"She needs it." His voice was easy, conversational, like he wasn't about to say what he was about to say. "A horse like her, all that training, all that good in her—she gets stiff. Restless. She needs a job."
I kept my eyes on Maribel. "Brody."
"I'm just sayin'."
"No, you're notjust saying."
He had the good grace not to deny it. "She's the gentlest horse I've ever known in my life. My dad spent years with her. Never raised his voice, never rushed her, never gave her a reason to be anything but exactly what she is." He paused. "She'd take care of you."
My heart stuttered. "I haven't been on a horse in twenty-two years."
"I know."
"I told you that."
"I know you did."
Maribel turned her head and gazed at me with those enormous, bottomless eyes. Patient and unhurried, like she had nowhere to be and no opinion about any of it.
Damn horse.
"She's barely been out of this stall," Brody said quietly. "Rhett feels too guilty to ride her and nobody else will touch her out of respect." He scratched behind Maribel's ear and she dropped her head further. "She's lonely, I think. If a horse can be lonely in a barn full of horses."
I looked at him then. The soft set of his mouth. The way he said it—not as a manipulation, just as a true thing he'd noticed and couldn't quite keep to himself.
"That's not fair," I said.
"No," he agreed. "It's not."
I looked back at Maribel. She was watching me again with that quiet, ancient patience.
Maybe she needed this as much as I did.
The thought arrived fully formed and settled in my chest before I could argue with it.
"Slow," I said. "Paddock only. And if I say stop, we stop."
Brody's expression didn't change much—a small shift at the corners of his mouth. "Yes, ma'am."
I pointed a finger at him.
"Sorry." He didn't look sorry at all. "Viper."
We tacked her up together, Brody talking me through it quietly like I didn't already know how, and I let him because it gave my mind something to focus on besides the tremble in my hands and the racing of my heart. Maribel stood perfectly still through the whole thing, weight cocked on one hip, ears relaxed. Like she understood we needed a minute.
The early evening light was long and golden when we led her out to the paddock. The air smelled like warm earth and dry grass and the specific sweetness of a summer evening in Montana that I hadn't let myself love yet. Brody clipped the lead to Maribel's bridle and brought her alongside the mounting block.
I stood at the top of it and didn't move.
Twenty-two years.Far more than half my life. I'd been around horses every single day of my time on this ranch—fed them, groomed them, mucked their stalls, learned their moods and their quirks and the sounds they made when they were content. I'd let myself get that close. Told myself it was enough.
Standing here with one hand on the saddle, I understood the difference between being near something and trusting it with your body. With your life. That distinction had lived inside me like a splinter for twenty-two years, working its way deeper every time I got close enough to feel it.
My mother had done this countless times. And then once, she hadn't come back from it.
"Calvin."
I glanced down at Brody. He wasn't smiling. Wasn't pushing. He stood at Maribel's head with one hand on her bridle and the other hanging loose at his side, just looking up at me with those green eyes that didn't ask for anything I wasn't ready to give.
