“You always get your horses from Jake?” Amanda asked, her attention still where Jake sat, quietly stroking and praising the horse.
“When I can. Most of the ones I ride Jake owns. This is a real special treat for me.”
“But Jake doesn’t compete himself. Why?”
The man looked over with a broad grin. “Do me a favor,” he pleaded. “Don’t put any ideas in his head. I got enough competition. If Jake ever got it in his head to try the circuit, I’d go broke.”
“This is Tommy Wilson, Amanda,” Betty introduced them. “World Champion last two years on Grayboy. Tommy, Amanda Marlow.”
Tommy was in the process of tipping his hat when he caught Amanda’s name. “Amanda Marlow?” he demanded. “The one who wrote that book about life on the Mississippi River? You’re kiddin’ me.”
Amanda caught her breath, terrified that her bubble of normalcy would evaporate beneath this man’s bright eyes. Even so, she shrugged in concession. “I’m here to do a book about the West.”
But Tommy simply nodded and looked back to where Jake was turning the gray back away from the herd. “Well, you couldn’t be in a better place. What Jake does is a dyin’ art. Type of man he is is dyin’ out, too.”
Jake walked the sweating, heaving horse toward them, his eyes hidden beneath the brim of that hat, his posture more relaxed than Amanda had ever seen it. A man in charge, in his element. She envied him unspeakably. She couldn’t take her eyes from him.
“He’s still a little rusty from winterin’,” Jake drawled.
Tommy grinned like a pirate. “Yeah, pure pitiful specimen of animal, ya ask me.”
Jake’s mouth crooked in that faint, telling grin. “I’ll let you take him off my hands, I guess. Long as you don’t work him too hard.”
Tommy laughed. “I got the money in the car.”
From somewhere José loped into the corral and took the gray from Jake as he swung down. Amanda could see the sweat along Jake’s neck, the new stain around his hatband. He’d worked hard, and it seemed to make him taller, somehow. More potent, more distant. She smelled it on him, heard the faint jingle of his spurs, and fought a rush of exhilaration.
Jake didn’t bother with the gate. He climbed the corral and hopped outside right alongside Betty and Amanda.
“So, that’s what a cutting horse does,” Amanda commented, wishing her throat didn’t sound so dry. “Sweet William won’t do that if I get up on him, will he?”
Jake’s grin grew a little, but Amanda could see the difference. The command, the presence that she hadn’t even felt in town.
“Not unless you ask,” he assured her.
Tommy Wilson loped back over with a very thick envelope in his hand. “I’ll pick him up first of May, Jake. That okay with you?”
Jake nodded. “Give me time to work the rest of his kinks out.”
Tommy smiled and handed Jake the envelope. Then he gave him his hand. Jake shook it.
“See you in May,” Tommy acknowledged.
“May,” Jake echoed.
Tommy was ready to turn away when the situation finally overcame him. “I’m real glad I didn’t bring Farley with me,” he crowed. “He would ‘a’ done his best to outbid me.”
Jake shook his head. “We shook on it, Tommy. Tell him he can come look for himself sometime.”
Tommy turned to Amanda with a wide, triumphant grin. “See what I mean? There aren’t any businessmen like Jake anymore. Don’t make him too famous or I’ll have to stand in line for my next hoss.”
Tommy headed on down for his car, and Jake handed Betty the envelope.
“I’d better put this away,” Betty said.
Jake just nodded. “Gettin’ a load of hay in today. Save some for it.”
And then, without another word, he walked away. Amanda couldn’t take her eyes from him, wishing she could think of something to keep him there, to find out more about him, to stand close enough to him to bask in that damn aura of his.
