Page 58 of His Eighth Ride

Tag cleared his mind of all that had happened in the past couple of weeks. Opal couldn’t stop talking about having a house to herself, and he wasn’t going to burst any of her happiness balloons. He wasn’t so sure she’d be the kind of joyful she thought she’d be living literally down the lane from Mike and Gerty.

And him.

He’d worried immediately about what might happen between them if they broke up. Would she leave then? Would he be expected to get another job?

And what if they ended up together? Would he move from his cabin to her house and live on this farm too? Continue to work it? What if he wanted to purchase a place of his own?

Then Gerty and Mike would have an extra house on their land, and Opal would own it and those three acres.

It all felt really messy to Tag, and his thoughts ended up going round and round in circles whenever he let himself linger on the topic. He felt like he’d boarded one of those trains that encircled a Christmas tree, and he couldn’t get off.

Cinnamon huffed, and Tag got himself off the crazy train. He couldn’t let his mind wander like that while working with horses. Or Steele.

“What doesn’t he like?” Tag asked. Boots barked, and that also spiked Tag’s adrenaline.

Steele glanced over to him. “I’m not sure. I didn’t do anything differently.”

Tag hunkered down into his collar as the wind swished by him. A raindrop struck his forehead, and a slight whistle irritated his ears.

Cinnamon huffed and tossed his head, which further alerted Tag to his distress. “Come on out,” he said to Steele. “Maybe it’s the weather.” Animals, particularly horses as they were prey animals, were far more attuned to their environment, and they could sense things in the weather humans couldn’t.

Steele climbed the fence and came over it as Cinnamon whinnied. Tag’s pulse, which had been slow and even to match Cinnamon’s, suddenly skyrocketed. “It’s the whistling,” Tag said, everything lining up suddenly. “A storm. Let’s get him inside, and let’s do it fast.” He got off the fence and added, “Let’s go, Boots.”

“Okay,” Steele said, and he jogged over to the gate to go back inside and get Cinnamon. The horse pranced left and right, pacing and nervous.

Tag looked up into the sky, which held clouds in every shade of gray God had ever created. In any other situation, he might’ve taken a moment to experience the beauty of the earth in all her glory. From sunrises and sunsets to angry thunderheads, Tag loved it all.

Another raindrop landed on his bare hand, and then one struck his face. The wind gusted, and a chill ran down his spine. Steele had just brought Cinnamon out of the ring, and Tag stopped standing around and went to close the gate.

The rain started in earnest as they went from the training ring to the stable, and he and Steele ducked inside before they got truly soaked. Thankfully. Cinnamon had a stall about in the middle, and a couple of other horses seemed agitated by the change in weather as well.

With everyone inside, Tag turned back to pull the door closed, but the wind grabbed it and yanked it away from him. It hit the outside of the barn with a terrifyingly loud, sharp bang, and Tag flinched as he swore.

More than one equine made some sort of noise, from a huff to a blow to a whinny. Both Boots and Max barked. None of them sounded happy, and Tag wasn’t either. He had to go back out into the rain, and he did that just as another horrible noise filled the air.

It sounded like a series of gunshots being fired. Every nanosecond another one sounded, and they crowded on top of one another. Tag saw the hail in the next moment, and it pummeled him as he took the three steps out to get the flapping door. He hauled it closed successfully this time and latched it.

However, now he and Steele were trapped inside the barn with nine horses where the noise only grew and grew and grew as the hail continued to berate the roof. Max whined as he hurried toward the main room of the barn, but Boots stayed with Tag.

He bent down to pat his corgi. “We’re okay, boy. It’s just a storm, and heaven knows we’ve lived through a lot of those.” He smiled at his dog and straightened to the horses.

“Hey, Dusty,” Tag said quietly as he went by the horse’s stall. “You’re okay, Ontario.” He stroked the gray’s nose. “It’s gonna be fine, Marigold. You’re all right.” She stuck her head over the gate and pushed his shoulder. “I know,” he said. “It’s just a little hail though, and it doesn’t last long.”

His ears felt like they’d been attacked, because the metal roof took every pelt of hail and amplified it.

“Sounds like they’re huge,” Steele called from down the row. He had to yell to be heard above the noise of the weather. The scent of dust and straw filled the barn, and Tag didn’t hate it. It spoke to him of a good day’s work, of living and working outside and with the animals who’d always soothed his soul.

“There you are, Congo,” he said to the next horse down. “It’s almost over.” He gave the horse a neck pat and moved on. “Ah, you made it back inside, Cinnamon.” Tag leaned his head against the red’s long nose. “Thanks for warning us, or we might still be out there, getting beaten on.”

He smiled and paused in front of the next stall, which belonged to Silver. “You’re not nervous at all, are you?” He grinned at the calmest horse Gerty owned and looked over to where Florence lived.

Of course, she wasn’t there. She was still skittish at best, and as Tag moved closer to her stall, he caught the horse tossing her head, obviously agitated. “Come on, Flo,” he said to the black beauty. “It’s fine. It’s just a little hail.” He didn’t try to reach into the stall to touch the horse. “You came from Calgary, girl. You’ve been around snow and hail before.”

Maybe not in a good way, and since they hadn’t even owned Florence for a year yet, Tag found her to be the most unpredictable. Next to her, they’d placed Ellie, one of the horses they’d acquired from Bryce, because she was sweet as pie, and her energy seemed to help calm both Florence on her left and Rooster on her right.

Sure enough, Rooster huffed and flapped his lips, and that caused Flo to whinny like she was getting ripped up into the sky and would be carried away in the funnel of a tornado.

Tag couldn’t comfort her, and in fact, she made him more nervous. So he moved down and stroked both hands down the sides of Ellie’s neck. “Tell them to calm down, would you?” She snuffled at his jacket pocket, where he sometimes kept treats. “None today,” he said.

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