Page 9 of Wilder

“You did so good today.” I grazed my palm along her shoulder a few times as she dipped her head to pull out some of the hay and mash it between her teeth.

Maybe she wouldn’t be the champion barrel racer Wilder’s concerned expression had wagered when I last talked to him, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be taken out every once in a while to do laps around those bales. It was good stimulation anyway⁠—

Shit. The bales.

I slapped a hand to my forehead. Laken had distracted me into totally spacing about dragging them back to the storage port like I’d promised Wilder I would. Since he was done for the day, I could probably talk him into helping me roll them back up here, maybe rope Ryder in, too, once we found out where he was.

Slipping out of Pelly’s stall and locking it back in place, I jogged over to Laken. “Say, you got any energy left to help me drag those hay bales back up here?”

He shot me a look. “You’re kidding. Those weren’t already out there?”

“If I said ‘pretty please’ would that convince you not to lecture me?”

“No.”

“What if I buy you a drink tonight?”

“You’re literally eighteen.”

“Nineteen,” I corrected.

“Oh, big difference.”

I shoved him out of the stables. “Come on. Any more bitching and you’re going to sound like Ryder.”

He laughed and threw an arm over my shoulder. “Touché. Can’t have that be my reputation.”

“It’s already taken, anyway. I don’t think you could compete.”

“True.”

Rounding the corner of the building and taking the path up toward the bunkhouse, I let my mind wander again. Maybe it was poor decision making to be going out when we were going to be getting up early tomorrow and I was simply digging myself into a hole that I was absolutely going to hate having to crawl out of the minute my phone woke me up out of a dead sleep.

Then again, during the six and a half months of working here, there never seemed to be a ‘proper’ time to head out into town for a night of rest and relaxation. You either had to suck it up and deal with the consequences or be okay with not having a life outside of this place.

For now, I was more inclined to choose the first option. Staying on property for months on end was kind of giving me the itch to go.

Without warning, Laken grabbed the back of my shirt and hauled me against the side of the riding arena. My shoulder slammed into it, though not hard enough to cause any blinding pain, just enough to annoy me slightly.

Turning to him, I opened my mouth to ask him, “What the fu⁠—”

“Shh,” he whispered quickly, holding a finger up to his lips that silenced me instantly. He jerked his head toward the next corner closest to us, letting go of my shirt to inch forward while keeping quiet.

Voices picked up on the other side, familiar.

“—that’s not the point.” Sully’s voice was tense, a hard edge to it that I wasn’t at all used to hearing.

“Well, what else was I supposed to do?” another one snapped. “That horse was out of control.”

“That doesn’t mean you have the authority to take matters into your own hands, Carter.” Wilder’s voice.

Carter.

I nearly groaned.

He’d come in on the same bus as me when our group had arrived at the ranch. I’d had no opinions of him when we first got here. To me, he seemed like an unassuming kid, around my age, who kept to himself most of the time. As our companions began to drop like flies and head back to the city—or wherever else they came from—we’d been inexplicably paired up quite a few times for training.

While I hadn’t minded, apparently being stuck with the only other newbie had somehow personally insulted Carter and had given him a weird kind of complex. Over the last week and a half, he’d gotten himself wrapped up in a few troubling issues, most of them brought on by his constant itch to prove himself to the senior staff.