Page 42 of Destined for the Cowboy

“Yes on the hoof nippers. The other is just a hoof knife, to trim the frog and sole if necessary.”

Her brow furrowed. “I get that the hoof is like a toenail, no nerves, but isn’t the frog sensitive?”

“Not pain wise, if that’s what you mean.” He could deal with this, questions about his work. He relaxed a little. “But I don’t mess with the frog, or the sole, unless there’s a problem, or a loose flap—they’re shed naturally over time—that could gather bacteria or tear. The horse needs that cushion, for a lot of reasons, including keeping the hooves the best shape.”

She asked more questions, and he could almost see her mentally filing away his answers. She truly did have a curious mind.

And she lulled him with her work-related questions, so much that he didn’t realize how far they’d progressed along the tool rack until she stopped dead, staring at the wall. Or rather, the framed photograph on the wall. One of the very few pictures of him that existed.

Him…and Bud.

Looking at the image of the older man, silver haired and with a neatly trimmed beard to match—he used to tease him that he looked like Santa Claus after he’d been on a diet for a couple of years—made his throat tighten up, as it always did. He had to close his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again Tris’s gaze was on him.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“Bud Dailey.”

“He’s important to you,” she said softly.

He swallowed tightly. “He was. He spent years teaching me everything I know about this work. He was the best man I’ve ever known.”

“He’s gone?”

He nodded. Cleared his throat. “A few years ago.”

“Your friend in the cemetery,” she said, putting the pieces together as she so often seemed to.

He nodded, then hesitated, but something about her and the fact that she knew exactly how he must feel compelled him to go on. “This was his place. When I was still a teenager he let me live in the back room here—” he gestured over his shoulder “—because I didn’t have any place else. I came back when I left the Air Force. And when he died, he didn’t have any family, so he left it to me.”

She gave him a rather odd smile and said, very softly, “Sounds to me like he did have family. It just wasn’t by blood.”

His breath stopped for a moment as he realized the odd tightness in that smile was emotion. “He…used to say things like that. Like your brother says about the family you build yourself. Bud said I was his son by choice, not blood.”

“Then I’m very glad you found each other. Even though it’s so very hard to lose someone you’re so close to.”

Yes, he had been close to Bud, the only adult who had ever shown any genuine feeling for him. He’d cared for the man who had taken him in more than he had for anyone else in his life. It was a kind of love, at least. Probably the only kind he was capable of. Although since he’d gotten to know Tris, he…what? Cared? Yes, he did. He could admit that much. But love, the kind she deserved, was something else again. Something he didn’t know much about.

He recognized that other kind of love, the meant-to-be-mates kind, like with Jackson and Nic, but he’d only ever seen it from the outside. And likely only ever would see it that way. A fact he had to work to remember when he was around Tris. Because for the first time since Gretchen he was pondering the risks, and wondering if it was worth it.

“So tell me, do you think it’s true, about loving and losing?” she asked.

He stared at her, only able to because she was looking at the photo again. And before he realized what he was doing, he wasspeaking the famous words. “’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all’? Maybe for Tennyson. Is it for you?”

She met his gaze then, and something in her eyes told him of the depth of that pain of loss. “Now, looking back, I can say yes. But only because the pain has changed.”

“Changed?”

“When it hits, it’s as deep and sharp and bloody as ever. But it no longer comes as often, or takes up residence for days on end. So I guess the previous line of that poem applies.”

He gave her a sideways look. “Quizzing me?”

She smiled. “No. I know you know, because I’ve heard about you and Slater Highwater trading quotes.”

“He did give me a reading list,” he said wryly. The Last Stand Saloon owner was notorious in town for such things, which was what made him the perfect match for Joey the librarian.

“‘I feel it when I sorrow most,’ then?”

“Yes. Strange, isn’t it, that when we’re in the most pain, we feel it’s better to be in that pain than not?”

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