Page 36 of Kicking Up Dust

But she waves her hand through the air. “She’ll be fine. She can stay behind the fence.”

“It’s hot, Tate. Blair doesn’t need to get overheated.”

Tate looks offended. “Well, duh. I’ll set up one of the big fans.”

Colt sighs and looks over toward me. I shrug nervously. Spending my day with horses isn’t really on the top of my priority list, but horses seem to be a part of living here and it’s not like I have to ride them or anything…

“Please, Colt? We can do it in the indoor arena instead if you’re really worried about the heat.”

Colt sighs. “She and I will talk about it tonight and let you know.”

I balked at the idea of Colt deciding what I would or wouldn’t be doing, but when Tate finally left, he immediately explained.

“Sorry, I wanted to give you an out. If you don’t want to watch, we can just tell her I’m a controlling asshole who said no.”

And, well, that was unfairly hot for some reason I hadn’t made peace with yet.

Regardless, a week later and here I am in the indoor arena—because it had in fact been too hot outside for Colt’s liking—watching as Tate dances around a group of three horses, opening and closing an umbrella. They spook every single time, but they’re tied to the wall to prevent them from running or hurting themselves.

“See? Ridiculous creatures, aren’t they? Really, they’re just dogs. Large dogs.”

She says this in the most babying tone as she pets the white spot on the closest horse’s nose, pressing a kiss to it afterward. I get what Colt meant when he said horses are Tate’s calling. It’s hard to dislike them when I watch how much Tate loves them.

Still, I think I much prefer cats, like the one winding around my ankles that won’t let me pick him up or pet him. Sheriff, Tate had called him.

“Your tarps, my liege,” Jameson calls as he enters the arena, tossing the folded-up blue squares onto the ground. The horses jolt. Tate rolls her eyes fondly. “Also, Bailey told me to tell you that Travis’ girlfriend is trying to get in touch with you. Paisley?”

“Presley,” Tate corrects as Jamie walks over to where I’m sitting and plops down in the dirt beside my chair. “What’s she need?”

He ignores her, taking his cowboy hat off and wiping the sweat off his brow with his sleeve.

“Colt told me to ask if you needed to go inside,” he says to me instead.

My lips quirk. He’s such a worrywart.

“What are you, the errand boy?” I ask, not sure if it’s okay to make jokes yet. I try to act way more familiar than I am. Exposure therapy, perhaps, even as my stomach curdles at the idea of him looking at me sideways like I’ve insulted him.

He doesn’t though, instead snorting out a laugh. “It’s so goddamn hot out there, I practically volunteered.”

“What’s Presley need?” Tate asks again, finally walking up. She passes each of us a cold water bottle from a cooler she’s got stashed nearby.

“I don’t know. You should try keeping your walkie-talkie on. Or at the very least, answering your phone.”

“The noise from the walkie-talkie scares the horses,” she mumbles with furrowed brows as she pulls her phone out of her back pocket.

“You’re literally scaring the horses on purpose right now.”

She ignores him, scrolling through her phone. “Shit.”

“Mhmm. Lots of texts and missed calls?”

“Fuck you,” Tate says, rolling her eyes. It surprises me. Tate’s a grown adult, sure, but she’s the youngest of the family so I hadn’t expected her to curse at her brother so easily.

“Maddie hears you talking like that and he’ll wash your mouth out with soap,” Jamie jokes. I look between them like I’m watching a game of incredibly entertaining ping-pong. I’ve been around so many families in my life, all with different dynamics, but the Whittakers are perplexing to say the least.

“I could replace my entire vocabulary with curse words and Maddie wouldn’t notice.”

“Yeah, he’s had his head up his ass lately,” Jameson agrees, but my eyes are stuck on Tate. Even as she types away on her phone, her tone is terse and her shoulders are tense. I get the feeling she meant something entirely different than how Jameson perceived it.