Page 2 of Wilder

I let my hand drop back down to my side. “Maybe you should listen to us more often. Would’ve saved us all the trouble of having to listen to your bitching and moaning if you were more patient.”

He laughed, sinking down to a fighting stance and bouncing on his toes before sending a one-two punch my way, the breeze of it blowing past me. My water bottle crinkled in his tight fist. “Yeah, yeah. Heard you loud and clear, boss.”

“Glad to hear it.”

When he stood straight again, we headed back for the main arena.

The doors of it were still propped open from when we were last in there, no signs of anyone else taking a horse or two around the indoor ring for a quick training session, or anyone in general for that matter. With no watch on my wrist, it was hard to tell the time, but judging by how high the sun was overhead, it had to be around mid-afternoon. Three at the latest.

Where the hell was Sully?

By now, he would’ve been done running inventory on any tack needing to be replaced and repaired and come this way with a bag of feed to throw out for our chickens who tended to wander this way after noon hit.

As my ranch manager and unofficial business partner, I knew that man like the back of my hand. He wasn’t one to stray from his schedule no matter what kind of mess got in his way.

On any normal day, at least.

Right now, our chickens were pecking aimlessly at the substrate darkening the hard ground coming out of the arena doors, kicked up from Ryder and I leading our new rescue out into the round pen for a few laps to wear down his anxious energy—baby steps we’d been painstakingly taking to avoid another hoof to the chest incident.

One of the chickens let out a sorrowful trill as we passed by, a couple of them breaking off from the group to follow after us. Probably hoping we had some extra feed stuffed in our pockets to give out as a snack along the way.

“You think they’ll follow us all the way back to the bunkhouse?” Ryder asked.

“Probably.”

I’d feel bad if our hens weren’t already so round to begin with. Teddy, our veterinarian, had told me plenty of times to knock off giving them extra food throughout the day, warning me I’d end up with a dozen coop-bound chickens if I wasn’t careful, or worse, a couple of hens with joint and liver problems.

Too bad none of my staff cared to listen to the old man no matter how many times he preached at them when he came around. Plenty of them offered to take a chicken or two back to the bunkhouse to keep as pets to spoil rotten and out of Teddy’s eyesight when he came back for his monthly check-ins.

I told them all to take a few of the barn cats in instead and, of course, had been met with blank stares and even fatter chickens come the next month.

The next time I saw him, I’d told Teddy my job was wrangling horses, not staff. After that, he’d given up and forced Sully to order a lower calorie chicken feed.

And that was that.

“I’ll go see what Hazel’s got for scraps. She made us all those blueberry pancakes this morning ‘cause the fruit was going bad. Bet she’s still got some left over.”

I gave him a swift clap on the back. “Have at it. Good work today.”

He saluted me with two fingers before taking off in a slow jog. “Come on, girls.”

They waddled after him, disappearing around the corner when he took it to head back to the bunkhouse.

Hazel’s face was going to light up the second she saw a set of helping hands come waltzing through her kitchen. Didn’t matter what task Ryder was there for, he’d be roped into helping her prep for dinner the second he came back in from tossing whatever scraps she handed him out the back door to the chickens.

Despite his complaining, Ryder liked the work. Any work, really; didn’t matter what it was. He just tended to bitch while doing it. A classic workhorse with a loud mouth. All muscle with no mute button.

He’d been just as rowdy when I first got him, opposite to the horses I tended to throw his way. He’d come here eager to show off like most greenhorns, raring to prove himself above the rest of that year’s seasonal group and hadn’t quit like I thought when he’d first come barreling off that city bus.

It’d been five years since then. Five whole years of back breaking work and tears shed over what we did here with no signs of him slowing down any time soon.

I liked ranch hands like that. Made them malleable and adaptable. Quick on their feet and tough when push came to shove. Perfect for rehabbing the abused horses we tended to take in among the breeding ones we usually went to auction for.

I’d started Moonlit Sanctuaries as a side project—had never meant to grow it past the few horses I’d happened upon while expanding our breeding program back almost a decade ago. My soft heart couldn’t take seeing them up for the slaughterhouse when they’d been dragged off those trailers. Rib lines and old scars visibly notched into their coats, even from twenty feet back and a crowd of people in the way.

They’d haunted me into taking out my first business loan and opening up what I thought would be a small, simple operation.

Now nine years later, that was half of what we did at the ranch. Breeding and rehabbing. Two sides of the same coin, I suppose. But important work, nonetheless. Both required a special amount of care that few people knew how to handle.