Must Love Horses. Vicki Tharp

      He shrugged one shoulder, but since they were being honest, he added. “Not really. But I can deal.”

      She nodded once and then said, “We set?”

      He wanted to get down on his knees, kiss her tiny, booted toes, and thank her for changing the subject. “Yep.”

      The trailer shuddered as the horses pushed and shoved. The bay bit the buckskin on the rump, but they were packed in tight enough the horse couldn’t kick back.

      The horses from the other paddocks called out, not as frantic, not as frequent. The horses in the trailer whinnied, but the cries grew quieter as they settled in.

      “I’ll drive,” Boomer said. “I’m sober. You know I haven’t had a drop since this morning.”

      “Okay.” Sidney reached into her front pocket, but she hesitated before handing them over.

      “It’s not like I have to have a drink.”

      “Okay.”

      “And this isn’t like an alcoholic saying he doesn’t have to have it, because it’s not and I don’t.”

      “Okay.”

      “Would you stop saying okay?”

      “Maybe you should stop protesting so much.”

      He eyed her. Her gaze remained steady. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen eyes so green before. Greener than a pasture after a spring rain. Soft and lush and—

      “So, are we going or not?” she said.

      “We’re going.” Maybe he would need that drink after all if he kept thinking about her eyes.

      They climbed into the truck and he started the engine. The breeze blew dust through the open window. The burro who murdered his hat stood at the fence line, snaking his head through the bars and pawing at the lower rung as if he wanted to go with them.

      As Boomer slowly pulled away, he watched the donkey in his side mirror. The animal followed as far as his fence allowed, then it started braying and hee-hawing and throwing itself at the bars, becoming more frantic, more panicked the farther away they got.

      The trailer swayed from side to side. One of the horses in the back whinnied and kicked the side of the trailer with a resounding clang.

      Then the donkey shrieked.

      The bray slammed into his eardrums, piercing and high-pitched. It shot him straight back to the streets of Iraq, to the screams of his teammates as the enemy mowed them down.

      He stomped on the brake and shifted into park. Sidney slapped a hand on the dashboard. His adrenaline surged, his breath came in short bursts, and his heart pounded as he watched the donkey pace back and forth, back and forth. He shifted into drive again, but that shift, that click, sounded so final.

      It sounded like he was leaving a man behind.

      Irrational. But that didn’t make the thought any less real.

      He shifted two more clicks—into reverse this time—and backed up to the chute. He turned to Sidney. “Wait here.”

      “The trailer’s full.”

      “He’s little.”

      “Four horses. That’s what we were told to get. That’s what we got. Not four horses and a smart ass.”

      He rubbed his face with his hands, eyed his flask Sidney had tossed onto the dashboard. “You really want me to leave him?”

      “No.” She picked up his hat from the cloth seat between them and fiddled with the mangled brim before looking back at him. “You think Mac will be mad?”

      As he stepped out of the truck, he said, “Only one way to find out.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      Sidney slipped into her robe, padded down the concrete center aisle of the quiet barn, and headed back to her room. An orange tabby cat lay sprawled across a hay bale, lazily flicking its tail. All the horses were out in their pastures tonight, except Eli. He had a run off the backside of his stall, but she hadn’t had time to find him a turnout paddock so he could be out with the other horses.

      She stopped at his stall and scratched his soft nose through the bars. Unimpressed, he pawed at the wooden door.

      “Tomorrow,” she told him. “I promise you can run your heart out.”

      He thunked his hoof against the stall door again and pulled a hard, angry bite of hay from his hay bag.

      She shuffled past and made it to her room before hearing the rattle of metal behind her. “Don’t even think about it,” she called out, but even as she said it, the latch on the stall door clicked free. This was a relatively new barn. The latches were supposed to be horse-proof.

      Horse-proof and Eli-proof were not the same thing. Eli could have given Houdini pointers.

      Her horse wedged his nose between the bars on the door until he could slide it open enough to stick his head through the opening and slide the door back. He squeezed into the aisle and walked over to her, the clomping of his hooves echoing through the building.

      The front barn doors were open. If he went through, he could potentially find his way to thousands of acres of open range, because, just like how the latches on the stall doors were nothing more than an interesting puzzle for him to figure out, fences were just an obstacle course.

      Teaching him how to jump had seemed like a good idea at the time.

      She wasn’t worried that he would run off. Normally he was perfectly happy with his pasture mates, but when he decided he wanted to be with her, short of putting him in a straightjacket, there was very little she could do to stop him.

      He lowered his big, blocky head and sniffed the pockets of her robe. Shook his head as if he couldn’t believe she didn’t have any treats, reached out, and sniffed again. Then he raised his head and stared at her, like he was trying to hypnotize her or do the Vulcan mind meld without hands.

      Which was nonsense. Star Trek was way before his time.

      Not that she had any delusions he wanted to know what she thought. He only aimed to implant one word into her brain—treat.

      She found a treat. After he’d eaten it, he blinked and blinked at her, then sighed and looked over his shoulder as if looking for another horse to confirm how dense his person was.

      “Okay, okay, you win,” she said. “Wait here while I get dressed.”

      She came out in her jeans, boots, and a hoodie, sans bra—it had been a long day and she wasn’t putting it back on for her horse—glad the hoodie was big enough to hide the important bits.

      She got another treat from the feed room, then walked over to the hay bale and straddled the cat with her feet. She looked back at Eli. He was still standing by her door, his bottom lip hanging loose.

      “You coming or are you sleeping?”

      Blinking, he blew out a sigh, stepped over to her, and stretched his front legs out to lower himself a few inches. She grabbed a fistful of mane, swung her right leg back and forth a couple times, and then threw it over the top of his back. He straightened after she settled, then reached his head around for another treat.

      She gently squeezed with her calves and he started forward. “It’s late, so we’ll take a quick spin around the property, then I’m going to bed.”

      He didn’t bother replying.

      They stepped out into the night. The chill was heavy in the air, but Eli beneath her was all the heating she needed. The moon was up and almost full. With her legs, she guided him between the paddocks and over to the holding area for the mustangs, and then she relaxed into the gentle sway of her horse’s body.

      All the horses in the mustang