He came up and made sure the gate was secure and stared at the two munching on grass. “Nothing about this stuff is fast. Or easy. Just say if you don’t like something. Okay? I can’t read your mind. None of it scares me, so I can’t possibly know if it scares you.”
“I-I’m a little out of my comfort zone.”
“Like Erin scared? Or just a little scared?” Erin had at first been terrified of horseback riding, almost to the point of hyperventilating.
“Like maybe, a degree below Erin.”
He nodded, his face still serious, like that meant something to him. Then he turned on his heeled boot and started back towards the trailer. After he entered the tack room, he came back out with a horse brush. “Can you curry them?”
She caught the coarse brush when he tossed it to her. She could certainly curry the horses, so she nodded and got started. After brushing the first one thoroughly, she sprayed some fly spray where Ian indicated before starting on the next one. Ian, meanwhile, was putting on a saddle blanket before he hauled out a saddle, which he hefted up in a few seconds flat. He started adjusting the cinch and breast strap, working swiftly. He worked much faster than she could brush the next one, and soon had the horse bridled and saddled. Taking the lead rope, he yanked on the knot so it freed the horse from the trailer and led it in a circle around him a few times. What was he doing? She didn’t know. Kailynn kept brushing, however, unsnarling all the tangles from the animal’s tail.
“Come over here and mount up.”
She glanced over the back end of the horse. “You mean now?”
“This is Tommy. I want you to ride him. Let’s have you get on his back and see how he feels. Plus, I need to adjust your stirrups.”
“Oh.” She stepped towards the brown gelding whose dark black mane and tail contrasted sharply with his chestnut coloring. She touched his warm body and scratched just behind his saddle. “Is he nice?”
Ian was messing with the saddle across from her. His smile was amused, but gentle. “Yes, he’s nice. I think he’s the best fit for you.”
She nodded as she stuck her foot into the stirrup and hauled herself up. There was no way to do it gracefully. It was awkward for her, offsetting her center of gravity and making her body parts feel like they were flopping around everywhere. She had little control to even try to make the effort somewhat more attractive. Once atop the horse’s back, she moved around and soon discovered the stirrups were much too short. Ian’s hand clamped onto her ankle and pulled her foot out before she could even tell him. He was instantly working the leather straps and buckles. He did them as fast as she could pour a cup of coffee. Impressive.
“That fit?” he asked as she tucked her foot back in and stood up straight.
“Yes, thank you.”
He was already working on the other side when she thanked him. She wore cowboy boots, but they were mostly for fashion, and she felt her toes being pinched by them already.
He patted the horse’s rump when he was done and handed her the reins. “Do you remember how to handle them?”
She bit her lip while shaking her head. Ian patiently spent several minutes going over how to turn and stop, and when to use the heel of her boots to press into the horse’s sides. It wasn’t too complicated, just a lot of small things that kind of made her head swim, although she nodded as if she totally understood.
He waited for her to dismount before taking her horse to the far side of the trailer, where he tied it up. Next, he started saddling his own. A matter of minutes; that’s all it took. She offered to help, but knew he’d be ten times faster with her out of the way. She glanced at her watch. They’d been at it only a half hour already.
“Shouldn’t they be here to help?”
“You’d think.” Ian was pulling up hard on the cinch strap and tucking the excess leather length. “They don’t help much.”
“So you end up doing all the work?”
“Well, Shane has every right to take the horses up here. They’re his too. But if I don’t come along and do it right, they might do it all wrong and hurt themselves, or the horses.”
“Shane would really endanger the animals?”
She didn’t like the sound of that at all. Ian was already walking his mount around the trailer, moving it out of the way. Then he was heading towards the corral, obviously to grab another horse. “Not on purpose. I just don’t want to take a chance.”
She followed behind to command the gate as he caught another horse. It took five minutes because the last two began to run in circles around the corral. He finally cornered them into a small section of the corral that funneled them together. Grabbing the first horse’s halter, he clipped on the lead rope and nodded at her to open the gate. She performed her one lame job as best she could.
Roping the other, he tied them both up as he had the first two. “But if they’ve done this before, shouldn’t they know how much work there is to do?” Kailynn inquired.
He was already headed toward the tack room and she could barely keep up with him. “Yup. Most likely why they’re not here.”
She watched as he came back out with an odd-looking contraption of leather and straps. Kailynn wondered if it was some kind of medieval torture device or a sexual aid.
“What is that?”
“Pack saddle. Here, grab this,” he instructed her after he set the curious mechanism on the horse’s back. He deftly began smoothing out the different straps and tucking the horse’s tail through it. Clipping the front and cinching under the horse’s belly, Kailynn tried to help figure out the mess, while staying out of his way at the same time. Their shoulders bumped and their hands grazed each other, but she ignored the odd heat that filled her. It was just because Ian was so hard to read. She never knew at all where she stood with him. Was he annoyed she was there? And not someone who could actually lift and pull her own weight? Or had a clue what she was doing? He’d long ago shed his jacket and was clad only in jeans and a t-shirt, while she was still wearing her coat and gloves in the still cool, mountain, September morning.
Ian continued working hard and got another pack saddle to put on the other horse. He glanced up at her and the tack room, and she could tell he was trying to figure out something, but she had no idea what that could be. Eyeing the tack room again, she saw the floor was filled with big boxes covered by straps.
“Let’s just wait until they get here. No sense killing you by lifting those.”
“I can lift them,” she replied quickly. She was definitely no wuss. She regularly moved furniture around in order to clean his freaking house. Of course, she could lift heavy boxes.
“They weigh eighty pounds each; and we need to lift them high enough to strap each to the sawbuck. We’ll just wait. No reason to make them stand there either. We’ll have to pack and saddle up the five horses Shane is bringing when he gets here.”
“Oh. So we just wait?”
He nodded and sighed before he started scooping away the fresh horse manure that had dropped since they began saddling. He threw it off into the grass beyond the clearing, and put the scooper away. “I’m going to unhitch the truck and go down to where I can get cell service. I want to see what’s holding them up this time.”
“Oh. And I should stay here? Alone?” She nearly gulped out loud. Sure, they were on the road, but there wasn’t another soul around. And there were wild animals in the woods. That she did know.
“I’d like you to stay here so the horses remain calm. I don’t like leaving them tied to the trailer, but they’re saddled. This is ridiculous. Stupid Shane. He should know better.”
He leaned down to quickly unhitch the truck and she watched his movements. There was no denying the man knew exactly what he was doing. Thank God, or she’d be lost. She couldn’t even tie the knot correctly to hold the horse. It was a bit of comfort to realize his expertise would be keeping her safe and secure despite whatever lurked on the deep face of the mountains. She was starting to have serious doubts now that she could
actually handle the endeavor.
“I’ll be about a half hour or so. Don’t worry, I’ll return as soon as I can.”
She struggled to keep her inner groan to herself. Being stuck in the woods alone, with four horses and no cell service. Yeah, that sounded great. She couldn’t wait idly. She walked around, rubbing each of the horses nervously as his truck roared down the road, stirring up clouds of dust until it disappeared in the distance. Holy crap, it was silent. She kept glancing around while picturing a bear or wolf coming out of the woods. The day was brightening, but her heart still pounded painfully. The horses snickered and groaned as they stomped the ground, impatient to either get on with it, or be released, she supposed. Feeling bad for them, she kept going to each one and talking softly in an effort to comfort herself as well as them.
Finally, Ian’s truck came barreling back. He swung a quick U-turn and backed up almost an inch from the hitch. As he jumped out, his expression was not the normal dour, blank nothing. No, he looked pissed off. She never really saw Ian showing any kind of feeling, so she came up to the side of him, unsure of what was going on.
“Where are they?”
“Getting drunk. Decided to start a little early and now Shane, the shithead, is too buzzed to drive.”
She watched Ian slamming the trailer hitch back onto the hitch ball of his truck and noted his movements were jerky, using too much force. He straightened back up and his last words finally sunk in.
“They’re not coming? Not at all?”
He walked towards the first horse. “Nope. Well, perhaps tomorrow. But I told them to just fuck off. I don’t intend to go through this again tomorrow.”
Who does that? Who starts drinking at only ten o’clock in the morning? “And my brothers?”
“They’re with mine.”
She felt her legs growing rubbery as she sat down on the bumper of the truck. The disappointment was crushing. She literally put all her heart into the trip. And thought… well, she thought her life would actually change because of it. And now they glibly decided to get drunk and not even tell Ian and her? It was so thoughtless and rude, downright awful behavior, really. She couldn’t even spin it about Shane.
“So we did all this for nothing?”
“Yup,” he almost snapped. The side of his face was tight where he kept re-clenching his jaw. He started to work at the cinch before him.
“How can they do that? Forget to come?”
He stopped and looked straight across at her. “Because they’re irresponsible assholes who can only think about themselves. Somehow, it’s like that fact completely goes right over your head. How? I don’t know, but it does.”
She jerked her back and stood up straight. Did he just about call her stupid? Never mind, it was almost like he seemed to know the one whom she always forgave. Definitely neither of her brothers. But no; no way. He could not have known about that.
“So they’re really not coming?”
His scowl went darker. “No, they’re really not coming,” he replied, almost aping her tone.
She was all set to go camping, to the point of being thrilled about it. She was taking her life into her own hands and making something new happen, for once. Something good. She was tired of wallowing in her own self-pity. She had grown weary of not pursuing something different and better, and this trip was pivotal for her. Now it was all over? Gone? Like every other hope in her life? That’s all she seemed to experience: one disappointment after another.
No! Damn it! She was the one who allowed everything and everyone to control her life. Her dad’s martyrdom, her brothers’ laziness, and her own terror at leaving the familiar.
“We should just go on without them.”
Ian was turning toward the tack room and stopped dead as he lifted his gaze to her. “What? Us? Alone?”
Okay, so he was not her first choice for this epiphany: her first real effort to take her life’s reins and put it under her own control. But Ian was here, and they were here together, so why not? What did she have to lose? Going home simply meant more cleaning and waitressing. Here, at least, there was something new and different for her to experience. She hadn’t had any kind of new and different in over four years.
“Yes. Screw them. Don’t you think? Unless, you believe I can’t do this.”
“Oh, you can do this. Yeah, sure. I’m always up for doing this. That is, as long as you feel comfortable.”
No, not even a little. But her unease was less than how pissed off she was at her brothers and Shane, not to mention, her regular life in general. “What do you want me to do?” she asked, standing up and throwing her shoulders back confidently.
Chapter Six
IAN SENSED KAILYNN’S DEFIANCE when he observed her posture as she straightened her back. She acted like a prisoner about to walk to the gallows, determined not to cry, and fully ready to do herself proud. He bit his lip and turned to conceal a smirk of amusement. He also observed her disappointment over the news Shane wasn’t coming. She practically shrank into the trunk of her body and huddled there for a long moment. Somehow, her anger and disappointment over his brother worked to motivate her to go ahead and take the trip with him. He knew that was her only motivator and sensed how ill at ease she was being with him. She all but jumped whenever he walked near her or moved around her. There was no sense that they had known each other for their entire lives. He really couldn’t understand why she had the odd reaction to him that she did.
Okay, he might not have been the funniest guy in the room, but he wasn’t usually made to feel like an oddity, or an aberration, or a complete ass, which was how Kailynn seemed to think of him. He had it for the one girl who considered him a strange creep. He wasn’t a creep at all, however, and quite well liked. Most people considered him very easy to be around. But for some reason, Kailynn found it very hard to ever be alone with him.
Maybe he would get the chance to change that, or end his interest in her, once and for all. In all honesty, her incessant fascination with his brother was slowly killing his romantic interest in her. A woman letting a man treat her in such a careless, offhand manner as Shane treated Kailynn just revealed that she didn’t have a lot of confidence in herself. Not if she still wanted the jerk. He was almost ready to tell Shane what the hell was up just to let them have at it.
Except, here they were. Alone. Five days. Together. Yeah, might be time to see what the hell, if anything, existed between them.
“Well, luckily, I have plenty of food for the horses, and our food and gear, so we are good. I put Shane and your brothers’ stuff in their rig.”
“You packed for them?”
“Mostly. I pictured them getting up there with no beds, sleeping bags, pots… well, you’ve already observed their carelessness.”
She nodded, and her eyebrows scrunched together. At last, she realized how often Shane and her brothers screwed up, and worse, screwed her over. Why did any of that surprise her? Ian noticed when they were an hour past the agreed upon meet time. He could have punched a few faces in, if they’d been in front of him, when he finally got a hold of his brother on his cell.
“Let’s see if you can lift any of these boxes.” Ian tugged the first brown box out and had Kailynn take one side. He could easily have handled most of the weight, but while snapping the strap around the metal hoop on the sawbuck, he needed her help in holding it up. She leaned over and pulled hard, her expression registering some strain and surprise, but she did not utter a word of complaint.
They managed to leverage the box against the horse’s side. Roxy braced under the pack-saddle’s weight as Ian quickly worked to buckle the strap. Kailynn used her shoulders to support the box and held it with the trunk of her body. By the time they were done, both sweating, Kailynn threw her coat off. Only three more boxes to go. He felt bad, but there was no other way to do it. After an hour, all the horses had the boxes loaded and the top packs over them. He spent a rather long time tying the pack set-ups down in order to keep them
secure for the long trek in. They nevertheless wobbled and moved as the horses made their way over steep hills and rocky terrain. The pack gear always started out looking secure, but a mile or so in, you could easily see the beating it took. More than once, the entire rig slid off to one side or the other. Straps even broke, and the top packs once slid off. Ian had endured every disaster at some point. As he helped Kailynn mount her horse, after stashing her gear in the saddlebags, he checked to be sure it was all tied down good and tight.
They didn’t speak except for his instructions to her on what to do next. She suddenly made an odd sound.
“What about sleeping bags? Bedding? I-I didn’t think about it. I mean, you kept talking about gear… I’ve just never done this before, so I didn’t really think about having to bring everything in.”
Her face looked stricken. He had already gotten the packhorses untied and had one lead rope tucked under the other pack saddle. They weren’t tied very tightly, for safety reasons, and he expected the second horse would follow without needing the rope too much. Kailynn wasn’t ready to lead a pack horse in. They were cumbersome to tow and their giant packs in tight spots could make things very precarious. Sometimes they shied, or got startled, and weren’t even aware as to what their packs might be hitting. Ian had seen more than one person get hurt on the trail.
“Don’t worry; I got it all,” he said, mounting his horse before pulling on the lead rope for Roxy, who stood between Samson and him.
He caught a glimpse of her mouth flattening, and she shook her head. “I’m an idiot. Really. How could I forget about that stuff?”
“Because you’ve never done this before. I knew that when I agreed to let you come. I got you covered. As well as the idiots that you refer to as your brothers.”
River's Escape (River's End Series, #2) Page 8