I’d have preferred that the bandages didn’t become drenched with sweat so I hitched my reins over my saddle horn, removed my long sleeve shirt, and tied it around my waist as we rode. As soon as I was paid, I needed to buy more clothes. My one and only tank top was not going to cut it.

      In this area, the brush was sparse, the ground rocky but not so rough we couldn’t ride side by side. “You could have killed me, you know,” I said, more to break the silence than to force an apology from Hank. He wasn’t stingy with words, but he also didn’t talk just to hear his own voice.

      Hank glanced over at me. “A calculated risk.”

      “With my life.”

      He shrugged. “Worked out in