My eyes drift.
Down the line of her back where the shirt pulls tight as she bends.
Along the curve of her waist where the apron ties.
To the thickness of her thighs bracing against the horse’s weight—working thighs, strong thighs, the legs of a woman who spends her life in a crouch under a thousand-pound animal and has the muscle to prove it.
I catch myself. Wrench my gaze to the wall.
Stare at a knothole in the wood until my pulse stops doing whatever the hell it was doing.
No.
Absolutely not.
She was Rose’s best friend.
Rose’s person.
The woman my wife loved like a sister, the woman Rose was driving to see when she died.
Whatever my body thinks it’s noticing can go straight to hell and stay there.
I am not doing this.
Not with her.
Not with anyone, but especially not with her.
I twist the ring on my finger.
The metal is warm.
Grounding.
A tether to the only woman I’m ever going to want.
The only woman I’m ever going to let myself want.
Bex sets the hoof down gently and straightens. “Significant medial flaring on both fronts,” she tells Grace, all business. “The breakover’s shifted lateral, which is why you’re seeing the gait change. It’s not structural yet—we caught it in time. I can correct with a graduated trim over three sessions, four to six weeks apart. I’d want to start today if you’re okay with it.”
Grace nods. “Walk me through your approach.”
They talk.
Technical, precise, two women who know their work and respect each other’s expertise.
I listen from my position by the stall wall—arms crossed, jaw set, projecting the kind of professional disinterest that takes significant effort to maintain when your heartbeat is still recovering from the shape of a woman’s back.
Bex works on the yearling for thirty minutes.
I watch because it’s my operation and my horse and I need to assess the quality of the work, not because I can’t look away from her hands.
The trim is clean. Confident.
She works efficiently—no wasted motion, no hesitation.
The rasp moves in sure, even strokes.
