“He’s taking her?” she asked, her words soft and gentle.
“Somebody else will finish her training.”
“Oh.”
She hesitated, and I thought she might say something more, but after another minute, she turned and went back to the stall. I wouldn’t have asked for it, but I could have used a few words of encouragement from her. I needed to cling to the hope that everything I’d built wasn’t about to fall apart.
Wright finally led Ladybird out of the pasture and loaded her up into the trailer. He turned to me, holding out a check. “Here’s the training and board rates through today.”
I took the check and slipped it into my pocket. “I appreciate it.”
“It’s nothing personal. I need another horse for the ranch this fall.”
“I understand.” If I never had to say those words again, I would be a happy man.
Once the truck and trailer rattled away out of sight, I went back to the pasture gate. A few of the younger horses pranced around in the excitement of losing one of their companions, but most of the others just grazed in the summer sun.
Two clients had jumped ship, and I had no way of knowing how many would follow, or who they would call when their next horse needed to be trained. Would Jenkins or Wright come back to me after I healed up? Or would their new trainer hold their allegiances better than I had? I wanted to smash my fist through something, but the pain wouldn’t have been worth it. Even shouting any number of curses would have sliced my lungs to ribbons. Like so many other things right now, I had to just sit back and take it.
June leaned her elbows against the fence railing next to me. For a few minutes, she didn’t even look at me—she just gazed out into the pastures, watching the horses. Soon, it would be hot enough I’d have to bring them in to the barn during the heat of the day, but they had another week or two of long hours outside to roll and wander before the mid-day heat became a hazard. I was in no shape to tend a horse flagged from heat stroke.
“I never liked that horse, anyway,” she finally said.
I exhaled a laugh that burned my lungs. “She’s a troublemaker. Like you.”
At June’s smile, the tension and anger inside me broke apart. Maybe I didn’t deserve her sweet smiles and attention, but I didn’t have the strength to keep pushing her away, either. Not right now.
“What are you going to do?”
She meant my business plans and lost clients, but my mind fixed on something else entirely. What was I going to do about her? “I don’t know.”
“You still have the other clients, though, right?”
“For now. But I can’t charge them regular training rates when I can’t so much as lead the horses. Aaron’s doing his best, but I’m strictly a boarding operation for the next few weeks.”
“I’m so sorry about all this,” she said softly. “How hard is this going to hit you?”
Her lingering guilt, though touching, was completely unfounded. She’d more than made up for any blame she bore for my situation. “I should come out okay. This line of work is all about reputation and word of mouth. Clients will come back.”
My optimism was more for her sake than anything else, but I found comfort in the sentiment. Clientswouldcome back. Eventually.
“I’d think they’d be glad you were honest with them and admitted you can’t keep training their horses right now. Another guy might have hidden the truth for his own benefit.”
Guilt cut through me, a hot knife slicing my insides. That honesty I prided myself on only went so far when it came to June. If she knew all the truths I’d hidden from her, she would walk away right now and not look back.
“I always loved this ranch.” She watched the horses as they grazed. “Coming out here to do Girl Scouts with your Grandma was like going to Disneyland for me.”
“I was pretty fond of it, too.”
She turned to me, all gentle curiosity, and I gave in to the impulse to answer the questions she didn’t ask. “When I was little, I’d spend whole summers out here with Gram and Grandpa, doing chores and learning the ropes.”
“Mucking stalls?” she asked with a sly smile.
“Mucking, feeding, cleaning tack, rounding up the horses at the end of the day. Dad thought seeing what actually went into tending horses would cure me of my interest in them, like it had for him.”
“He doesn’t like horses?”
“There are two kinds of people, June. Those who just like to ride horses, and those who love them with everything they have. My dad is the first.”
