“May I have Bess?” Diane’s sister, Joyce, piped up.
“Absolutely,” Cash said and nodded, as Sam wrote it down. “Good choices.”
As Jeff introduced the next three horses, Cash covertly watched Tracy who had not made any eye contact with him since he’d smiled at her.
The group walked forward to the next stall and Jeff said, “This is a sorrel mare. Sorrel means the horse has a copper coat lacking any black. Matching her color, we named her Penny.”
Cash added, “The most noticeable difference between my red dun horse, Captain, and Penny is Captain’s mane being a darker red than his coat.”
Cash saw Tracy glance from Penny back to Captain, tethered beside the Western store near the entrance to the stables. Though the two horses’ colors were similar, Penny’s coat and mane were both the same shade and she was darker than Captain. Cash had noticed earlier that Captain’s mane was the exact same shade as Tracy’s hair, while his coat was a lighter red. Cash watched Tracy put the tip of her pen between her cinnamon lips and then open her mouth.
“I’d love to ride Penny,” Donna said quickly, standing next to Tracy. Cash could have sworn Donna looked sideways at Tracy before speaking up. “Please, Cash?”
“Sure,” Cash replied since Donna had addressed him personally. No matter, because he had another mare in mind for Tracy. “We’ll make a note, Donna.”
He saw Tracy smile and graciously nod at her assistant. Damn, Tracy was sexy. Per his record with women, so far his attention and interest had always been reciprocated by every woman to whom he’d shown interest. Having dated blondes and brunettes, too, he had enjoyed more than a decade of carefree fun and sex with women. It was his lifestyle. Why then, among countless women, had this woman hit him like the proverbial ton of bricks?
He wasn’t sure. Nor was he ready for it, for—her.
“Boss?” Jeff said. “Jacob likes Chief, what do you think?”
“Good choice, Jacob,” Cash said. “Chief is a Percheron and a gentleman.”
“Okay, great,” Jacob said, petting Chief’s nose.
Needing to concentrate on the contest winners, and not the one redhead in the group, Cash gave himself a mental shake. Jeff and Sam led the way down one side of the stables, made a turn and toured everyone back down the other side. Eventually, they’d introduced twenty-four of the twenty-five horses. All of the ladies had mentioned a favorite horse or two except for Tracy.
“This last horse is a red dun American quarter horse, like Captain,” Cash said. “However, instead of a stallion, she’s a filly which is how we refer to a female horse younger than four years old.”
Notepad in hand, Tracy asked him, “What is the definition of a stallion?”
“An uncastrated male horse used as a stud for breeding,” Cash answered, with a slight challenge in his voice. “Captain approves of this filly’s spirit.”
“I might switch horses,” Donna said, which Cash ignored.
“What’s the filly’s name?” Tracy asked, head down and writing.
“Spitfire,” Cash replied.
“Spitfire?” Jeff echoed but said no more.
“Since you haven’t picked out a horse yet, why don’t you give Spitfire a try, Tracy?” Cash asked.
“I was joking about giving me the horse most likely to buck me off,” Tracy said, evidently concerned about the horse’s name. “I’m not planning to ride anyway, just write.”
“There won’t be anything to write if you’re not in the saddle with the rest of us,” Cash informed her. “We’ll be out riding the ranch and trails every day, with a night of camping.”
The other wranglers, Beau, Ed, and Larry, all good guys,arrived on the scene. The five guest cabins could comfortably accommodate up to four guests per cabin. Since this was considered a luxury dude ranch, it meant extra attention from wrangler to rider, so there was one wrangler assigned to each cabin. When a cabin held only two guests, groups could be combined and a wrangler would use that week to do other needed work on the ranch or take a week off. If someone was sick, Sam adjusted the schedule accordingly. In an emergency they could always call on one of Chase’s cowboys to fill in for a day or two. The sixth man ran the Western store.
Cash had selected this week for the contest winners because there were only thirteen guests as opposed to twenty. With July Fourth on Friday, the barbecue being held on Triple C-East meant extra work for the staff, so fewer guests eased the workload. Between Monday and Friday, the wranglers would teach, ride with, and help the guests care for their horses.
Sam had made the assignments and announced he would take Diane and Joyce, Ed, an affable good ol’ boy from Georgia was assigned to Beth and Lisa, who were closest in age to Diane and Joyce. Larry, a former high school buddy of Jeff’s, had ladies by the names of Natasha, Michaela, and LeAnn. Jeff would ride with the three youngest and potentially most energetic of the contest winners: Patience, Brittany, and Daphne.
“Okay,” Cash said and, knowing his crew as he did, noted the wranglers silently appreciating Tracy’s standout beauty. Positioned near Jacob and Donna, he said, “That leaves me with Jacob, Donna, and Tracy.”
“Yay!” Donna unabashedly whooped.
Cash acknowledged that with a nod and turned to Tracy to say, “For safety reasons you need to change into jeans and boots.”
