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Harrison laughed. “That dog’s taken a shine to you. She don’t like nobody except Boone. The first night I was here, I left my dirty boots on the bunkhouse porch, and she chewed them to shit. Now here she is, looking at you like you have jerky in your pockets.”
“What can I say? I’ve got a way with the ladies,” I said, batting my eyelashes.
Harrison noticed my new boots. “Hey, nice Justins. What happened to your McQueens?”
I was surprised and impressed. “You know Alexander McQueen?”
The cowhand blinked at me in confusion. “Uh, no? But I heard you cry out in the barn earlier that your McQueens deserved better than to step in cow shit all day, so I figured that’s what you called those fancy boots of yours.”
Jed poked his head out of the cramped office in the back of the barn. “If you got time for gabbing, you got time for working. Ain’t you supposed to be mending fence by the south fork, Harrison?”
Harrison winked at me before saluting the old foreman. “Yes, sir. Just making the newbie feel welcome.” He shot me a grin. “See you later, McQueen.”
Jed grumbled something under his breath about goddamn social hour before shooting me a look. “Boone wants you on a horse. Go tell Mercy I said to show you what’s what.”
He disappeared back into his office before I could ask him what the hell he’d meant by that. I looked around at the empty barn. Nothing but various horse noses poking out over stall doors looked back at me.
They looked aggressive and opinionated.
“I suggest all of you act busy if you don’t want to be the victim of my first riding lesson,” I warned them. Tall ears and curious eyes turned my way. As the morning progressed, I’d started thinking of them as sort of sweet and curious, but that had been when they were safely behind their stall doors. Now that I considered having to climb on the back of one, they seemed especially gigantic and threatening.
It had clearly been a ploy to get me to trust them, but I was smarter than that.
My hands began to shake as I made my way back out into the sun to look for the bull rider named Mercy. I’d learned last night at dinner that he was some kind of rodeo star, the kind of man who earned fancy belt buckles for staying on thrashing bulls as long as he could. I remembered watching a movie one time about bull riding, but my memory was fuzzy enough to wonder if maybe it had been porn.
When I found him, Mercy was cleaning out a galvanized tub in one of the horse yards… paddocks… rings… racetracks. Whatever. I couldn’t remember what Boone had called them on the quasi tour he’d given me.
“Hey, Mercy?” I called.
The man’s dark hat came up, keeping his craggy, square-jawed face in shadow. “Yeah?”
“Jed wants you to show me how to ride a horse?” I said, accidentally posing it as a question. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Apparently, the boss wants me to know how to do stuff on a horse, and you’re the lucky fella who gets to teach me.”
I tried grinning as wide as I could, but he still rolled his eyes and let out a groan of annoyance. “Fine. Give me a minute to finish this up.”
“Take as many minutes as you want,” I said breathlessly, hoping he’d take hours and we’d have to finally call it for daylight. There was no freaking way I was going to fare well in a riding lesson when I was terrified of the giant beasts.
While I waited, I wandered over to gaze out at the calving pasture. Mama cows and babies dotted the grass here and there, and I let my mind wander with the peaceful view.
It really was beautiful, and I enjoyed the peace and quiet compared to Sacha’s noisy apartment in the city. At least I got a room all to myself here and didn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from.
Yes, the work was hard as fuck, but it was just for a little while. If my college friend Bailey could tackle CrossFit the way she had after a semester of partying way too hard, I could do this for a month.
I sighed and closed my eyes. The cool breeze felt good on my dirty skin, and the sun warmed my hair. My feet felt cushioned and dry in the new socks and boots Boone had insisted I put on before leaving town, and I had to admit to being a little relieved there wouldn’t be any chance of horse shit getting through the laces and tongue like on my other boots.
I hated that he was right, but what did I expect when I didn’t know jack about how to be a cowboy?
