Page 20 of Combust
If so, he was confident about passing. He’d spent time around horses for as long as he could remember, riding them, grooming them, and mucking out more stalls than he could count.
“Mind if I get changed into some real clothes and boots, first?” he asked.
Dane nodded. “Let me show you to your cabin.”
* * *
Cade’s digs, located near the family’s cluster of houses, were bigger and fancier than he expected.
Instead of the tiny foreman’s cabin he’d seen at other ranches, this was an actual cottage, with a separate bedroom that boasted a bed big enough to sleep two comfortably, a bathroom that looked freshly-renovated, and a full dine-in kitchen.
A cast-iron stove with a river-rock surround sat in one corner of the comfortably-furnished living room. The big flat-screen TV mounted on the living room wall looked brand-new.
I’ll be spending my winter nights all warm and cozy in here…if I don’t screw up again, he warned himself.
He couldn’t help picturing himself on that couch, watching a movie with Maggie Swanson’s luscious curves snuggled up against him.
Cade unloaded his truck, dumping the bags and boxes that held his clothes and his meager collection of personal stuff in the bedroom. Then he quickly changed into his spare jeans, a woolen flannel shirt, his fleece-lined denim jacket, and his work boots.
Dane was already waiting in front of the barn when Cade strode up. The heated air inside the building felt tropical as Dane slid open the tall doors.
Soft whickers and loud equine snorts greeted them. Cade paused to inhale the familiar, beloved scents of fresh hay and horses.
They were the one thing that had remained constant in his life, from his happy childhood on his clan’s Ozark Mountains ranch, through his difficult years of simply trying to survive, until now.
Things had been a bit easier these past few years with a series of steady ranching jobs. Freed from the scrabble to find enough to eat each day, he’d finally had the luxury of longing to find his place in the world, somewhere he could call home.
He collected his composure and followed Dane down the long aisle of stalls.
Horses peered at them with interest as they walked past, their ears swiveling to track the two of them. They were all somewhere between fifteen and sixteen hands tall, bright-eyed and energetic-looking, and their thick winter coats looked shiny and well-groomed.
“You have a good number of horses here,” Cade commented. “They all for working cattle?”
Most of the ranches he’d worked at had relied heavily on ATVs, though he’d heard that mountain operations, like this one, herded cows the old-fashioned way in rugged terrain.
“Some,” Dane replied. “But we mostly use them for our guided trail rides. We have a lot of summer guests, and our horses all ride very gentle and are exceptionally smooth gaited.”
He paused in front of a stall, where a big dapple gray greeted him. He pulled a chunk of carrot from his pocket and offered it to the eager lips snuffling his hat. “This is Meringue. She, and all the horses from here to the end of the barn,” Dane swept his hand to indicate the residents of the remaining six stalls, “are our cow bred horses. Meet Flan, Genoise, Meringue, Cream Puff, Croissant, Brioche, and Éclair.”
The tall man made his way down the line of stalls, pausing after each introduction to offer the horse in question a carrot piece or apple quarter.
Cade chuckled at the fancy-pants names given to these working horses. “Your mate, the baker-lady, named these horses, right?”
Dane grinned at him. “How’d you guess? She and Maggie named them all. I keep telling her that I don’t know whether I ought to ride ’em or eat ’em.” He stroked the nose of the last horse in the row with open affection, and his grin turned into a fond smile. “All our horses are American Quarter Horse crossed with Percheron draft horses. We’ve gotten calm, gentle, smart horses that have very good bone and feet, and are easy to break to saddle. Most of ’em also inherited cow-sense from their AQHA mothers.”
He opened the stall, and led out a dun gelding. “How would you feel about riding Flan today?”
Cade circled the horse, admiring his powerful well-muscled haunches and good bone. He had large, well-shaped feet with thick horn, meaning he could go without shoes, if he needed to. His head and neck were well set, though a bit short. The shoulders and back were both broad and strong, without being weak in the loin.
“I’d like it just fine,” he answered, honestly. “It’s a nice day for a ride, and Flan here looks like he’s got a real smooth gait.”
“He does,” Dane agreed. “I’ll be riding Éclair.” He indicated the dark bay mare housed next to Flan.
It didn’t take them long to saddle up. They walked the horses up the road a ways to warm them up, then mounted.
The next three hours were a slice of pure heaven, as far as Cade was concerned.
They started the tour by heading down to Grizzly Creek, a wide, clear stream that watered the lush alfalfa pastures stretching from the highway to the base of the lowest hills. Along the way, Dane explained the ranch’s approach to raising beef.
