Page 16 of Sweet Devotion

At the paddock, Aiden eyed the mounting stand.

“It will be easier to get on a horse with this.”

All he did was nod, but his eyes narrowed and his gaze lasered in on the block, studying every inch. “Who made this for you?”

“Clint and some of the hands. Connor Farraday was nice enough to email the specs to Alice and Clint. When I moved back to town it was ready for you.”

“If you think this will work, we’d better get the show on the road.”

It wasn’t easy walking up the steps, but it was way better than trying to heave up on a stirrup and then swing his leg—and all his weight—over the saddle. Getting him up wasn’t graceful. She hadn’t expected it to be and she didn’t make anything of it, simply positioned herself where she was useful, kept her voice even and her eyes where they needed to be, and let him work through it in his own sequence. When he finally settled into the saddle, she read him in the first three seconds. Braced. Waiting for pain. Slowly, she started the session, walking Boots around the perimeter of the paddock with Aiden on her back.

At first, trying to overcompensate for his injury, Aiden’s posture was rigid, his muscles tight.

“Relax,” she coaxed softly. “Let Boots do the work. Allow your body to respond to the motion.”

He barely nodded, but slowly as they circled the paddock, the tension bled from his shoulders.

Boots continued to take one slow step then another. His body needed to receive the information it had been waiting for. Not dramatic—nothing about this first session would be dramatic, that wasn’t the point. And then she saw it. The subtle shift as Aiden’s pelvis began to respond to the mare’s movement without being asked. The infinitesimal release in his lower back as something that had been locked tight for months was asked to move in a pattern it recognized from before any of this happened.

After the third circuit she brought them to a stop. “That’s enough for today.”

He looked at her.

“I mean it. First session is always shorter than the patient thinks it should be.”

A beat. “I was fine.”

“You were. Which is exactly why we stop now.” She held Boots steady while he dismounted, watched the way he landed, catalogued it without comment. “Same time tomorrow.”

“Fine,” he finally agreed with that expression that told her he wanted to argue and had already decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

In the distance she heard tires on gravel, coming around the side of the house.

Sarah Sue’s vehicle. Colleen stilled. Beside her, Boots lifted her head, ears swinging toward the sound. And from across the paddock, Brady—who had been stretched out in his usual spot by the fence—rose to his feet in a single fluid motion and stood looking toward the driveway with his tail perfectly still and his nose reading the air.

Sarah Sue appeared first, coming around the corner of the house at a slow, measured pace. Behind her, on a lead, a German Shepherd moved with mechanical compliance and little curiosity.

“Romeo.” Aiden muttered. “He’s beautiful.”

Dark faced, thick through the chest, Romeo was the kind of animal that turned heads.

“Oh my,” Colleen said. “Poor baby.”

“Yeah.” Aiden sighed. “He’s hurting. He’s not doing what off duty dogs do. Not alert, not reactive, not aggressive, tail hanging perfectly still. Romeo is somewhere else entirely. Present in body and absent in every way that mattered.”

Her head bobbed. “Agreed.”

“Too bad we can’t get him on the back end of a horse,” Aiden teased, but his smile wasn’t convincing.

Brady took three measured steps toward the approaching dog and stopped. Sat. Watched. Kade’s former K9 had picked up on everything Colleen and Aiden had. She wished that she could put the dog on a horse and heal all his wounds, but the ones you can’t see are the hardest to deal with.

Her gaze shot to Aiden. Did he have wounds she couldn’t see?

Chapter Seven

After weeks of therapy and pain, not much happening the last two days was a welcome change. At the sink in the kitchen, helping Alice with the lunch dishes, something that had become part of his new routine, Aiden kept glancing toward the back porch. Alice and Sarah Sue had decided Romeo needed time to adjust.

The plan had been to leave the crate close to the house so Romeo could observe the ranch happenings from a safe distance. Except Alice seemed to be a tad impatient. The crate—with the always open door—started out on the far corner of the porch the first night. Yesterday morning Alice moved it a few inches closer to the back door, then again last night, and again this morning. The dog seemed to not care. Which was the problem all along.