Page 18 of Taking What Was His

“What do you do there?”

“Have you ever heard of show jumping?”

“Yes, where the horses do a type of obstacle course.”

“Kind of.”

She pointed. “Turn right up here.”

“So, what do you do?”

“I train the horses to jump, and then I’ll bring the rider in and train them.”

“Did you do it?”

“Yes. I think I was pretty good. I won a lot of blue ribbons in my day.”

“Why don’t you still do it?”

“I stopped competing after Rick died. The sport can be dangerous, and I didn’t want to take the chance of leaving Jayden an orphan. We don’t have any other family.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t know anything about horses. In fact, the only time he’d been around them was at a petting zoo when he was a child, and those were ponies.

“Do you ride?”

He shook his head. “Never have.”

“If you ever want to learn, I’ll teach you.”

He felt his stomach twist at the thought. “We’ll see.”

“Next left, and we’re there.”

Roman pulled in between two massive pillars that had a sign overhead saying, Williams & Guthrey Ranch.

“Is this yours?”

She nodded and pointed. “I own part of it with a friend. If you can, pull up to the first barn.”

Roman did and turned off the car and got out.

She glanced at him as she opened the car door. “You don’t have to come.”

“I want to see what’s going on. Is it okay?”

“You can come out at any time. There’s always action.”

“I don’t know if I like the sound of that,” he said, making her laugh.

They walked up to a small group of people and a trailer attached to a large truck.

“Hey, guys, this is Roman.” She turned to him. “These are some of the important people that help run the ranch. That’s Theresa, the ranch manager, Mike, Brooke, and Tom.”

He nodded to the group as he stood behind Beth as one of the guys told her about the problem.

“He was fine loading, but when we got here, he started one of his temper tantrums and started kicking.”

“I’m glad you called,” she said. She turned to one of the girls who held boots. “Thanks, Theresa.” She looked at Roman. “I need to change to unload him. It might be a tad hard in heels,” she said, making everyone laugh.