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I shook my head. “No. You think that’s part of the problem?”
“I mean, if I was walking around and you were calling me ‘horse’ all day, I know I’d have a problem with it.”
“Smart-ass.”
“Of course.” Liam leaned against the fence, bracing his arms. “You know, some animals aren’t cut out for this.”
“He is. I know he is. Rayne tell you about the client?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I saw her up at the house. Kid. Teenager. Had some fucked-up shit happen to him, I guess. From what I could gather. Not like she could tell me all that much.”
“Yeah.” The horse had settled down on the other side of the paddock, calm now that I wasn’t close to him. “He needs a therapy animal sooner rather than later, so I have to crack it.”
“You’ll get it,” he said. “And if you don’t, then we’ll have Daniel come and replace you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like hell. He barely trusts me. You think introducing another person to this equation makes it better?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. But it might help if everything is on the table.”
I couldn’t argue with him. We were getting to that point.
“I’m not out here to bust your balls.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I said, smirking.
He laughed. “Well, partially that. But there’s a woman here to see you.”
I turned to him then to see if this was another joke. He looked serious. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
It had been a long time since a woman had come looking for me. Been a long time since I’d interacted with any woman seriously. And there was no woman I could think of who had reason to come here to talk to me. “She say why?”
“Nope,” Liam said, popping the word. “But you should definitely come find out.”
I sighed. “Can you take care of it? Or one of the other guys? I’d like to keep trying here.”
“They’re all out or busy. Besides,” Liam said, climbing over the fence and dropping down next to me, “she specifically asked for you.”
Something deep resonated with those words, an unnamed instinct perking up and sensed something. And that was strange because once I’d come out here to Montana, I’d left all those instincts long behind. “Fine.”
Slowly, Liam helped me approach the horse from opposite directions. He’d helped me get him under control and into the stables a few times over the past several weeks. And the horse was predictable. He reared again upon realizing that he was being cornered, but I managed to get ahold of his bridle. “We’re not going to hurt you,” I said softly.
A harsh breath came out of his mouth. He didn’t believe me. That was all right—he didn’t have to. We would show him that we could be trusted. Liam stayed back as I led the horse into his stall in the stables, ready to jump in if the animal decided he wanted to make a run for it. But, thankfully, he didn’t do much more than shake his head and try to prance out of my grip a couple of times.
I sighed as I closed the door to his stall. “Horse is going to be the death of me.”
“Hopefully not,” Liam chuckled.
We headed back to the main ranch house. None of us lived there, but there were rooms for client meetings, the communal kitchen and dining room, and both the security station and business office. “You left her inside?”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “In the kitchen.”
“Any first impressions?”
He shrugged, hands in his pockets. “Not many. Seemed nervous, maybe. But she didn’t seem crazy if that’s what you’re asking.”
I honestly didn’t know what I was asking. Instead of going straight inside, I walked around the house to another set of stairs that led up to the wraparound porch—and the window that would let me see her without her noticing.
