Page 13 of Promised to the Cowboy

“Well, hi,” I say softly.

He nickers, low and hopeful. A real conversationalist.

A hand-lettered sign is zip-tied to his stall.CAPTAIN WINKY.And under it, smaller:He can see you fine.

I laugh out loud in the empty barn. “Captain Winky.” The gelding bobs his head like he’s proud of it. “That is the worst name I have ever heard, but I already love you, and I’ve known you for four seconds.”

He leans his whole head into my hands when I offer them, the trusting way that only happens with a horse who’s been treated right his whole one-eyed life. I stand in the golden barn light, scratching a one-eyed gelding’s jaw, and for the first time in four months, the tightness in my chest unclenches a little.

I shift my weight without thinking, the small automatic adjustment I’ve started making to allow room for the curve. Six months ago, I could’ve spent an hour folded over a stall door and never felt it.

“He likes you.”

My heart flutters, but I don’t startle. I just keep scratching Captain Winky’s jaw and say without turning around, “It’s mutual.”

Gabriel comes up to the stall and leans against the door, a careful few feet of space between us. He’s got a coffee in one hand. He hands it to me without a word. Our fingers brush as I take it, just a graze of callus and heat, and the small contact travels straight up my arm like muscle memory. I have to curl my free hand into a fist against my thigh so I don’t reach for more. I take it. It’s decaf. I can tell from the first sip.

I look at him over the cup, and he looks back. He’s close enough that I catch the clean sweat-and-soap scent of him. My body remembers the weight of that chest against my back before my mind can stop it. Heat pools between my thighs.Not the time or the place, Evie.

“He came off a feedlot,” Gabriel says, nodding at the gelding. “Lost the eye before we got him. Nobody’d take him. Spooky, they said. Untrainable.”

“He’s not spooky.”

“No.” A pause. “He’s not.”

“Whoever said that just didn’t know how to come at him from the right side.” I scratch under the gelding’s forelock. “Horses aren’t broken. People come at them wrong and say it’s the horse’s fault.”

“That what you do?” he asks. “Come at them from the right side?”

“That’s the whole job now.” I take a sip of my coffee. “Rehab. The ones nobody else can fix. People send me horses they’ve written off—bite, bolt, won’t load, won’t stand—and nine times out of ten the horse is fine and the human was the problem. I just slow everything down until the horse believes me.” I shrug. “It’s not magic. It’s patience and not lying to them. Horses always know when you’re lying.”

“Do they?”

“Every time.” I tip my head at Captain Winky, who’s gone heavy-lidded under my hand. “Take this one. Somebody decided a one-eyed horse was a problem to be managed. They came at him from the blind side, spooked him, and called it proof. You don’tmanage a horse like that. You stand where he can see you, and you wait for him to decide you’re worth his trust. The difference is the person, not the horse.”

Gabriel doesn’t say anything for a long moment. He looks at the one-eyed horse as if I’ve just told him something about himself, not the gelding.

“You’re a natural,” he finally says, which feels like a huge compliment coming from this man.

I huff a laugh. “Maybe. But I learned everything I know from my mom. She broke in colts the gentle way, long before anybody called it rehab and gave it a clinic price. People thought she was soft.” I huff. “She wasn’t. She just figured out earlier than most that you can’t bully a thousand pounds into trusting you.” I run my thumb down the gelding’s nose. “When her interests changed, I kept going. Took the ones nobody wanted. The biters. The ones with a write-off slip already filled out.” I shrug carelessly, like it’s nothing. “Turns out I’m real good with things everybody else gives up on. Don’t read too much into it.”

“Bit late for that.”

Gabriel’s gaze doesn’t leave my face. Not assessing. Just... looking. Like he thinks I’m worth understanding.

And somewhere along the way, I started thinking the same thing about him.

Chapter 6

Evie

We end up sitting on the tailgate of his truck outside the barn as the sun moves up over the ridge. The metal is cool under my palms, but every time he shifts, I can feel the warm, solid mass of his thigh pressed against mine.

Gabriel asks about barrel racing. I tell him too much. I tell him about the buckle I won at nineteen and the horse I lost at twenty-three, the one who taught me everything, and how I haven’t run a horse that fast since because some partnerships only happen once.

“Her name was Misty,” I say, which I hadn’t planned to. “Plain little sorrel mare nobody looked at twice. We just fit.” I turn the coffee in my hands. “You spend your whole life looking for the one that fits, and if you’re lucky, you get one, and you don’t get to pick when. Colic took her. Fast. Nothing anybody could’ve done, and I know that. Sorrel, the mare you saw me ride at Bigfork, is the next-fastest horse in the barn at home. She runs clean times, but she’s not Misty.”

I take a breath. “So I don’t run anymore.”