by T. S. Joyce
So she wasn’t perfectly proportional and her hat sat a little crooked. Her make-up looked awesome today thanks to the secret stash of lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara she kept in her truck for emergencies. Her cheeks were pink as roses thanks to being all excited about seeing Tuff this morning.
She flipped up the collar of her jacket and shoved her hands in her pockets. She liked what she saw in the mirror. For once, she liked what she saw.
Hell. Yes.
She jogged down the hall and looked around the living room but it was empty.
“Tuff?” Okay, like she could hear if he answered. She snorted at herself and sniffed the air. He wasn’t in here. He’d put on a pot of coffee, but as far as she could tell, he hadn’t taken a cup. Movement caught her eye out the front window. She trotted over to the door, opened it, and grinned at Tuff. He was sitting on the porch swing, pulling on his work boots.
“Hi.”
He laughed and gave her a cute-boy little two fingered wave. “You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he said.
“I’m an early riser. Plus, I like to help.”
He frowned with dancing eyes, and she sighed at how cute he was. He was dressed in a charcoal grey heavy jacket with black wool lining. It was unzipped, exposing his tight white thermal underneath. Today, he wore a black cowboy hat. She wanted to sit on his lap and wiggle around.
“Can you wait one minute?” she asked, holding up a finger.
“For what?”
“I’m getting us both coffee.”
His eyes went all soft and handsome and he nodded. “Okay. Hey!” He waved because she almost missed that word, ducking back inside.
“Yeah?” she asked, poking her head back out the door.
“You look really pretty this morning.” He gestured to her missing ear. “I like your hair like this better.”
“Seriously?”
“Dead serious. If I didn’t have to melt the horses’ water, I’d take you back in that house and fuck that question right out of you.”
Okay now her cheeks were probably the color of cherries. “Raincheck?” she asked hopefully.
God, that smile. “Raincheck for whenever you want.”
“Oh! You want sugar in your coffee?”
“Nah, I take my coffee black.”
She beamed at him and said, “Okay! We are the opposite. I will take all your sugar in mine. I only want like one drop of coffee in my sugar. Wait for me!”
And wait for her, he did. He sat on that porch, staring out over his ranch as she dug through the cabinets and found a pair of thermoses and the sugar. Luna was a morning person and she was learning that Tuff was, too. He had gotten up even earlier than her, and he wasn’t one of those grumpy men in the morning. At least not with her.
Hot thermoses of life-giving caffeine in hand, they walked to the barn together, boots crunching through the snow. It was up to her mid-calf! He chattered about what they needed to get done today, and he was careful to angle his face to her and form his words. He really was a natural around her. She liked that he wasn’t awkward and didn’t make her feel weird for being differently-abled. The outside world did that, but here? Here she was just comfortable.
“Where do you work?” he asked as they opened the barn doors together.
“I do trail rides for tourists,” she told him. “Have you heard of Mercy Stables?”
“I sure have. Isn’t it that trail ride place about forty miles south of here?”
“Yes! I work there four days a week. I’m never going to be a millionaire doing it, but I love the horses there. Duke is the baby of one of my favorite mares. Her name is Meg. She’s the one I usually ride when I take people out.”
“She a nice horse?”
“Fuck no. She’s a redhead, and a handful. I love her.”
“I like the challenging ones, too.” He gestured to the horse in the first stall. He was the red roan that had been pitching a fit when she pulled up yesterday. “That one is my boy. His name’s Little Devil, but I call him Dev.”
“Are you just training him to sell, or are you going to keep him?” she asked as she leaned onto his stall door.
Dev kicked the wall, snorted, and glared at them like she and Tuff were bugs in need of squishing. His name suited him.
“I don’t keep any horses. I sell them all.”
With a frown, she took her attention from his lips and looked up into his eyes. “Why?”
“Getting attached to things isn’t really my style. It never did me any good.”
Hmmm. She was going to prove him wrong. “Let’s make a deal.”
“What deal?” he asked, leaning onto the sliding stall door with her.
“If you keep me around, you should keep him around, too. Pour your heart into him. See what kind of bond you can grow with him over time.” And see what kind of bond you can grow with me, too. She didn’t say that last part, but she wished she was brave enough to.
Tuff was like the half-broke colts he trained—scared to trust, and harboring deep-seated issues with commitment. All he needed was a good trainer. Not that she was that good trainer. Nope. She wasn’t in the position to force a man to fall for her. He had to choose to do that or cut her loose. But they’d gotten through their first fight last night, and she’d appreciated the way he handled it. She also appreciated the way she’d decided to handle it. She’d stuck around, and so had he. Then he’d been there for her after a nightmare and this morning, it was easy as pie. She felt like she’d known him forever.
“You live in town?” he asked.
“I live about ten minutes from Mercy Stables. I board Duke there, and I wanted to be as close to him as possible. Saved all my money for a year to afford him. As soon as he was born, and Meg’s owner said she was going to sell him? I went balls-to-the-wall trying to get him. I knew he was mine from the day he was born.”
The horse in question must’ve known she was talking about him, because Tuff was jutting his chin toward the back of the barn. When she looked in the direction of his line of sight, Duke was stretching his neck out of his stall door, making a funny face at her with his lip all curled up and flapping around.
There was her silly boy.
Tuff brushed his knuckle on her shoulder to get her attention. “I liked that you came out and helped last night. That was smart grabbing Tron with your belt.” He gestured toward the black gelding’s stall. He was staring at them with his ears all perked up. “You knew exactly which one to grab. Tron doesn’t understand he’s more powerful than you. If you put any kind of rope on him, he won’t fight it. He turns into a mouse. You know your horses.” He arched his eyebrows under his cowboy hat. “It’s sexy.”
Luna eased away from the stall door and curtseyed.
“I’m going to work on the water. I’ve got a pasture out that door.” He gestured to the sliding doors at the back of the barn. “We can let the horses stretch their legs for a while.”
She nodded, understanding instantly. “Blankets?”
He grinned. “Good girl.”
Glowing from the inside out, she followed him to the tack room. He veered off and closed the front barn doors while she grabbed a few folded blankets. Outside of the stalls, there was a bale of hay by each sliding door. She set the blankets on those, one for each horse, and after three trips to the tack room had them all set up and ready. As Tuff put blankets on the three monsters at the front of the barn, she worked on the easier horses, talking like she always did. She opened back sliding door and called out, “Are the gates to this pasture all closed?”
Tuff’s monstrous, muscular arm appeared out of one of the stalls with a thumbs up.
She opened those double doors and let the horses out one by one. They were so cute, kicking up their back ends as their hooves hit the snow. They were excited to be together in one big pasture and trotted around, bucked up in play, and ran along the fence line as a little herd. Cuties.
Duke was the last one she let out, and that was on purpose. She want
ed to spend a minute with him. She brushed him down before she put on a royal blue blanket. He knew he was handsome. When he had the quilted coat on, he always held his head a little higher. She made sure to tell him how handsome he was before she turned him out with the other boys.
Tuff had already let his little monsters loose and was positioning a heating unit on the trough of frozen water to thaw it. There was a four-wheeler parked next to the hay bales at the front of the barn, so she loaded a bale onto the back and turned the machine on with the key Tuff had left in the ignition. There were bungee cords on the hay rack in the back, but she just held onto the orange string on the bale to keep it steady and eased the four-wheeler through the barn and out the open double doors at the back. She took it to the middle of the little pasture and dismounted, yanked the bale off and let it roll a few times. Then she pulled her pocket knife and cut the strings, spreading the hay out in flakes so the horses have some space and wouldn’t get attitudes with each other.
As she was folding the knife closed, she looked up. Tuff was staring at her from the water trough. His eyes were lightened and hungry, his smile pure wickedness.
He jogged and disappeared into the barn, then came back with a long rope and a bright yellow lid to a grain storage bin. He pulled out a huge knife from a sheath and started messing with the lid. “Go open that gate,” he told her, gesturing to a gate at the very back of this small pasture.
With a thumbs up that she understood, she mounted the ATV and hit the gas, fishtailing until it caught traction. She went straight to the gate and pushed it open as best as she could with the accumulated snow piled up in front of it. Then she zoomed back to Tuff, who was done tying the rope to the lid.
She stood on the ATV, watching excitedly as he secured the rope to the back hayrack of the machine.
He gestured for her to get on the lid and she whooped.
Tuff was so damn cute making sure she knew how to hold onto the rope. “You’re a very smart woman.” He knelt next to her and searched her eyes. “You catch on quick. Faster than anyone I’ve ever known. I can give you a head nod and you will figure out what I need, and that’s so fuckin’ awesome. You want to have some fun?”
She gripped the rope and nodded. “Don’t dump me on my ass. I trust you!”
“You can.” He looked like he was yelling, but that was normal. He was probably trying to talk over the engine noise that she couldn’t hear. “You can trust me. Ready?”
“Hell yeah!”
He leaned forward and kissed her hard. He held there for three seconds before he moved his mouth against hers. He eased away, and his eyes were almost white again.
He didn’t say more, just got on the ATV and eased it into motion. His attention drifted back to her time and time again, checking on her.
The lid was sliding through the snow easy and she yelled in excitement as he caught some speed. He didn’t go straight for the open gate though. Instead, he aimed for the colts, who were running this way and that through the snow. He pulled the ATV beside them and she told them, “Come on, boys! Let’s go run!”
The colts trotted beside them and followed when Tuff finally did aim for the open gate. This pasture was huge. She couldn’t even see the fences. As soon as they got through the gate, the colts trotted through and ran alongside her. Ran. Just…sprinted with her, kicking up snow with their hooves.
Luna was in awe of them running so close with her, like she was one of them.
She held onto the rope tighter and couldn’t stop laughing. The faster Tuff went, the faster the horses ran. Duke was on one side of her, joy in his eyes as he ran, and his mane and tail whipping backward. On her other side was the red roan Tuff liked. Dev. He was focused on Tuff, like he was racing. Of course.
Tuff opened it up, hit the gas, and they were gliding. She’d never felt something more special than being a part of the herd with these colts. She felt so free. She took one hand off the rope and lifted her mitten-clad hand into the air. “Whoooooo!” she yelled.
Tuff was so handsome every time he threw a look over his shoulder at her. With every swerve, the lid she was sitting on slid easily across the untouched snow. He did a wide loop. When the horses finally slowed to a trot, Tuff slowed too.
He came to a stop and twisted in the seat. “That was fucking awesome!”
“That was awesome!” She probably yelled that too loud.
“Come here,” he said, waving her to him.
Stiffly, she stood up from the lid and jogged clumsily to him. He grabbed her hips and settled her on the seat in front of him. His chin rested on her shoulder as she relaxed back against him. Tuff handed her the light grey thermos she’d made for herself, and together they watched the sun come up the rest of the way out in the middle of a clearing with beautiful horses moving around them.
“This is my favorite moment,” she told him, twisting so he could see the earnestness in her face.
“Really?” he asked.
Silly boy. Didn’t he see? She was falling so hard.
She cupped his face. Tuff’s short beard tickled her palms. “Really, really.”
Tuff gripped the back of her neck and pulled her into his kiss. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that, and she didn’t care. She didn’t feel cold. Didn’t feel discomfort. There was just Tuff.
For as long as she lived, she would never forget this morning. It had been like a dance that she finally, finally knew the steps to. Everything had fallen into place so beautifully. She couldn’t for the life of her imagine anyone else creating such a special moment.
Tuff Enough sure was something else.
Chapter Six
Tuff liked her.
Oh, he liked her. He had moments of terror, like this one right now, when she was lookin’ up at him with those pretty soft brown eyes, staring at his lips, waiting for him to answer her question.
Half of him wanted to shut down and stop growing closer. Half of him wanted to draw her in, show her what he was, and dare her to leave. Or perhaps dare her to stay.
“What is bucking like?” he asked, repeating her question.
She looked so damn pretty out here with the snow around them, the bare trees behind her, the horses nuzzling their way through the snow looking for shoots of grass. Silly critters had hay in the other pasture and the gate was still open, but they seemed happy to be with them.
Luna gave off nothing but easy, good vibrations that lulled his wolf into watching silently instead of writhing uncomfortably inside of him like he usually did.
Peace.
This was peace.
Luna brought his restless soul peace.
He thought clearer if he walked, so Tuff grabbed Luna’s mitten-clad hand and aimed toward the fence line where the sun was rising. “I think I was supposed to be born a bird shifter. Or maybe just a bird,” he told her. “When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about what it would be like to go on a plane and look down at the earth from way up there. My dad was bucking each season and he brought me and my momma along. I watched him buck, but that wasn’t my fate. I wasn’t born a bull. I got my mom’s wolf. My dad wasn’t disappointed even for a second. He went straight to training me to ride. One summer, after me begging him, my dad booked a flight for just me and him. He took me to Jackson Hole. Ain’t much there, he just wanted to do a dude trip with me. Later, my mom told me he’d just wanted an excuse to take me on a plane like I’d been begging. He let me sit by the window, and every time I looked back at him, he was grinning…just watching me like fathers do. I probably said a thousand words about the damn clouds underneath us that day. It was different than I thought though. I guess I wasn’t as interested in the world beneath me. I was attracted to the idea of flying. Of being in the air.”
Luna squeezed his hand. “I like your wolf.” He was already so infatuated with the thicker tune of her voice. The careful way she curved her mouth around words she couldn’t hear. God, he loved the way she sounded. Luna was unlike any woman he’d ever met.
“I like being the wolf too. At least now I do. When I started training on bucking broncos? Well…” He shrugged. “When I’m on their backs, it’s like flying.”
Her attention lifted from his lips to his eyes, and he loved every damn emotion he saw there. He’d made sense to her. He could tell.
“A wolf with wings,” she murmured.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s what it’s like. I won’t be able to do it all my life. It’s hard on the body. I’ve broke half my damn bones and my body aches when a storm is comin’. Riders have expiration dates and when I get there, when I’m older, I’m sure gonna miss flying.”
She hugged his side suddenly. Didn’t miss a single step, just melted against him. “Then we will make every ride count. You will appreciate every second. I’ll remind you even on the days you are pissed at the world to enjoy the moment.”
The way she’d said “we” stirred up a tornado of emotions in his chest. Hope and fear warred. The wolf stayed quiet and watchful inside of him. Don’t run. Let hope have you.
“Why do they call you Luna?” Tuff already thought he knew the answer. He hoped he did, at least.
She didn’t answer right away. A minute ticked by, just walking with her latched onto his ribs like a little barnacle, and he let her have the silence. Luna was careful, like him.
“I can show you.” She said it soft and looked up at him with wide brown eyes, as if she’d surprised herself, too. She pulled them to a stop and said louder, “I can show you.”
Tuff nodded. “I wish you would.”
She released him suddenly and backed up a few feet. She stood there in the new-fallen snow with her face downcast. “The animal took on damage.” She gestured to the side where her ear was missing. “It wasn’t just the ear they took.”
Tuff frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t show anyone…her. I’m uneven.” She swallowed audibly. “People would stare.” A quick glance up at him, and he could see fear in her eyes. “You’re nice about the scars.”