Page 64 of Training the Heart

I have to wonder if somewhere in there he hates the thought of her in some way, knowing that his best friend’s parents died at the hand of a drunk driver. If he does, he doesn’t show it.

My phone buzzes again, interrupting the moment. I open the email and then turn the face of my phone to show Wade, lighting up the subject. I grin.

“We may just have our jockey. Not just any jockey. Rowan McCoy, the nephew of the jockey that raced for your dad in 2006. He wants to come to the ranch and meet with us after we secure our yearling,” I say to Wade.

Wade nods, dividing his attention between me and the numbers that are now flying out of the auctioneer’s mouth. I just know he’s calculating the day’s worth. The tally which they’ve been keeping today so we can guess just how much Rustling Winds will go for.

But Wade doesn’t ignore me; he lets me know he hears me by resting a hand on my mid-thigh and squeezing gently. His fingers are so large they fall in between my thighs, and my core aches with just that simple contact alone before he returns his hand to his lap.

Part of me is glad he isn’t freaked out about what happened last night; the other part is, well, freaking out.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Wade

Idon’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to concentrate on anything with this woman beside me all damn day in a gauzy pink linen dress and black fucking snakeskin boots. All I can think about is making up an excuse to sneak Ivy into the nearest lockable room and then fucking her into another dimension.

She’s like a drug I’m hooked on and can’t get enough of after just one night.

I’m not an inexperienced man. I’ve had a good amount of sex in my life, but nothing has ever felt like her, like us, together. Not even close, and waking up beside her, that sugary-scented hair spread out all over the bed, her ivory skin peeking out of the sheets. Fuck, I can’t wait to take her home and wrap her up in mine.

“Hip 211, Robicheaux Ranch incorporated, Louisiana, ‘Angel’s Wings,’” the auctioneer says. I take in the shape of the filly as her stats and family bloodlines are read. I already know them, by memory now.

I knew this was our horse the moment I saw the way Ivy looked at her yesterday. If she’s going to train a winner she has tobelieve in the horse we choose, and she believes in this horse. I could instantly tell they had a bond. Even right now, she looks like she’s about the jump the rails to go and give this horse a hug. The auctioneer starts the bidding at one hundred thousand and I raise my number. Judging by the last ten horses of her stature, the price will go up in increments of twenty-five to fifty thousand because she isn’t really a front runner.

I raise my number again.

“Wade, what are you doing?” Ivy asks rhetorically, knowing I won’t be able to answer until the bidding is over.

A few more calls and we’re already at three hundred and twenty-five thousand. I’m willing to go up to seven hundred thousand. I’ve already discussed it with my mother, Nash and Cole over text, and they’re all in. Of all people, it was Nash who said he’d trust Ivy to pick our horse blindfolded, and even though her words didn’t choose Angel’s Wings as her own, her eyes did. Ivy isn’t the only one with intuition, and I saw it immediately, a yearning and connection between her and this horse that she simply didn’t have for Rustling Winds or any other horse we saw.

“Six-seventy-five going once, do I have seven? Seven?” the auctioneer calls.

The older man I was bidding against keeps his paddle down. I look back at him, and because it can’t hurt, and I’m comfortable enough in my own skin to pimp myself out just a little, I look right at the auctioneer and toss him a winning smirk just like Ivy suggested, willing him to call it for me.

He meets my eyes and speaks. “Six-seventy-five, going twice. Sold to Silver Pines Ranch, Morgan Brant agent,” he says, mentioning the agent we’re using to broker the deal with.

When I put my number down and look at Ivy fully for the first time, she’s holding her hands over her mouth, and I instantly think I fucked up.

“Are you not happy? Was this not the one? I—fuck I thought, I was sure—” Her hand comes down and settles on my forearm.

“My dad used to call meangel.” She smiles simply at me, tears line her eyes and it’s like a punch to the gut.

I smile and squeeze her thigh.

I didn’t fuck up. I did good.

Real good.

“I felt a connection but I just … I wouldn’t want to make you take this chance—” she says.

I internally breathe a sigh of relief and kiss her forehead.

“It was meant to be,” I promise her. “She’s the one.”

But she’s not convinced, and I can tell it’s not for fear of the horse, it’s that Ivy isn’t used to people doing anything solely because they believe in her.

“But fuck, are you sure? She’s not a surefire bet, Wade, not like Rustling Winds,” she says, her eyes flitting between me and our new horse almost nervously.

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