"Some." Her gaze flicks down over me, as if she’s still not awake enough to realize she’s checkin’ me out, then takes a long pull off the mug as if annoyed
"I couldn't settle either," I offer.
She wanders past me to the window. She stands there with the mug at her chin, gazing out at Riot in the paddock. My eyes catch on the curve of her neck and my head fills with bad ideas.
"He been out long?" she asks.
"Since five thirty. He's an early riser."
"Mm." She doesn't turn around. "I made some notes last night. I'll get him in the round pen first…see where he's at on the ground before I throw a saddle on. That work for you?"
"You're the boss."
She turns, and I grin. "What? Let’s be real, here."
She smirks into her mug. "More like you're being a smartass."
A laugh punches out of me. "I thought I was flirting."
She rolls her eyes and brushes past me on her way back toward the hall, and the brief, accidental drag of her hip against my thigh has every nerve on alert.
She just keeps moving as if she’s made up her mind that I'm barking up the wrong tree.
"I'll be out in twenty," she calls over her shoulder.
"You want breakfast?"
She shakes her head. “I’ll just grab something small later.”
She's back in less than twenty—hair in a tight braid down her back, jeans, boots, a black tank under an open flannel, and leather work gloves in her back pocket. She’s stuffing an actual notebook in the other pocket with a small pen clipped to it.
She really does make notes, I guess.
I watch her cross the porch and head down to the round pen, and I tell my ankle to suck it up, and I follow.
I catch up to her at the barn, slower than I prefer, but she pretends not to notice, which I appreciate. I show her around the stable first. Riot's stall, the wash rack, the feed room with the bins labeled in my mama's handwriting from way back. Then the tack room, with a couple of my saddles on the racks along the wall, Riot's bridles on the hooks, lunge lines coiled on a peg by the door, brushes and hoof picks in a wooden caddy I made one winter when I was bored.
"Help yourself to anything," I tell her. "If you can't find it, holler. If I'm not around, it's probably in the barn office or one of the tack trunks."
She nods, and I can see her mentally re-organizing my hook system into something more sensible, and I don’t take it personally at all.
In fact, it’s just another thing that bewitches me about her.
"Round pen's that way," I say, pointing through the open back door of the barn. "Gate's a little sticky. Lift and pull."
"Got it." She heads out without waiting for me, which is fine, since watching her walk away is pure pleasure.
I ease myself onto the top rail of the round pen, propping a crutch against the post and keeping the bad foot dangling. She's already inside, lunge line in one hand, attached to Riot’s halter.
What I'm watching for, mostly, is whether or not yesterday was a fluke. Whether she got Riot's vibe check by some weird alignment of the stars and cosmic dust, or whether she actually has a gift.
And inside thirty seconds I have my answer.
She moves him out to the edge of the pen while she stands in the center, encouraging him forward along the circle. He flicks one ear toward her. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to. She just lifts the line a fraction and clucks once, and he picks up a trot as if he's been doing it for her his whole life.
She watches him for a full lap or two, and coaxes him into a lope. Then she changes his direction with a gesture so subtle I almost miss it. He turns through the change clean, and picks the lope right back up on the new lead.
Damn.
