His free leg hangs in the air above the ground as he remains clutching the saddle horn.
“You’re almost there. Keep your hands on the horse when you let go for balance. Once your foot touches the ground, your other foot should pop right out of the stirrup.”
Standing nearby, I watch as he reluctantly lets go of the saddle. His foot hits the ground, and he wobbles and hops as hisother foot releases from the stirrup. Once both feet are on the ground, he turns to me with his hands in the air.
“I’m a damn natural!”
I like the way he smiles when he’s proud of himself like that. The word cute floats into my brain again, and I push it right out. He deserves a word better than cute.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You’ve only made it halfway on this ride. When we get back to the ranch, you can decide if that’s still true.”
Ethan sticks his tongue out at me, and I shake my head with a laugh. “Fine. Tell me what we’re looking at.”
After tying our horses to a nearby tree, I gesture toward the valley on our left.
“This is Snow Creek, and that’s one of the widest parts down there.” He follows my finger as I point to the section downstream, away from the mountains. “In the spring, the creek has higher water levels from the snowmelt. Rainbow trout will spawn in that smaller section above the wide part in the spring, and brown trout in the fall.” I move my arm, pointing to the spawning area. “See where the river is skinnier and seems less flowy? Almost quiet?” Ethan nods, and I continue. “When I bring a guided fishing tour out here, I bring them to the spot below where the rocks poke out. See it?”
Ethan nods again, so I go on. “I don’t like to bring tours too close to the spawn beds. Sometimes they’re not experienced fishers and disturb the eggs. I prefer to keep them away from there.”
“Makes sense.” Ethan nods and snaps a few photos of the creek. “So you ride horses here with fishing gear and fish all day?”
“Fly fish. Yes.”
“And you get paid for it.”
“I do,” I say with a smile, because it really is the best job.
“That’s cool. I’ll need to come with you and learn how to fly fish.”
“First horseback riding and next fly-fishing? Slow down, city boy. You might come to like it here.”
Ethan’s gaze locks on mine before he returns his attention to the valley. He’s quieter than he was a moment ago, and I don’t know if it’s something I said, but something shifted. Maybe he’s just really into the scenery and photos? This is probably as good a time as any to ask him the question I’ve been playing over and over since we left.
“Um…I was wondering if I could ask you a favor?”
“Of course you can.” Ethan doesn’t look my way for a beat, finishing whatever he has in his mind with photos.
When he turns his attention to me, I hold my phone up. “I was hoping you could give me some pointers for using this thing. Maybe start by taking a nice photo? Sometimes people ask me to take their photo out here and…well, I rarely know what I’m doing with it, and I should.”
It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot since Jesse told me about advertising and hiring someone. Usually, I pass the duty to someone else because I’d feel horrible if the only photo of their monster trout was a blurry image from me. Ethan might be paid to drum up business, but I’m paid to be the best at my job. Going the distance and giving them great photos seems like excellent customer service they might brag about.
Ethan steps closer and nods to the phone. “First, you need to turn it on.”
My cheeks heat, and I roll my eyes. “I know that.” I press the button, and the screen remains blank. A second try, and still nothing. “I guess I didn’t check if it was charged when I went home to get it. I plugged it in last night and everything.” I didn’t check, though. Maybe it wasn’t plugged into the outlet. I’ll keep that part to myself, but I’m sure Ethan suspects it already.
Ethan grabs my wrist before I can stuff the phone back into my pocket. “Colt…we can still use it. Give me the phone.”
Handing it to Ethan, I watch as he roots in the little pouch across his chest and pulls out a flat black object and what looks like a charging cable.
“This is a battery pack. We can charge your phone, and you can still use it. Your model looks like an older one, but we’ll see how long it takes to get enough juice to work with.”
“Huh. I guess that’s…neat.”
“You’ve never seen a battery pack, have you?”
“No. Never needed it.”
“When you bring people out here, how do you stay in touch with the ranch? What if there’s a medical emergency or something?”
