“Save it for later.”
“Later,” I repeat gruffly.
It sounds like a promise.
We’ve never been good with those.
34
TILLY
March 7th
Tilly,
Are you back yet? I tried to get back to you as quickly as I could.
If you’re already gone, I guess you’ll see this when you get home. Either way, how was the trip? You’re allowed to be scared, even when you think you’re not. Nobody is that fearless, hellcat. You still went, and that takes guts, too.
I hope you got what you needed. Your brother sounded anxious in his last letter. If you need to talk to someone and don’t want it to be a stranger in some stuffy office, scribble all your thoughts out on paper for me. You don’thave to send me anything, just get all that shit you’re feeling out. It helps. I’ve been doing the same thing.
If you have photos of your trip, I’d love to see them. Even just one of you.
Rowe.
“Doyou think he’s gonna get to saddle him soon?” Tanner asks.
I look out the stable door to where Rowe’s working with the black horse in the pen. He’s got a saddle blanket in his arms, letting him get a good sniff of it. The horse is cautious, but he hasn’t chomped down on it yet, so that’s a good sign. This last week has been full of baby steps between those two, and I can tell Rowe’s warmed up to him.
“I don’t know. Depends on how long it takes to desensitize him,” I answer.
“Will you do me a favor and let me know the minute he decides to try? I want to watch him get tossed across the dirt.”
“What makes you so confident he won’t be able to hold on? Or that the horse would even try and buck him off?”
Tanner leans a shoulder against the bars of Diesel’s stall, appearing all the more boyish. “A horse that fucking mean? He’s going to buck. Doesn’t matter how much time Rowe takes with him.”
“And how many horses have you trained, Tanner?”
“Soon to be one as soon as I convince Rowe to teach me a thing or two.”
I pinch my lips to avoid laughing and don’t bother replying. Diesel’s staring at me from inside his stall, or rather, the hay in my arms. I’ve hardly managed to unhook the gate and pull it open before he’s trying to steal it from me. I shouldn’t laugh at his bad manners, but he’s my precious boy. The kids running up and down the aisles, trying to finish up for the day, are still scared shitless of him, yet here he is with me, acting like a greedy toddler.
The plastic bucket hanging on the wall of his stall is no surprise—empty. I drop the two flakes of hay onto the ground in front of him and slip out to get him some pellets. When I get back, he’s still busy scarfing his food. The second he hears the pellets drop into his empty bucket, he takes a step back and changes focus.
I laugh under my breath and give his ass a pat before closing him off inside the stall again. Tanner’s still in the same spot I left him but isn’t looking as cocky. Instead, he’s straight-faced, arms hanging at his sides.
“Do you not think I could be a trainer one day?” he asks.
I stare at him, slightly surprised. “Does my opinion really matter that much? I’m not a trainer.”
“No, but you’re Rowe’s girl, right?”
“You aren’t going to earn yourself any points with him by asking his ‘girl’ to pull favors for you. If you want his approval, earn it. If you want more responsibilities and to be taken seriously around here, act like it. I can tell him to let you learn, but he’s not going to respect you any more than he already does. He’ll give you more shit, actually.”
Tanner nods, his eyes darting behind me for a moment, like he’s too nervous to keep staring at me. “Alright. We can just forget I brought this up, then.”
I tongue my cheek and stare past him out the door. Rowe’s still letting the horse get used to the blanket but has startedrubbing his neck as well, praising him for not eating it for supper. My heart kicks at the gentleness he has with that horse—with all of them, really. He’s a hard-ass man, but it’s like he was born with some superhuman ability to be able to communicate with these animals. Soft when need be, but firm too. There’s a balance there that not everyone has.
