“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Betty said with the wave of her hand.
Andie forced her mind back to the issue she planned to address with the other owner. She recalled the time when her concern for animals had begun. She hadn’t been much older than eight or nine. Andie and her family had been touring a stretch of private islands on Dad’s yacht. She’d begged her parents for a pony ride on one of the islands. At last, they relented. It was there, behind the poor excuse for a stable, that Andie saw one of the workers whipping the horses to keep them in line. And then, when Andie finally had her turn, another man brutally jabbed her horse in the ribs with a stick for not keeping pace with the others.
Flies swarmed the trough where their foul-smelling food waited, and the animals were scrawny and uncared for. In her mind’s eye, they weren’t more than skin and bones. Just like the ones Vincent rescued from yet another abusive horse owner a few years back.
The recollection half tempted Andie to march back to the barn she’d seen among the pines and discover the conditions herself before anyone could attempt to cover up any evidence.
“Hey,” Betty added, taking her voice down to a whisper. “Mr. McGrath’s going to be here soon. I should warn you, his bark is a whole lot worse than his bite, I’ll tell you that.”
“Don’t let her fool you,” drawled a gruff voice from behind. “My bite’s even worse.”
Andie spun in place to see the man for herself, spotting—at first—a familiar tan coat with a corduroy collar.
A gasp tore from her throat. The boots and hat added to the equation, but it wasn’t until Andie met the man’s piercing eyes that she knew who it was—the uncouth cowboy himself.
“You’rethe other owner?” She didn’t bother hiding the incredulous tone in her voice.
The cowboy tugged the brim of his hat and grinned. “That’s right, city britches, I am. Welcome, partner. I hear you’d like to help out with our trail riding tour this week. Starting in thirty minutes, to be exact.”
Andie shot a look at Betty, whose eyes darted back to the cowboy. “I thought Dirk was helping you with that.”
“I told him not to bother,” he answered, shuffling one boot forward, and then the next, his arresting gaze fixed on Andie. The spicy scent of cologne wafted in the space between them, giving new life to that Stetson billboard recollection.
“We need to introduce this fine lady to our way of doing things,” he said. “There’s no better way than to put her to work, don’t you agree?”
Knots of heat flared hot in Andie’s chest as she held his gaze. “I don’t mind hard work,” she assured. “But I refuse to inflict abuse on any of those horses by riding them around and—”
“Listen, honey.”
“It’s Andie.”
“Listen, Andie,” he tried again. “I’m not a people person.”
“That’s shocking to hear.”
A slight grin pulled at one side of his lip, so subtle she couldn’t be sure she’d seen it.
“But Iama horse person,” he continued. “And if simply riding a horse—properly, as we do here—hurt the animal, I wouldn’t allow it. I’d have thought a woman who seems to be educated like yourself would have done her research before making such a fuss.”
Andie sought for some ground to stand on. She never haddone research about riding the animals, per se, but she could at least state where she was coming from.
With that in mind, she held two fingers in the air to represent her negative encounters. “Well, I’ve witnessed poor treatment of horses twice. And my ex-fiancé—”
“You have anex-fiancé?”he blurted.
“He helped take down a massive horse ranch where the animals suffered horrific abuse.”
“So yourtwoexperiences over twenty-something years makes you an expert on the horses atthisranch? Is that where you’re going with this?”
Betty cleared her throat, but it sounded more like a warning. Or at very least an attempt to break up the tension.
The cowboy didn’t even blink.
Andie smoothed a hand over her hair. “All I’m saying is that I’d like to see the conditions myself, okay?”
“Well then, let’s get going.” He lifted a brow suddenly, then ran a slow, scrutinizing gaze down the length of her body.
A flare of heat filled her cheeks.
