He gave her an intense look, and she just smiled back.
He liked her spirit.
8
Merry Anna liked being aroundAdam. He was fun, and he hadn’t been kidding about knowing his way around the kitchen. Even if he wasn’t the cup-of-sugar kind of neighbor, she was glad to have him as hers.
“I set the timer,” he said. “Let’s go outside until the pie is ready.”
“Sure.” She followed along. The day had grown warmer, but the sky was Tar Heel blue. She’d never really been on a ranch, or horse farm, or whatever exactly this place would be considered. She was captivated by the way the animals moved through the fields. She’d admired them from the bunkhouse, but here, up close, it was different. “It must be a lot of work to take care of this place and all these animals.”
“It is, but when it’s what you love, it’s not so much like work.”
He led her down to a long bench with wagon wheels on each side. It looked like something out of the Wild West. They both sat down, and she did so gingerly, careful not to get a splinter in her legs or pull the fabric of her sundress.
“Are all these horses yours?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. Are they rodeo horses?”
“You mean like bucking horses? No.” He shook his head. “Most are just good old quarter horses that needed a place to live out their days. People bought them to use for roping or for something that didn’t quite work out, and I took them off their hands. I have a few really nice horses up on the other side. Nice bloodlines, but nothing I’ve raised here has been good enough to be a bronco.”
“But you’ve tried?”
“Yeah, but now I’m working on partnering with a livestock contractor who already has a foothold in the business. You think being a pro rodeo cowboy is hard? It’s probably even harder to get a stock contract. Those bulls and horses are athletes too.”
“Never really thought about it like that.”
“You know, the bull gets half the score when I ride.”
“What? That doesn’t seem fair.”
“We’re judged on different things. Bulls get points for aggression and speed. If the bull does a good job, I have to perform better. It takes strength, balance, and control. Style plays a part too. Combined, if we both have a good day, then we’ll score high.”
“What’s a perfect score?” she asked.
“Well, 100 is a perfect ride, but that has only happened once. Currently, the highest score ever achieved in the PBR is 97.75, and that’s been achieved just a handful of times.”
“I saw it with my own two eyes, but it’s still hard to picture that it was you, the guy I just baked pies with, riding on the back of a mean, snorting, snot-slinging bull that outweighs you by a ton.”
Adam leaned his forearms onto his knees. “It’s a dangerous sport, no doubt about it. I like just riding along peacefully on my horses too, though.”
“Do you ride them around here?”
“Yeah, I’ve got trails all up this mountain.” He swept his arm across the field. “We should go sometime.”
“No, I’m probably worse at that than baking. I’ve never even touched a horse.”
“Not even at a petting zoo?”
She shook her head.
He leaped to his feet and grabbed her hand. “We’re going to fix that.”
She dug her heels in, trying to slow him down. “No, I’m fine watching from here.”
“Come on. You need to experience this.”
