Page 5 of Wilder

That was how it always went with his type.

Usually.

Unfortunately, what I never planned for when first hiring him on and showing him around the property on that first day, was that I’d somehow stumbled onto procuring a damn horse whisperer.

Four days into his first week, he’d somehow gotten a hold of the overly energetic stallion we kept in one of the back paddocks and successfully lead-trained him into behaving like a gentleman when passing by the herd of mares he was usually busting through the fences to get at. A week after that, Asher had not only groomed our famous bucking gelding but saddled him without getting a hoof to the face in the process.

And now, apparently, he was working his magic on our skittish palomino and doing... well, whatever it was he had his mind set to now.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that any of that was possible. We took in these abused horses with the hope of giving them a better life and providing them the peace they never got to see before stepping out of the trailer and onto our property.

If all that happened was them having a warm barn to sleep in at night and enough feed to bulk up their frail physiques, then that was more than enough of a reward for us. Anything outside of that was a lucky extra.

What Asher was doing was going above and beyond that.

And somehow, it was actually taking.

“Why hay bales?” I asked.

“I think she’d love barrel racing. Actually, I have a theory that that’s what she was trained for before she got surrendered.”

My lips hurt from how hard I pressed them together. The growing need to throw a thousand questions at him was hard to curb. Even harder to force myself not to take him by the arm and have him walk me back to that palomino’s stall so I could oversee what the hell he was doing.

So far, he hadn’t done anything outside of respecting our horse’s comfort levels. He was attuned to them in a way I’d never seen before. Wanting to supervise him was... just some strange fixation I needed to break.

“You saddled her?”

“Not yet,” he replied. “I was going to take her on a lead around the hay bales and get her used to the idea. I figured circling around food was a better motivator. You ever watch a dog show before? The one where they run the courses.”

I ran my tongue along the back of my front set of teeth. “Can’t say I have.”

“Usually, when you’re first training them, you have to lead them through their first few runs on a leash so they know where to focus. Having a bunch of those props around gets over-stimulating and tends to freak them out. I figure it’s kind of the same for horses, you know?”

No, I wanted to answer. I didn’t.

But at this point, what did I know?

Asher was unbelievable at figuring out what made our difficult horses tick. His impossible patience and determined spirit in learning about them and getting them to trust him wasn’t simply remarkable, it was absolutely miraculous.

If I hadn’t seen it first hand myself over the past few months, I never would have believed it in the first place.

Moonlit Sanctuaries took in many tragic cases through the year. By the time they came to us, most horses were too beaten and broken to do much more than endure whatever it was they believed they’d be getting once arriving on the ranch.

Hard work and diligence went a long way. The process was always a long haul, but felt worth it in the end when you started to see the first glimmers of hope and trust coming from the animal that was once so lost in its own trauma.

Asher had done all of that with each one of our most difficult intakes in a matter of weeks of their arrival. Taking them from scared and angry shells to what they were now—mostly functional animals.

“Is that what you’re planning on doing? Training her to barrel race?” I asked.

He shrugged at me. “Why not?”

I didn’t have any real reason to discourage him outside of practicality.

What were we going to do with a barrel racer?

I threaded my fingers through the hay next to me. “I’d suggest using those old drums that are sitting in storage and fill them up with sand if you’re going to be doing any of that kind of training. Dragging a couple of bales out to the paddocks and then back in when you’re done is going to be a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah. So, I tried those drums. I think she’s scared of them.”