Page 20 of Quiver

“I do mind.”

“Okay, fine. We’ll ride English. You can choose the saddles if you want to be grumpy about it.” Kylie stepped back into the stall, snuggling close to Winston’s neck, and slipped the bridle into his mouth without a hint of fuss from the horse. She lifted her eyes to Fletcher as if to say, See how easy that was?

Still, she didn’t move. This wasn’t going the way she’d planned at all, not that she had a plan. Kylie had showed up unannounced and steamrolled her way into a stall, which was exactly what she’d intended to do. When Kylie wanted something, she usually got it, and there’d been a time when Fletcher had been all too eager to bow to those wishes, especially when she found herself the object of them.

“Here, hold these a sec.” Kylie led Winston out of his stall and handed the reins to Fletcher, then bent down and tugged at her boot. The move tightened her jeans over her ass, and she lingered for a second as if stretching her back. Fletcher watched, because of course she did. Kylie wanted to prove Fletcher couldn’t look away, because saying no at this point would require a level of fortitude she’d been able to summon only near the end.

If you could even call what had happened the end at this point, because as Kylie straightened and shook out her hair with a knowing smile, nothing between them felt over.

“This isn’t a good idea,” she managed weakly.

“Still stating the obvious?” Kylie took the reins back. “If you need to put up a fight for your own sense of honor, I promise I’ll give your concerns their due, but can you at least point to the saddle you want me to use when I’ve exhausted your resistance? We both know the quicker we’re into it, the quicker we’ll be out of it.”

Fletcher clenched her jaw, both at this woman’s audacity and the truth behind her confidence. She didn’t have it in her to make a scene or forcibly remove her from the property. They were clearly going to have it out, and the longer she dug the heels of her boots into the dirt floor, the longer she delayed what Kylie had declared inevitable.

She sighed, opened the door to the tack room, and grabbed an old English saddle she used for lessons.

Kylie eyed it with a hint of amusement before lifting it easily onto Winston’s back. “Aww, look at us both making each other as uncomfortable as possible. Way to play along, Fletch.”

She rolled her eyes as she grabbed her own Australian stock saddle, rich brown and well-worn, offering both the stability and maneuverability she needed to shoot, and perhaps the same attributes might be helpful when riding with a woman determined to tie her in knots. Running her fingers lightly over the compass and arrow brand pressed into the leather, she tried to heed the subtle reminder to stay the course.

She turned to see Kylie already fastening the buckles on Winston’s girth. She was running out of time, or at least it felt that way. “This is a terrible idea.”

“Oh yeah,” Kylie agreed with a little chuckle, swinging her leg back and forth a time or two as if testing old muscles. Then she swept it up into one high kick akin to a standing split, followed by a spin that propelled her onto Winston’s back.

No one else mounted a horse that way. The move was part ballet and part acrobat, and pure Kylie. The power it held to conjure a myriad of memories ended the objection perched on Fletcher’s lips.

Kylie wheeled Winston around to face her, the smug grin on her face topped only by the horse, who stamped and nickered excitedly. They cut quite a self-satisfied pair, and what did it matter anyway, because Fletcher’s brain had gone a little numb and her mouth so dry she could only manage to mutter, “Traitor.”

They rode out of the barn into the brightness of sun reflecting off the snow to the point where even the air glittered. Kylie took in a deep breath of cold laced with the dominant scent of pine needles. “God, it’s glorious.”

Fletcher didn’t respond, but when Kylie turned in her saddle, she saw the crook of a smile on her lips before she schooled it back into a frown.

It was fine for her to play gruff for as long as she needed to. They both had their reasons to stay stoic, but Fletcher never could resist a good ride in the woods. Some of their biggest fights had been resolved out on the trail she intended to ride today, and while she wasn’t as hopeful or naïve as she’d been back then, their conversation in the truck last night hinted at a deep current running between them. She couldn’t go back to New York without at least trying to tap into it one more time.

She steered Winston along the edge of a pasture, but he didn’t take much coaxing, seeming to both remember and relish his role in this little play. Kylie took a few minutes to enjoy the scenery and the anticipation radiating off the woman behind her.

Fletcher was strung as tight as any bow she’d ever fired, and Kylie didn’t hate having the power to make her strings vibrate merely by showing up unannounced. Still, she needed to relax enough to reason some things out, so she turned to a topic almost guaranteed to lull her into a more settled state.

As the pasture gave way to a wide, graceful path marbled with snow and patches of downed pine boughs, she nodded to Fletcher. “Come up here and tell me about your new mount there.”

With the slightest move of her thighs, Fletcher urged the horse forward until they rode side by side. The young mare’s presence caused Winston to raise his head haughtily.

“She’s a three-year-old quarter horse.”

Kylie remembered a horse that had passed through the barn back in the days when it’d felt like a second home to her. “She looks like Shield.”

“She’s her granddaughter. She’s every bit as smart and nimble, but she was already jumpy when I got her as a yearling, and we’re still working on managing loud noises.”

“If anyone can calm her, it’s you. What’s her name?”

“Gabrielle.”

“Wait, is that some kind of Xena reference?”

Fletcher didn’t respond, and Kylie burst out laughing. “You’re such a throwback.”

“I didn’t name her. Ava did.”