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So not only did I have Richard lallygagging whenever he thought I wasn’t watching, but he’d managed to rope the rest of the hands into shirking their duties as well? Clearly, as the boss, I couldn’t allow that.
Fixing a scowl on my face, I stalked toward the paddock, preparing to remind everyone that this was a working ranch—the operative word being working. But as I approached the ring, I heard Richard ask, “You actually expect me to climb onto that thing?”
The moment I heard the alarm in his voice and saw the way he bit his lip in apprehension, my anger dissipated. Suddenly, I didn’t care about the work that wasn’t getting done. All I wanted to do was vault the fence and go to Richard and run a hand down his shoulder, murmuring in his ear the way I’d calm a skittish horse.
Instead, I forced myself to amble nonchalantly toward where Jed leaned against the fence. “How’s he doing?” I asked under my breath as I took up a spot beside him.
Jed chuckled. “Ain’t been up on a horse yet, if that tells you anything.”
“Horse’s name is Duck,” Mercy said, giving Richard’s apprehension no mind.
“Duck?” Richard squawked incredulously. “His name is Duck?”
Mercy kept his head down as he adjusted the stirrups, but I could see the edge of his lips curled up in a smirk. “Her name is Duck. She’s a mare.”
Richard folded his arms in front of his chest. His once stylish T-shirt looked even worse than it had before, and his boots already looked less new. Thankfully, his tight, rounded ass was covered up by the overstretched tail of the shirt, or my eyes probably would have landed on it and stayed there.
“Mares are the brown ones with rumpy rash?” Richard asked, unsure.
A few snickers around me went silent as soon as I shot my eyes at the offending men. Mercy kept working on the stirrup, even though the rest of us could tell he was finished with the needed adjustment.
“Mares are the female ones,” Mercy corrected. “The ones with spots on their hindquarters are Appaloosas. They don’t always look like that. But Duck is an Appaloosa. They make good trail riders because they have plenty of endurance.”
Richard seemed to think about this for a moment as he watched Mercy work. “What kind of horse does Boone ride?” he finally asked.
Mercy’s eyes flicked over to me before landing back on Richard. Clearly, he knew I’d arrived to watch.
“Victory is a quarter horse. They’re good at cutting, which means they can work cows. Been bred to be a rancher’s best friend.”
“Not a mare, then?” Richard asked, moving a few steps backward as casually as he could. I began to wonder if his questions were an attempt at stalling.
“No. Victory is a gelding. That means a male who’s been castrated.”
Richard was the only man who winced since the rest of us were used to castration talk. Mercy continued. “Mares are great, but they’re more likely to get dozy when they cycle. I’d imagine Boone prefers not to deal with that. Geldings are more predictable in general, and you don’t have to deal with heat.”
“I don’t think I understood half the things you just said,” Richard muttered.
“P-M-S,” Harrison called from his spot at the rail. “The ladies get moody when they’re—”
Jed took off his hat and smacked Harrison with it. “Shut up. Can’t you see the man’s scared out of his wits? You’re gonna make Duck nervous and scare the kid more.”
Harrison chuckled and grabbed his own hat off the ground from where it had fallen. “Duck doesn’t get nervous. I’d imagine that’s why he picked her.”
I thought it was more likely Mercy picked her because she was only fourteen hands tall. When Richard fell off her, it would be a shorter trip to the ground.
Richard tentatively reached a hand out to her. “H-hey there, D-duck,” he said, trying to act like everything was fine. He gently brushed his fingers against her neck, and her skin twitched as she let out a snort. Richard let out a yelp and jumped, stumbling back a step.
The other hands laughed, but the fear in Richard’s eyes was enough to make me want to throw myself over the rail and stride over to put him at ease. Instead, I clenched my hands into fists and rooted my boots to the ground.
According to Oscar, the whole reason he’d dared Richard to come to the ranch in the first place was because he thought Richard needed to be taught a lesson about the real world. He needed to learn how to work, to know what it was to struggle—even if it was for only a month. I wouldn’t be doing Richard any favors by coddling him.
Mercy stood up and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. “Okay, you ready?”
