Page 32 of Then You Happened
“Good.” Another chuckle. Another shake of his head. Another slow rub up and down her nose as he continues walking her around the ring. “It isn’t worth getting upset over, you know?”
“What am I upset over?”
“It seems as if you’re pissed that the horses like me, which, to me, would seem to be a bonus considering you hired me to take care of them.”
“And?” I shift my feet and wait for the point he’s trying to make known, but he doesn’t continue. He walks River a bit more before reaching into a bucket and handing her a piece of apple while praising her.
It’s hard to want to hate him when he’s nice. It’s hard to want to trust him when I know he went into town last night and did who knows what at the bar.
“If you’re going to stand there and watch, you might as well help. Grab Willow and brush her down for me, will you?”
“Fine. Sure.” Still angry but happy to have something to do besides sulk, I climb the fence, and my boots thump when I land. Within seconds, I have Willow by the reins and am leading her toward the gate that leads into the shaded area outside the stables where the grooming supplies are.
“You know, we could hire someone else to do that, right?” he calls out as I shut the gate at my back. “Most ranch owners aren’t the ones responsible for that task.”
?
??I’m not most ranch owners,” I counter instead of asking him why he suggested I do it in the first place.
“You most definitely are not,” he murmurs so quietly that I can just barely make it out.
I set to work on Willow, running the brush in one hand followed by my bare palm of the other over the strong muscles playing beneath her coat. I find an odd solace in the work. In the repetition. In taking care of something that truly needs it.
Here and there, she leans into me when I hit a sensitive spot that feels good to her.
Jack’s clucks and praise to the other horses slowly become background noise as I let the mindless task become a sort of meditation that both relaxes and soothes me in the simplest of ways.
The gate at my back clanks open and shut as Jack goes to grab something. My guess is more treats, but I don’t turn to look. Instead, I listen to the beat of his boots on the concrete floor as they grow faint when he walks away and then louder as he returns.
And just as the gate clanks open, another gust of wind hits, swirling inside the alcove where I have Willow hitched. The blast of air picks up a plastic shopping bag that had been shoved in a bucket to save it for a later use and throws it up.
Before I can intercept it, the bag flutters against Willow’s face, and she spooks. With the handle of the bag freakishly looping over her ear, she rears up on her hindquarters and a loud cry falls from her as she bucks to get it off.
“Woah, girl!” I shout as I try to avoid her landing on me at the same time I try to pull the bag off her face.
Right as I’m within grasp of the bag, she rears up again, but this time, she turns toward me as she comes back down.
Seconds pass in what feels like snapshots of time—fast and furious.
Jack pulling me back from her front legs. The tether rope coming loose from where I tied it. Willow running toward the dead end of the stables, bag still attached to her ear as she bucks and thrashes her head.
His hands are on my shoulders as his head lowers so his eyes can meet mine. “You okay?” he asks, and when I fail to find words around the adrenaline surge, he gives me a shake. “Knox? Are you okay?”
“Yes. Sure. Fine.” But my words sound anything but sure when I get them out.
Willow’s neigh, frightened and freaked, followed by the slam of something breaking cuts through the fog and has both of us running. We find her cornered in the stables with the bag still on her ear. She apparently kicked a stall door so hard that it swung open and was pressing her into a corner with its weight.
I reach her before Jack does and focus on opening the door and getting the bag off so I can calm her down, but just as I get my hand on the door, Jack pulls me back.
“What are you—”
“She’s gonna hurt you if you do that. Kick you into the hospital. She’s freaked out, and that goddamn bag spooks her more and more every time she moves.”
“That’s why we have to get it off her!” I shout the obvious, frustrated that we’re talking about it and not doing it.
“I’ll keep the door pressed against her, you climb on the inside of the stall and remove it. She won’t be able to hurt you that way.”
But she’ll still be able to hurt you.
