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Brody walks over and tugs the sliding barn door farther open with a rumble. “Come on in. Case’s almost done, and there’s plenty of room.” He holds out a hand. “Brody Gibson. I think I’ve seen you around. You do trail rides, right?” I inwardly groan. Even Brody knows Winnie? I’m the worst.
“Winnie Sutton.” She shakes his hand briefly. “That’s me. And this is my baby sister, Garrett. She had to tag along this morning since there’s no school because of Saint Patrick’s Day or something.”
Garrett pushes through, flipping her hair. “It’s a teachers’ in-service, actually. Whoa!” She freezes, spotting me, dancing on a ball like a bear in the circus. “What’re you doin’?”
I wobble slightly and correct again. “Balance work.”
She approaches slowly, as though she could knock me over with her attention. I don’t bother to tell her my legs have essentially gone numb by this point. “For bull riding, right?”
I flush under her frank stare, trying not to notice too much how closely she resembles her sister. “Right.”
“Basic physics. An object in rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”
I release a soft laugh under my breath, careful not to shake up my core. “Exactly. I’m the object, the bull is the unbalanced force.”
“Wow. That’s brilliant.”
“It is, isn’t it?” I give her a wink, and her eyes glitter.
“I don’t know, Win. I think you could do worse than Case Michaels for a life coach. He seems to know his stuff.”
And just like that, the ball flies out from under my boots and my ass hits the groundhardand my breath whooshes out with anoof. Winnie surges across the room to my side. “Oh my god, are you okay?”
I roll to my feet, rubbing my rear, and feel my face flame. “Oh yeah, I’m just fu—” I remember Garrett and change direction. “Dandy.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, clearly too worried to notice my sarcasm. “You hit hard.”
“I’m fine,Win.” I emphasize her nickname. “A little sore is all. And feeling like an ass, but that’s not all that different than usual these days.”
“Eighty-four. So close,” Brody says, making a piss-poor attempt at hiding his laughter. It warms me a little to hear it. He looks ten years younger when he’s razzing me like the old days.
Winnie sucks in a breath next to me. “Eighty-fourminutes? Seriously?”
“Was going for ninety. That’s the closest I’ve been. I usually crap out around seventy-five.”
“Ninety,” she repeats faintly. “Hell, Case. Now I sorta feel bad.”
I hold up a hand. “Don’t. Well…” I consider a moment, finding my own teasing grin. “Maybe if you feel bad, you can explain to me the whole life coach thing?”
Brody clears his voice. “This is where I bow out. I have to get to work, anyway. Same time tomorrow?”
I nod.
“Registration is all set for Friday night. You’re back in it, kid.”
“Ready or not,” I mutter, ignoring the fact that even though I’m weeks shy of nineteen, he’s still calling me “kid.” Brody hears me but doesn’t comment, instead going through the sliding doors and closing them behind him. I fidget, brushing off my legs, holding back a groan.
“There’s an old workbench over here that’ll do the trick. Let me clean it off for you.” I direct Garrett to the corner and grab for a rag.
“You have a desk? Did you do homework in here?”
I shake my head, swiping at the layers of dust and dirt. “Not often. But this is where my best friend, Walker, and I used to train, and we’d sometimes come right from school, so while one of us was working with Brody, the other would catch up on school stuff.”
“That’s awesome. I’ve heard of Walker Gibson, too. You guys were one and two at the National High School Rodeo Association championships.”
I glance up at Winnie, who shrugs softly. “She’s a rodeo fangirl.”
“Just her?” I ask, teasing.
