Page 3 of Training the Heart

She nods and takes her place in the ring in front of the feisty horse.

“You ever heard of the Parelli program?” she asks both Dusty and myself.

“Can’t say I have,” I say as I watch her take the leader rope from Dusty. She’s a different person now than she was when she was all fired up in my office. This woman right here is calm, collected and perfectly at home around this antsy horse. She takes a moment to graze one hand down his nose and whispers something to him none of us can hear.

“It’s the idea that horsemanship can be obtained naturally through communication, understanding and psychology, versus mechanics, fear and intimidation.”

She takes the training stick and lets the string hanging off the bottom come up and rest over the horse’s back before sliding it off gently. The horse spooks, but instead of her tightening up on his rope, Ivy simply raises a hand to him and then gives the horse more space.

“That’s not the way we do it around here,” I say to her as I lean up to the rail and watch her, because fuck, watching Ivy with this horse is almost mesmerizing.

“Why do you do it the old-fashioned way?” she queries.

To which I lamely reply, “Because that’s the way it’s always been done.”

Ivy keeps moving, trading between trailing the string over the horse’s back and swiping it in circles like a lasso in the dirt. Every time the horse spooks, she whispers something to him and then centers him by bringing the string back over his barrel, and fuck, after ten minutes of this continuously, he manages to keep his eyes on her and move with her for a solid thirty seconds, calmly rounding in a circle with her as she leads him.

“See, the way I’ve been trained is, you want to have a real partnership with your horse. That requires earning his trust and helping him to feel safe. And we can’t do that with the old-fashioned, traditional training methods. What they do look for issafety and security. And if they don’t find that with us, they will never trust us. They will never become willing partners.”

“Sounds like some kind of new age, hippy shit to me,” I bark out, without thinking, as Nash nudges me in the ribs with his elbow. Clearly, what she’s doing is working. I just don’t like being wrong, or out of control. Both of which I am right now.

Ivy takes the horse around the pen a few more times, continuing her method, and when she’s satisfied he’s had enough she unhooks the leader and lets him loose. Walking up to me she pushes the training stick to my chest, looks up at me with those blue eyes and says, “Hey, you’re the Chief around here, I’m just telling you what’s worked for me is all. Just like working with people, you gotta build respect, not just expect it. Thanks for the opportunity, I’d love to help your family’s ranch while Sam is away.” She breezes between Nash and me and turns to look back over her shoulder. “That is if you don’tassumeI’m not up to the task.” She smiles as she says it.

Nash leans into me and whispers, “Fuck, Sarge. I think you just met your match.”

I cross my arms over my chest and watch her go, knowing full well not only is she going to be trouble, but fuck, she pretty much just hired herself.

CHAPTER ONE

Wade

October

“Before my mind is ready, my body is. Chase grabs me by the back of my head, fisting my hair as his mouth devours mine.”

“Christ almighty, do you do anything else?” I grunt as I fumble to turn down the volume on the stereo that isn’t mine in the truck I don’t own.

“I want him on his knees. I want him to drown in my—”

“You need help there, Chief?” Ivy giggles beside me as I finally grasp the right knob to turn down her audiobook so we can avoid listening to the narrator climax us all the way back to the ranch.

“I’ve got it,” I bite out. I push two silky hair ties down on the shifter so I can pop Ivy’s Silverado into reverse.

Not surprised I have to fight off these damn things to be able to do something as simple as drive. In the few short weeks Ivy has worked on my ranch, I’m pretty sure she’s left one in every crevice of the silos office imaginable. It was day one, when she left one on my desk, then came looking for it later, that I learned hair elastics have a specific name when they’re all soft and fluffy like this—scrunchie—and Ivy hoards them. All different shades,all different patterns, as if she may suddenly need thirty-two extra at a moment’s notice. She has a tower of them on her desk, every color of the rainbow and then some. Bright and happy-looking twenty-four-seven—just like her.

In fact, everything about this woman is feminine and sunshiny, including this truck of hers I’ve been roped into driving tonight. There’s a piña colada air freshener hanging from the rearview and a mishmash of lip balms and hand creams in the cup holders. It’s a goddamn beauty parlor on wheels.

Her crimson-painted lips curl into a devilish grin with my open disdain of her book choice.

“Drive a girl’s truck and you have to live with the consequences.” Ivy laughs. “You know I like my books.” Her wide, almond-shaped eyes dance with mischief as she pullsmyblazer tight over her red evening dress. I lost it to her when she said she was cold and Cole’s sleazy cop buddy was about to offer his to her. I’m driving her home. It only makes sense she wears mine.

“Just another way for me to shake your nerves, boss … don’t you know I do it on purpose?” She giggles as I shake my head at her.

I don’t doubt she does. She’s been throwing me off and testing my ‘always in control, always have a plan’ mantra since the first day I met her. But she was clearly the best choice as our temporary lead horse trainer. I’ll admit she impressed me during her interview, and her mentor with the AQTA wouldn’t shut up about her when I called him for a reference.

After working with her day in and day out over the last few weeks, I can see what he was raving about. Ivy is brilliant, with a knack for calming the horses and connecting with them like no one I’ve ever seen; she never loses her patience with any of them, from our feistiest colts to our slow-as-molasses old steeds.

But fuck, she gets under my skin. It’s not her fault, it’s mine, because I’m having a hard time ignoring that not only is shegorgeous, but the more I get to know her, the more I realize she’s totally oblivious to her looks and her sassy, alluring charm. Which means she thinks nothing of it when every ranch hand I have bends over backward to get up early and deliver her coffee in the morning, or when they offer to take on some of her morning chores for her. These pricks have never shown up early for work a day in their lives, and all of a sudden, they’re in the barn before the roosters rise and happy as fuck about it?

---