Chapter Eight

Eight

Dressage: a French term meaning “training”, the purpose of which is to further develop a horse’s natural athletic ability with an emphasis on obedience, flexibility, and suppleness.

Mel reminded herself of the basic, fundamental definition of her sport the next morning as she jogged down Dry Creek’s long driveway in the predawn darkness, a cell phone in one hand, flashlight in the other. She had always believed in her own personal fitness and at Carlton, that mentality had been reinforced.

She also hoped her daily routine would quell some of the nervous energy jumping through her system thanks to the knowledge she would have to work alongside Dan today. He was obviously disgusted by her, though he knew nothing about her. Which, she thought with a sigh, wasn’t all that uncommon in the competitive horse world. He would doubtless balk at the idea of her working with any of the horses who were in for training because she was a dressage rider. But, just as she’d reminded herself, she planned to remind him that dressage training was built on athletic fundamentals. She was quite capable of handling these horses.

But by the time she’d changed into jeans and a t-shirt and walked into the barn as dawn was breaking and Toto was throwing feed, her pulse had picked up to an alarming rate.

The night before, in the Shaws’ beautiful kitchen, Nora had filled her in on all the horses who were there for training. “I want you to start with Sampson,” she’d told her. “His gaits are more consistent, but he keeps dropping that inside shoulder and cutting off the corners.”

As Mel waved to Toto and headed down the aisle, she knew just where to find Sampson’s saddle, which bridle to use, how long it usually took the buckskin gelding to warm up. She stopped to feed a handful of mini carrots to her horses and then headed for the tack room, feeling more and more hopeful as she lugged the heavy western saddle to Sampson’s stall and still, Dan had not appeared.

He waited to show up the exact moment she was leading Sampson from his stall.

Mel found him blocking her path and was so startled by his silent approach and sudden position in front of her that she didn’t say what she should have. Her gaze swept upward from his dusty, broken-in boots and jeans, taking note of his obnoxiously large belt buckle and his plain white tee that was more practical in the Florida heat than a traditional western shirt. His face, she thought wryly, would have been handsome if he didn’t scowl all the time: strong jaw, pronounced bone structure, lean cheeks and a proud nose. His eyes were not just dark with anger, but were brown – though she was pretty sure there was a fair amount of anger in there too. The short hair visible beneath his baseball cap was brown.

Mel should have politely but firmly asked him to step out of her way. Instead she stood there stupidly and gave him time to give her an amused non-smile.

“No,” he said, and reached for Sampson’s reins.

The word was spoken as a command, with such authority that Mel felt anger flare to life inside her. She scowled and pulled the reins in to her chest. “Excuse me?”

“I said ‘no’,” he repeated slowly, in a voice that suggested he thought she was an idiot. He held out his palm and flicked his fingers, indicating she was supposed to hand over the horse. “You’re not riding him.”

If she hadn’t endured this same kind of blatant disrespect and humiliation at Carlton, if the stress of the past week hadn’t fried her nerves and good sense, if she hadn’t spent hours the night before poring over charts and training notebooks with Nora – one of the owners of this ranch – and if Toto hadn’t been watching from down the aisle with unabashed curiosity, she might have remembered her manners.

“Wanna bet?” Mel fired back. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she cringed. You are so fired…

His face impassive, Dan twitched his brows and grabbed Sampson’s bridle. “Yeah.”

“Nora and I planned this. I read all your notes, I know exactly what you’ve been working on -,”

“Notes don’t mean shit.”

“ – and our boss told me to do this,” she said firmly, feeling a little desperate.

“Our boss,” he mimicked with a nasty smirk, “doesn’t know this horse don’t take to new people.”

“I think she would have known that.”

“How?”

“Because it would have been in your notes you don’t seem to give a ‘shit’ about.”

His frown darkened, losing the amused edge it had held before. “Larry made me head trainer, so I’m just doing my job. I don’t need you on Sampson. You can ride Sugar.”

Mel sighed. “Have I done something to offend you?” Anxiety twisted her stomach: why was this man trying to make an undesirable situation unbearable? “I’m just trying to earn my keep so I’m not sponging off strangers!” she hadn’t intended to raise her voice, but she did, the end of her statement sounding as desperate as she felt.

His dark eyes narrowed to slits. “Sugar’s a pony and I’m too big for him,” he explained. “But maybe that’s not good enough for you…princess.”

She bristled at the title – unless you had a crown, a title and a castle associated with your name, she didn’t believe anyone was a “princess”, certainly not her – but she recognized the challenge. “Where’s his stall?” she asked, handing over Sampson’s reins without further argument.

-O-

“Atta boy, Sugar. What a good little shit you are,” Mel cooed with false honey as the red and white paint pony finally moved off her leg and trotted obediently around the empty paddock. The little monster was so small she could have linked her toes under his belly, but there was nothing small about his attitude. He’d bucked and twisted and bolted. Had tried scraping her off on the fence, and when that hadn’t worked, had tried scraping her off on the tree in the center of the paddock. Sweat poured down her back, her shirt clung to her, her hands were raw and chapped from battling his attempts to root the reins out of her hands and her legs felt like jelly. But she was still mounted and Sugar was moving along without a trace of resistance.

She trotted once more around the enclosure and then pulled him up to a walk, letting the reins slide through her fingers when he showed no interest in bolting or protesting. His little flanks heaved under her calves and he dropped his head low, content to walk like a gentleman as both of them cooled off.

In the neighboring field, Eli and Slim had parked a truck and trailer and were attempting to load a young mare who wanted nothing to do with the scary metal contraption they wanted her to walk into. They had a whip, a bucket of feed, and several cotton longe lines: common tools when it came to training a horse to load.

In the main arena, Dan and Larry were both riding their second horses of the day while Toto acted as groom, cooling the animals out and hosing them down afterward.

She’d passed two teenagers on her way out of the barn earlier – presumably the Danville brothers – who were cleaning stalls. Nora was in the office.

All in all, Mel had the distinct impression that Dry Creek was understaffed. It was a fine balance between making money and losing money on every farm – the fewer paid employees the better – but as she watched the happenings around her, she no longer wondered why Larry had been so insistent about hiring her: they needed help. Rather than a focused training facility, this ranch was part breeding operation, part cattle ranch, and the training was eclectic: a mix of breaking colts, polishing performance horses and working on vices – like the mare in the next field who was terrified of trailers.

She also, she decided as she slid off Sugar’s back and led him toward the barn, didn’t hold a grudge against Dan for his deliberate move this morning. He’d known the pony was difficult and had put her on him anyway. She’d been through this at other farms with other horses. Hazing was a ritual – you had to pay your dues and earn others’ respect. In some ways, she respected that he’d tested her rather than treated her like some delicate flower. Respected, yes, but she didn’t like him any better.

Toto’s eyes moved up and down her sweaty, sap-stained ensemble as she handed over Sugar’s reins, a smile in them, but didn’t comment. “Nora put lunch out in the office.”

“That sounds heavenly.”

The rancher’s wife glanced up from the thick ledger she was leafing through at the desk when Mel popped her head in. Like yesterday, Nora was the picture of southern country elegance, but her hair was less tidy, her expression more harried. She had the phone cradled on her shoulder and offered a smile. “I’ve got three two-year-olds coming in at three,” she said, covering the receiver with a hand. “So eat up.”

Saran-wrapped sandwiches and chilled Gatorades that were leaving sweat rings were waiting on the card table. Mel took what she hoped was turkey and a blue Gatorade, deciding she’d rather sit outside where it was both shady and breezy, rather than stay in the cramped, stuffy office. That plan seemed a lot less appealing, however, when she stepped out of the front door of the barn and saw that Dan and Larry were already at the picnic table.

It was one thing to have some grudging acceptance of the way he’d treated her earlier, but quite another to want to have lunch with him.

Too late, though, she realized, because Larry was sitting on the bench facing the barn and motioned for her to join them. “Come on, girl, we won’t bite.”

“I know you won’t,” she said before she could stop herself, and the older man chuckled.

She thought Dan’s shoulders might have bunched together, but because she didn’t want to know for sure, and because it would be better not to stare at him while she ate, she sat down beside him and studied her sandwich as she unwrapped it.

“You rode that pony?” Larry asked, pulling her gaze upward. He had a careful half-smile on his otherwise stern face.

She nodded.

“Damned thing…thought he was gonna break my arm the day he got here the way he bolted out of the trailer. I told the owner none of us were small enough to ride him, but he wants it ‘gentle’ for his son. Got a five-year-old who needs lessons once the little shit’s rideable.”

Mel winced as she took a bite of her turkey and Swiss, unable to imagine a child on the animal she’d ridden. “How old is he?” she asked when she’d swallowed. “He’s not green.”

“Oh, no, he’s ten. Someone shoulda put some manners into it a long time ago.” Mel watched his eyes slide toward Dan and then come back to her. “I trust he wasn’t too much to handle?”

“No,” she was able to say with honesty and noticed the slight, approving nod she received – Larry wasn’t spiteful in the way he challenged her, just wanted to be sure she was competent. “I was always the smallest at every barn, so I always got put on the ponies.”

“Good.” He got to his feet, picking up his lunch trash from the table. “Nora’s got you all squared away for the rest of the day?”

“Yes, sir,” Mel was struck by the sudden urge to keep him there. The last thing she wanted was some alone time with Dan. “She said something about some two-year-olds coming in? I’ll be happy to help if you…” but he was already walking away.

“Yep,” he said over his shoulder as he headed back into the barn. “She’ll let ya know.”

And then she was, in fact, alone with Dan.

A heavy, unfriendly silence hung between them. Mel watched the limbs overhead sway in the breeze. Summer insects droned. The air was as thick and stifling as a wet quilt wrapped around her, and a nervous, low-pitched buzzing tickled at her ears, as if the very air between her and the man next to her quivered: two magnetic objects with the same charge that were being repelled, but she stayed her ground, not wanting to seem weak by retreating.

She took small, delicate bites of her sandwich, wishing he’d go away, wishing she lacked the decorum necessary to choke down her food and rush off, because the silence slowly began to suffocate her. She had some instinctual, deep-seated desire to please people that made his mysterious animosity unbearable. A lifetime of riding and working at some barn or other had enlightened her to the fact that the pastures and pastoral views were almost irrelevant: it was the people around you who had the power to bring you misery or happiness. She could not work alongside this man and let this strange, uncomfortable silence linger. Her stint at Carlton had taught her that.

Bold or demure? She asked herself. And bold won out.

“I should probably be pissed at you,” she said in a bored tone as she reached for her Gatorade and attempted to twist the top off. Damn her weak little hands…

“For?” he asked with a snort.

Snorting was good. Snorting indicated humor. “There are people who would have felt like you’d misled them about Sugar’s oh-so-sweet disposition.”

His head turned just the slightest, the profile of his nose widening, the brown irises of his eyes looking amber and translucent from this angle. The sun highlighted the dark stubble along his jaw and the lines around his mouth and eyes. He wasn’t that old – thirties maybe, she figured – but he had been weathered by long hours, dirt, sun and the seriousness of the horse world. “I did not,” he said without smiling, but something about his voice encouraged her, “say that he was sweet.”

“Guilt by omission,” she said, feeling her own smile threaten. “I could have fallen off or – ouch,” she hissed as the plastic ridges on the bottle cap dug into her raw, rein-chafed skin. Did you have to be a weight lifter to open these things?!

“Here.” Dan leaned back and turned toward her finally, plucking the bottle from her hands without asking. He sighed through his nostrils and rolled his eyes as he easily twisted off the top and passed the Gatorade back to her. “You didn’t fall off, did you?”

She figured he knew the answer, but shook her head anyway.

“Didn’t think so,” he turned back to his lunch dismissively.

-O-

Dan could feel her eyes riveted to the side of his face. In the span of time it had taken to open her drink – and he’d only done that so he didn’t have to listen to her struggle with it anymore – he’d been sure he could see the wheels and cogs in her head whirling as she tried to figure him out. Now she studied him like he was some exotic animal in a zoo. A pair of coke-bottle glasses on her little nose and a white lab coat would have completed the picture. As it was, he was still overly aware of the scrutiny. Women looked at him all the time, with all things from hunger to wonder in their shallow, unseeing eyes. But this Melanie girl’s light brows were fused together, her forehead creased as she watched him like he might watch a young, rebellious colt he was trying to break: she had no interest in him as a male, but as a creature she didn’t understand.

“Keep doing that and you’re gonna have wrinkles,” he said to ward her off, and her concentrated frown turned into a pretty little scowl.

“Do you derive joy out of being so unpleasant?” To his amusement, it sounded like an honest question.

“Derive?”

“I may have horse shit on my shoes, but I’m not a complete dumbass.”

He didn’t want to, really didn’t want to, but he felt his lips curl up at the edges of their own accord.

“Look,” she sighed. “I’m not mad about the Sugar thing -,” he gave her a sharp look, “ – not that I had a right to be. This is a boys’ club around here and I get that, and I’m just the helpless female. But,” she sighed again, this time sounding tired, and he wondered how she could hold that much air in what must be tiny lungs. “I don’t want to be on bad terms with you. I’m a hard worker and I don’t have a superiority complex. I feel really lucky that Larry asked me here and I just want to do my part. It’s obvious you guys need more hands around here.”

Dan intended to glare at her, but her statement was true, and his gaze softened when he turned his head and met her blue, trying-to-figure-him-out eyes again. “I have a hard time keeping all the horses exercised,” he admitted grudgingly, and it drew a bright smile from her.

“Then take advantage of me,” she said.

He couldn’t help but grin at the possible ways her statement could be construed, but Melanie seemed oblivious, continued to smile.

“Can we be polite?” she asked.

She was still a stranger more or less, and Dan was not about to trust a woman based on her word alone. No, she was still very much on probation. But it was oddly refreshing not to be looked at like a piece of meat: to be spoken to like an intelligent human by a girl who had no desire to be one of his conquests.

“Sure,” he drawled, glancing at her up and down in a deliberate way.

She didn’t take the bait, didn’t bat her lashes, but nodded, satisfied, and faced forward again, picking her sandwich back up.