And her insides got hung up, twisting and coiling. "No one's asked me," she said softly.
He sidled his horse slightly closer, but he was a half-length behind her, which meant she had to crane her neck to keep looking at him. And she didn't look away from his smile, even though she was aware that the train was leaving the station, its rumble getting louder and closer to where they waited near the tracks. There were mere seconds until the whistle—their starting gun—and she was...flirting?
Girls don't race.
She shook away the internal whisper and turned her head more fully toward him.
"Would you—?" he started.
And then two things happened at the same time.
The train whistled.
And Buster bobbed his head, but it was too late. Breanna had been so distracted by Tommy that Dougie had snuck up to her gelding's head and slipped the bridle over his ears.
The sixteen-year-old jumped out of the way.
The bridle hung useless beneath Buster's chin.
And Tommy responded to the whistle by kicking his horse into a gallop, surging past her, his shirt flapping behind him.
It had been a trick. His flirting and almost-invitation had been meant to distract her while his friend handicapped her. Cheaters, the both of them.
Anger surged alongside the excitement of the race, and she nudged the gelding with her legs before she'd really thought it through. The animal responded almost as if he could read her mind.
She would beat that cheating coward, and she would beat the train, too.
The gelding's stride lengthened as she leaned close over his back. She didn't need reins to control the horse. She'd trained him herself, hadn't she? She and Buster thought as one.
As they gained on Tommy and his horse, which only had a couples of strides on them, the train bore down from behind. It was a quarter mile to the winding creek flanked by scrub brush, and she had to jump the creek to win.
Tommy didn't matter at all. He was less than nothing. She was already drawing even with him. It was the train she had to beat.
A lesser horse would've balked at the train’s clatter, the ground shaking beneath their feet. But not Buster.
Each beat of the gelding's hooves was like a drumbeat inside her, her heartbeat matching the rhythm. Buster was the fastest horse in three counties. And he proved it as he outpaced Tommy's horse.
She heard the other boy shout over the roaring of the train.
Picnic. One beat, and her thoughts crashed. She lost focus.
Was she so shallow that she'd been easily distracted by an invitation to a picnic? Not even an invitation. A hint at one.
She didn't need a man in her life. Not one bit.
The train whistled again. At her, and at Tommy, who were probably too close to the tracks for the engineer's liking. Too bad.
She bent closer to Buster's neck and murmured to him, asked for more.
And he delivered. He burst forward with one more surge of speed as the train thundered up beside them.
And there was the creek.
She exhaled as they went flying over it, a trick her brother Oscar had taught her years ago. She was one with her horse. They breathed as one, jumped as one.
And they won. They'd beaten the train by inches, but it counted.
It should've been difficult to direct Buster without reins, but he responded to the minute change in her posture and slowed. When she applied the pressure of one leg, he turned a wide circle, now in a smooth lope that brought her back to the train yard. She let her weight settle in the saddle, and he slowed.
