“We can compromise,” I say. My voice is steady. My pulse is not. “Get him comfortable with hoof handling first. Just picking up the feet—no trimming, no tools, nothing invasive. You do the approach, build the trust for the handling. Once he’ll let you hold his feet, I come in and do the work. We get Grace to sedate himlightly with Dorm for the first session if we need to—just enough to take the edge off, not enough to knock him out. It protects the rehab and it protects the hooves.”
Lee is quiet.
His jaw works—the same tell I remember from the feed store, the one that means he’s processing something he doesn’t want to process.
His eyes haven’t left mine.
This close, in this light, I can see things I couldn’t see from across a barn—the gold flecks in his irises, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes that weren’t there years ago, the specific shape of his mouth when he’s holding words back.
I need to leave this feed room immediately.
“That’s reasonable,” he says finally. Grudging. Like the word costs him something.
“I know it is. I’m a reasonable person.”
Something flickers across his face.
Not a smile—Lee doesn’t smile anymore, not that I’ve seen—but the ghost of one.
The faintest tremor at the corner of his mouth, there and gone so fast I almost convince myself I imagined it.
Almost.
I leave the feed room before either of us says something we can’t take back.
My heart is hammering.
My palms are sweating inside my gloves.
The October air hits my face when I step outside and I gulp it like a woman surfacing from deep water.
This is a problem.
This is a very specific, very dangerous problem that I do not have time for and cannot afford and would not choose if someone gave me every option in the world.
I amnotgoing to develop feelings for Lee Simms.
I amnotgoing to stand in small rooms with Lee and notice the color of his eyes.
I’m not. I’m absolutely not.
Rose would know what to do. Rose always knew what to do with feelings—she welcomed them, examined them, let them breathe.
I shove mine into a box and sit on the lid.
It’s a less healthy approach, but it’s gotten me this far.
The rasp slips at 1:47 PM.
I’m working the second mare from pasture four—older horse, calm, no issues with handling. Routine trim. I’ve done ten thousand of these.
My hands know the choreography better than they know how to write my own name.
But I’m tired— 4:30 mornings at Earl’s, full farrier days packed with clients, and evenings spent doing ranch maintenance and driving Earl to appointments and trying to keep an eighty-acre property from collapsing under its own neglect.
Tired makes you sloppy. Sloppy gets you hurt.
The rasp catches on a clip I set too high and kicks sideways across the hoof wall and straight into the heel of my left palm.
