Page 102 of Last Chance Cowboy
It was heavy on his mind even as they drove into the O’Malley Ranch.
He followed the instructions to the largest pavilion on the property, and there was a tall, rangy cowboy waiting for them when they parked right next to the arena.
There was a person in the arena with a horse, one of the more beautiful horses he had ever seen, lunging the horse in a circle, giving him a good look at the horse’s gait and conformation.
“Hey,” Connor O’Malley said, taking a step forward. “Good to see you, Zane.”
“Good to see you too,” he said.
Cara was standing next to him. He gestured toward her. “This is my… This is Cara.”
His what? What had he been about to call her? His partner, maybe? He’d never had one of those.
His girlfriend? He’d never had one of those either.
He had been completely alone for all of his life, and that felt stark right then. Because Cara wasn’t a hook-up. She wasn’t a one-night stand, she wasn’t a Band-Aid put over the top of a lifelong loneliness. He wasn’t with her to banish the sounds of the demons rioting in his soul, she actually made him feel something good. It was completely different. It was completely…
“Good to meet you, too,” Connor said. “So this is Grease Lightning, and you can see he’s a fine-looking stallion.” He started to go over the horse’s bloodline, and that wasn’t much of anything that Zane knew about. But he knew a very fine horse when he saw one. And this was a fine horse.
“He’d be a good stud, if you wanted to have your own.”
“Yeah. I’m leaning toward that. But… It’s been a long time since I’ve had much to do with the business.” Childhood. But he was born into it. Raised in it.
“It never really leaves you,” he said. “Once horses get under your skin, there you are.”
He turned to look at Cara. “See? Horses. They’re a hell of a drug.”
“I’m not a fan,” Cara said. But she smiled winningly, so even though Connor looked completely baffled by the statement, he was probably also held captive under Cara’s spell, and wasn’t going to say anything overly negative about her non-love of horses.
“I can hold him for you for a few more days, but I dohave other interested buyers. Most of them have established businesses. But I’m more interested in the idea of helping you get something off the ground. I’m old. I’m going to retire at some point, and I don’t have any kids who are interested in this business. If you and I start a relationship… Well, there’s room for you to get more stock from me down the road. And I can refer people to you. Help you with connections.”
This was the kind of offer somebody might get from family, and he was just getting it from someone who shared his love of horses.
But he came back to the fact that horses were some kind of healing. That they were magic, and this sort of proved it to him.
This was what he might’ve had if his father were still alive. A glimmer of it. One drop of glitter in an endless ocean of loss and loneliness. But damn, it felt pretty good.
“All right. Well… I’d love to ride him.”
“Saddle up. Let’s get going.”
Once they left the ranch, he had a lot on his mind. And he was more than ready to get Cara on the back of a horse.
“You look beautiful riding,” she said, her voice sounding dreamy, and when he looked at her, he could swear he saw hearts in her eyes. No one had ever looked at him like that before. It was miraculous.
“Are you ready to give it a shot?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I was really trying to commune with the horses a little bit more. I worked my way up to feeding one.”
“And what stopped you?”
“I’ve been kind of busy getting my brains fucked out?”
He howled a laugh as they drove down the highway. Thenturned onto the road that would take them up to the Painted Ridge Ranch.
“Well, it’s true,” she said.
“I didn’t realize I was taking up so much of your time.”
