“Meaning horses don’t care what you did last night. They care if you feed them.”
Jane smiles. “That sounds perfect.”
We walk toward the barn. Havenridge spreads out like a small village: the main ranch house in the distance, the big barn, smaller outbuildings, and several cabins tucked into the tree line. Men move through the morning, heads down, hands busy.
Most of them are vets. Some are locals. All of them have their reasons for liking the quiet.
Jane takes it all in. Her eyes dart as her attention splits in a dozen directions. “You live out here full-time?”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s... just you in that cabin?”
“Yes.”
“That’s wild,” she mutters. “I’d go feral in twelve hours.”
“Some people like feral,” I say without thinking.
Jane’s head snaps to me. “You flirting, Tex?”
I keep my gaze on the path. “No.”
“Liar.”
I say nothing. That’s safer.
At the barn, I hand her a pair of work gloves from the shelf.
She takes them, then tosses them back at me. “These are too big.”
“They’re standard.”
“I’m not,” she replies, and her grin is all teeth.
I stare at her a second too long.
Then I find a smaller pair in the bin and hand them over without comment.
She slips them on as if she belongs here. Because she does. That part isn’t the surprise.
The surprise is how fast I like seeing her in this space, her boots in the straw, her hair wild, her eyes bright like the ranch is amplifying her instead of swallowing her.
A horse whinnies from his stall as we pass. Jane’s hand goes out instinctively, her fingers brushing his muzzle. The horse leans into her palm as if he recognizes her.
The men nearby glance up. One of them, a ranch hand in his mid-fifties, raises his eyebrows.
“Damn,” he mutters. “That one don’t like anyone.”
Jane doesn’t gloat. She just strokes the horse’s forehead, murmuring something low and nonsensical that makes the animal relax even more.
I watch her, my gaze intense.
She notices my stare and lifts her chin. “What?”
“You’re good with him.”
Her shoulders lift in a shrug. “I grew up on a ranch, cowboy. Horses make sense. People... not always.”
