Page 77 of Roping Wild Dreams
“Impossible.” I roll my eyes. “Here.” I hold the log I initialed earlier out to him. “You’re nearly done from the looks of it.”
“Do our lessons count as extra hours?” Nathan says with a wink.
“Ass.”
Nathan and I bicker back and forth for a few more minutes, and then he heads out. He’s going out to the Neon Horseshoe with Beau and Tomás. I almost want to ask him if I can tag along, but I immediately think better of it. The flirtatious, charged energy between Nathan and I is getting difficult to ignore, and I don’t think we’d be able to tone it down in front of my brother.
Defenses?
Guess I’ve never heard of them.
BARN BULLETIN
Does anyone else not want to work today?
-Tomás
I never want to work. Made to be eating fruit by the pool with a drink in my hand, forced to toil away…
-Jenny
Jenny, one of the goats escaped. Franklin. Sorry, but could you take a break from fruit eating and go catch him?
-Candice
FINE, but I won’t be happy while I do it.
-Jenny
30
NATHAN
“And you’re absolutelysure of what you saw? And heard?” Amber asks for about the fifteenth time.
I’m standing outside the Wilson’s house pacing as I talk to my manager. We’ve been on the phone for half an hour, and when I walked over here to see what Beau and Candice were up to on their day off, I assumed Amber and I would be done speaking shortly. But she keeps asking me to repeat myself.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m positive.”
“Okay.”
“Okay what?” I ask, frustrated.
“We can report it,” she says firmly.
“Thank—”
“But only after we gauge public opinion on you. Western Horsewoman wants to do a follow up piece on you. Not a cover or anything, but they got interested in your work at Star Mountain. They want to interview you again, and do a shoot there with the horses.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, digesting this information. “But I’ll have to ask the people who own this place. And they should be featured in the article as well.”
“Sure, of course. But Nathan?”
“Yeah?”
“This is your chance to save your career. So they better say yes.”
With that, she hangs up the phone on me. The idea of doing another interview sets me on edge because I’m sure the magazine will ask about the fight, but I can’t deny that it’s a good idea. Nothing screams upstanding and remorseful like working at a horse rescue, and I’m sure Amber is hoping the magazine will frame me as some sort of fallen hero finding his feet again.
