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“I love you, kid. Okay? You know I do. Please go to bed.”
The next day is Friday, my favorite day of the week. Not because it’s the start of the weekend but because after finishing mucking out all the stalls and leading my usual morning trail ride, I get to spend my afternoon drilling Mab on the classic clover barrel-racing formation.
It’s real hard to remember all the garbage life chucks at you when you’re clinging to a thousand pounds of pure freedom by the skin of your knees.
I walk Mab through the formation, leading her close to the barrels but not enough to touch. Not that she’d dare. Turns out, her weird quirk with transitions makes her perfect for avoiding barrels. She hates the idea of rubbing against the strange texture, and I’m not about to teach her otherwise. Because of this, I’m not planning to give her a wide berth when we’re running the barrels. I suspect she’ll avoid them at any cost. It’s a risk,but it’ll shave off time, and in a sport where every tenth of a second counts, it’s a risk worth taking.
We repeat the steps until the loops become second nature and I can feel Mab getting antsy underneath me. She’s impatient to run, and I don’t blame her. “Easy, girl. There’s a method to my madness.”
I nudge her into a trot, and she shakes her head back and forth a few times within the reins to show her annoyance. She follows my cues perfectly, anyway.
Just because I’m doing it, doesn’t mean I have to like itis written all over her twitching fetters.
“I know,” I soothe under my breath. We trot the formation until I feel my focus drifting and spot Camilla leaning against the arena sideboards. We canter over, and my boss shakes her head, grinning ear to ear.
“You ladies look like a match made in heaven out there.”
I press forward in my borrowed saddle and give Mab a scratch in the soft space behind her ears she favors. “Mab’s in a mood because I won’t let her run willy-nilly. You ready for us?”
Camilla pulls out her well-loved stopwatch. “Whenever you are.”
This is when things always get really interesting.
I kick Mab off with a “Yah!” and she shoots out of the entrance like a bullet train, even though the ranch arena doesn’t have a whole lot of alleyway to get up to speed the same way a larger venue might. We go zero to sixty here, and we like it that way, hitting the first loop so quickly, my butt barely touches the saddle. We lean together into the curve, and I hold her reins tightly in my right hand as much for balance as to keep her in line. She darts off to the second barrel, my kicking keeping mein time and in the saddle, which is more important than pushing her to go faster. She doesn’t need the reminder. This is her favorite part. My inside knee brushes the barrel, but my inside hand is already there when it wobbles, darting out to set it right. Then we’re off to the next. This time, I place Mab a little farther out, and she follows my direction without question. We clear the barrel easily.
And then it’s the moment we let go. Inside of my brain, everything gets really still. Silent. Crystal clear. Empty. Nothing but fly. Fly, fly, fly.
Mab’s hooves barely graze the sand; my rear barely grazes the saddle. My hat flies off my head, and my hair streams wildly behind me, breath catching in my throat.
We rocket past Camilla, and I tug the reins, slowing Mab to a trot and then a walk, both of us panting, adrenaline zipping through my bloodstream.
Camilla is jotting down our time in a little notebook she carries around to track our progress. I don’t bother to stop and check our split. I already know it’s the fastest Mab and I have ever done. She’s gonna make someone one hell of a rodeo horse someday, but today, she’s all mine.
“Don’t think I didn’t see that wobble, Winifred.” Camilla’s voice is singsong.
“Then I bet you saw those unbelievable reflexes when I fixed it, Ca-mil-la,” I shoot back.
As I line us up at the start, I lean forward, whispering in Mab’s ear.
“Again.”
Case finds me brushing Mab and cooling her down after our workout. I’m trapped between a thousand pounds of exhaustedhorseflesh and a literal wall, but I’m also pretty wrung out and maybe even feeling a little high off my stellar afternoon. So I don’t immediately lash out, even if the barest glimpse of his handsome features annoys me.
He clears his throat. “You looked amazing out there.”
I bristle, focusing all my attention on Mab’s hindquarters. “Thanks. I didn’t know you were watching.”
“No worries.” He shrugs, and I look up at him, incredulous, repeating my words in my head, trying to understand where he got the apology from. “You were a little busy. Do you have any idea how fast you two were going?”
I blink. “Camilla times us, so yeah.”
“Are you aware, then, your practice numbers are right up there with the competition? Like, actual NFR leaderboard times? In a practice arena with zero coaching.” Apparently, Case Michaels is a bit of a barrel-racing nerd. Which would be interesting to note if it weren’thimand also if this conversation weren’t completely irrelevant.
I brush in long vertical pulls, soothing Mab’s muscles and cooling her coat. “Camilla is all the coach we need. Mab’s learning plenty, and she’s a natural.”
I look up to see his answering grin is a mile wide, and his eyes are like, legit sparkling. Oh god. “She’s not the only one. What are you doing working in this place cleaning horse manure and leading tourists on rides? You could be on tour winning buckles at every stop.”
I don’t even know where to start with this idiot. I really don’t.
