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He really wasn’t looking forward to getting on a horse, but he could not let her go off through the woods alone.
“You’re ready.”
“That’s it?
“Left, right, backward, forward, stop, start. What else do you want her to do?”
She stared down at him. “I mean, can we practice more?”
“That’s what we’re doing?” He clicked his tongue twice, and Bonanza came clip-clopping out of the stables. He hauled into the saddle. “Right now.”
He flicked his reins, and Bonanza took a step.
“Wait!”
“What?”
“What about the branches?”
“Duck,” he suggested and gestured her forward.
She let out an untranslatable growl and flicked both reins. Beauty started forward, and he let Bonanza fall in line.
As they bounced along, she lost her seat twice.
“You know what?” she said. “I take it back. I’m just gonna live here now. My family will miss me, but I’m sure they’ll understand.”
The wolf surged again, and Aiden squeezed his reins until the leather bit into his palm.
That was sarcasm, idiot.
“You got this,” he offered after another awkward pause.
What would it take for that to really happen? They’d sort things out with her family. They had to. And then what? She didn’t live that far away, and he had a dozen horses. They could…
What?
Curl up in his house near the assholes who had hurt her so badly? Gallivant around the land with his wolf on the edge of ripping people’s heads off at every opportunity?
Reality settled in hard. Last night, she was hot and forbidden, and it had all been a delightful game until he’d seen her in daylight, terrified of riding but determined to get home.
As they approached the tree line around the yard, she twisted carefully. “Shouldn’t you lead this?”
“I want to make sure you’re still on the horse,” he said perfectly honestly.
“What, so you can clap when I fall over?”
No, because he very much was afraid that he would not be able to let her out of his sight. “So maybe I can say something before you fall over. Beauty doesn’t run. You’ll be fine. Take that path there you see heading into the woods.”
It was the horse more than the rider that got them on the path. As he thought, once Beauty knew what he wanted from her, she was happy to oblige even with the extremely mixed messages Goldie sent her. She kept forgetting the reins in her hand, and wherever she looked, her hands went with her.
After a few minutes when she settled into a rhythm and stopped giving Beauty both turn signals at once, Goldie said, “I see why she can’t run.”
“How do you mean?” he asked
“Her bodyweight is off.”
“Is it?” Was she ailing? He’d have to get her to Ellis.
