“You really need to get in there to get the packed crap and rocks out,” he said as he scraped the pick against Cedar’s hoof. “All along the frog, right here.” He dug in next to the triangular part of Cedar’s hoof and pulled out satisfying clumps of dirt. “And along the wall.” He flipped the tool to the brush section. “Then sweep off any excess.”
Watching him work while tossing out yet more terminology I’d never heard made me a little swoony.
He stood up and wordlessly handed the tool to me.
“Now you.”
I widened my eyes at him. “By myself?”
“You’ve got this, B,” he said in the same warm voice he used to coax a soft dink out of me. “Rear leg. Go.”
He patted my back, and it felt like heat zipped through my entire body, then pooled where his hand had rested on me.
“Like this?” I lined up by Cedar’s hip facing his tail, then bent over and looked over my shoulder at Owen.
And caught him checking out my ass.
“Yeah,” he said quickly, averting his eyes. “Run your hand down his leg and up you go.”
I tried to mind meld with Cedar, seeing as horses probably possessed the gift of telepathy in addition to strong observational skills, to beg him to go easy on me, then slid my palm down his leg. The clairvoyance must’ve worked, because the next thing I knew I was holding a big old horse hoof upside down in my hand.
“I did it!”
“Of course you did,” Owen said. “Never doubted you for a second. Now get in there and pick.”
I started off gently tracing the pick along Cedar’s hoof and it was enough to loosen some dirt.
“Harder,” Owen insisted, and once again I needed to refrain from a “that’s what she said” joke.
With a little more muscle, the packed dirt started falling from his hoof.
“So remind me how this is sexy?” I asked, quickly glancing up as I pried out more crap.
Owen snorted out a laugh. “You’rethe writer. I’m sure you can come up with something.” He paused. “Maybe not about this specific part of the process. Speaking of, you can move on to the next one.”
I remembered his advice about keeping a hand on Cedar as I walked behind him, then got to work on the hoof, which Cedar offered to me without hesitation.
“What’s the relationship between your characters?” Owen asked.
I picked out a little rock that was packed in with the dirt. “He’s a grumpy cowboy who’s trying to transform his family’s busted-down ranch into a viable tourist destination, and she’s a chef who lost a bet and now has to spend the season working in his kitchen. They hate each other. He’s too closed off and she’s too headstrong. He falls first, but he burned too many bridges with her so he has to woo her to win her. Oh yeah, and they have a drunken one-night stand, and she winds up pregnant.”
“Wow, okay then. Next hoof,” Owen instructed. “So wait... she doesn’t like him?”
I was picking like a pro now. “Not at first.”
When I glanced at Owen, he was frowning. “Yeah, that’s a tricky scenario. Pursuing a woman who isn’t interested only leads to heartbreak. Take it from me.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. Clearly the barn ghosts were doing their thing, unearthing Owen’s old hurts.
“Well, he was a dick to her at first, so he brought it upon himself,” I clarified.
“What if this grooming process is a moment of change between them?” Owen mused. “She thinks he’s an asshole, but then she sees how caring he is with his horse, and it shows a totally new side of him?”
“Ooh, what if he adopted a horse that was abused, and Abby watches him gentle his way closer? Like, this grooming stuff is a bridge to a new relationship?”
“For the horseandthe human,” Owen added. “He catchesAbby watching him, and he invites her to help since the horse isn’t afraid of women.” He glanced closer at the hoof I was working on. “You’re done.”
I stood up and rubbed Cedar’s neck. “I think we’re onto something. You keep it up and I might owe you a cowriter credit. It’s an unpaid gig, of course.”
