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“Critters?”
“Cattle. Sorry, cowboy lingo.” He flashed me a cheeky grin.
I resisted the urge to scream with joy as I nodded my acceptance. Excitement coursed through my veins as visions of what the day would entail filled my mind. After filling myself with pancakes and orange juice, I headed outside to see Cody already tacked up, ears pricked and waiting. Brady was sat on the big bay mare he’d ridden yesterday.
I frowned, confused. “I thought you said you used Cody when you needed a good cow horse?”
He patted his horse. “She is a good horse. She’s in training. Cody knows the job like the back of his hand. He’s just the easier choice for me. But whilst you’re here, he’s yours.”
My cheeks burned at his words. Why did everything he said have such a profound effect on me? Was it because for the first time in a long time, he was making me feel like I was important to someone? Like my wants and needs mattered more than their own?
‘Pink pillows’echoed through my mind and I had to stifle a giggle. I swung myself into Cody’s saddle just as four of the other wranglers rode up to join us. They all tipped their hats at me, smiling with pleasantries before giving Brady funny smirks. I told myself not to even wonder what he’d said to them.
We had an hours’ ride across the bleak landscape before we would reach the pasture. When we did finally come across a fence line, the sun was just starting to scorch the earth once more, leaving me breathless in the dry heat. Beads of sweat were already rolling off me and I dreaded to think what a mess I must look.
I scanned along the fence line, my eyes widening in shock as it trailed off into the horizon to goodness knows where. “This is what you call a pasture?”
Brady grinned, his dark eyes dancing with amusement. “This is one of the smaller ones—only a couple hundred acres.”
I balked at his blasé response. “Only? Are you kidding me?”
“Arizona is just shy of one hundred and fifteen thousand square miles. Your little island back home is barely ninety-four thousand square miles.”
I raised my eyebrows, not only stunned by the fact that the United Kingdom could fit inside this state and then some, but of the fact that Brady knew this trivial fact off the top of his head. Just how deep did this gorgeous man go?
“How do you even know that?” I asked, still baffled by the sheer size of one state.
He grinned. “The Discovery channel is quite informative you know.”
I shook my head, grinning, as we continued through the dusty setting. The horses seemed as eager as ever despite the heat threatening to cook us from the inside out. On the horizon, I could just make out a colourful mass spread over the green vegetation. Cody suddenly found a spring in his step and pricked his ears so far forwards, they nearly touched at the tips.
Brady pushed his mare into a jog to keep pace with Cody’s walk. “Don’t interfere with him,” he said, nodding towards Cody. “He’s got fantastic cow sense—all you need to do is hang on.”
“Cowboy talk again?”
“Sorry,” he said, grinning. “It means he knows his job inside out with regards to the cows.”
“Ok, fair enough. So, all I need to do is hang on?”
He nodded. “He’s quick. And I mean quick—even by our standards.”
My confidence took a little step back, leaving me to swallow a nervous lump in my throat. I faked a weak smile and tried to calm my now quickening pulse.
“You’ll be fine,” Brady said, chuckling. “Hang on to the horn if you struggle. He’s used to being at the front with me, but I’ll hang back to help you whilst the others head up front.”
We pushed into a lope, Cody surging forwards ahead of the others. Adrenaline coursed through my veins at a rate of knots making me dizzy with apprehension and excitement.
“Hold him back!”
I turned my head to see Greg loping towards me on a grey mare, waving one hand frantically whilst yelling at me. The monotonous drone of the cattle expressing their disgust with us almost drowned out his voice.
“Sophie! Hold him back!”
By the time I’d registered Greg’s panicked shouts, and attempted to react to his instructions, it was too late. Cody had already upset the peaceful herd by charging past them on the way to the front. The dust cloud created by his thundering hooves spooked some of the calves, and unfortunately for one, it ran away from its mother in blind fear.
It darted out to the left, running for all it was worth. Cody locked on to it and took off, chasing it. He swallowed the ground at such a pace, it left me stunned. As we neared its behind, the poor thing became even more freaked out and started zig zagging its way across the ground in an effort to shake Cody off its back.
Cody surged forwards with yet even more speed. He overtook the calf and once he was a few feet in front of it, he spun around and met it head on. The frightened creature stopped dead, staring back at Cody’s flattened ears and low neck. Still in the mind set of running in blind fear, it darted to the right, only to have Cody follow it.
A dance of left and right began for a few minutes which had me holding onto the horn for dear life. Cody’s shifts from side to side were so fast and forceful, the saddle was moving with him.
I took my concentration off myself for just a second to glance at the calf. It shot to the right once again, flicked its ear to the left and moved one leg in that direction too. Cody, anticipating its move back to the left, dashed back that way to block its path.
But the calf was smart.
With Cody a few more feet away from it, the calf corrected its ‘intended’ direction and zipped by our side, heading even further away from its herd. The force with which Cody leaped back to the right was just incredible. He grunted with the effort. Before I could even blink, he spun around in a phenomenal one-eighty degree turn before launching himself full pelt after it.
With my sense of balance whirling from all the sudden changes and speeds, I could literally do nothing as the moving saddle tipped me too far over one side. A glimpse of buckskin legs followed a flash of bright blue sky.
Then a sharp crunch sucked me into darkness.
