Page 63 of When It Reins
“What?” he asks.
I shake my head, laughing softly. “I thought you were going to scold me.”
“Scold you?” Mitch looks at me like he’s never heard crazier words. “I would never scold you for trying to help out a community.”
“But you said to stay out of it.”
“I don’t want you anywhere near David, Starling. He’s a dangerous person, whether you believe it or not,” he says, staring me down. “But raising money for these families is a selfless thing to do. It’s something that I’m not surprised you’redoing, given what a kind person you are. How can I not love you for that?”
His words have me sucking in a breath.How can I not love you for that?It wasn’t necessarily a declaration of love, but it wasn’tnota declaration of love either.
“Well,” I say, trying not to let my heart beat out of my chest. He watches me like he knows what I’m thinking. I smile at him, stepping into him, the flyers trapped between our chests as he wraps his arms back around me again. “I could use your help.”
“Name it.”
“How would your club like to play bodyguards?”
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mitch
Nerves tightenmy stomach as I watch each kid line up, ready for their first lesson on bull riding. It will take some time before I let them actually get on a bull. It’s not quite like it was when I was a kid, and they threw us on, telling us to hold on tight.
For this, we have a practice dummy bull where we will work on their forms, then after I think they are ready, we’ll move on to the small bulls that will hardly even lift a foot off the ground. That is how I want it to be.
If one of these kids gets hurt under my watch, I am probably going to puke.
Bonnie and Jax are here for support and seem to know most of the kids from the orientation they held a few months ago. I wasn’t interested at that point, not sure if I would ever be able to handle teaching my own lessons.
After my secrets finally came out, and my family decided to graciously forgive my misgivings, I was able to breathe around them a little easier.
“Tighten up your stomach,” I instruct the eight-year-old boy who is on the dummy bull. “Yeah, hold your arm up high in the sky. Can’t let it drop down.” Jax stands at a corner, pulling on the pulley mechanisms that made the barrel—or bull, in this case—move up and down. “You wanna squeeze your legs and let your body lean back, but keep your stomach muscles tight so you don’t develop back problems.”
I hear Jax snicker and know he’s going to bring up that bit of helpful information when we were done here, but I’m not wrong. I have terrible back problems because of poor early riding days.
We go through several more kids, some better listeners than others. I probably shouldn’t have, but I already picked my favorite students.
When we’re all wrapped up, Jax and I head into the barn where I see my brothers and CT sitting in the alleyway, looking like they just ran marathons.
“Look at these slackers,” Jax comments, going to the mini fridge in the office for a bottle of water. He grabs an extra and tosses it to me.
“Slacker my ass. We just got back.”
I hear shuffling down the way and see some of the wranglers working. Maverick is the only one who is sitting with the guys here. “Where did you head today?”
“Pasture six. Already eaten through,” CT answers, shaking his head. He wipes some sweat off of his brow and says, “I’m thinking we’re gonna have to push to twelve next week.”
“Twelve? It’s a day’s ride,” Maverick answers, looking surprised.
“We’ll have to camp out overnight, ride back the next day.”
“I’ll go. So will Bo.” Stetson volunteers.
“Could be a good couples’ retreat. You and Dani wanna go?” Logan asks, looking to CT.
“Maybe. We’ll have to see who can watch Waverly,” he replies, referring to their one-year-old daughter.
“Yeah, same for Colter.”
