Page 20 of When the Storm Breaks
Just bad relationships, apparently. “I’m taking a hiatus from men. I packed extra batteries.”
A laugh burst out of him. “That’s just sad.”
“My big boy takes good care of me. I can change the settings. Speed up. Slow down.”
“Your big boy.” Another laugh burst out of him. “Holy shit. That’s pathetic.” After a beat he said, “Bet it’s not as big as me.”
“Are you seriously competing with a sex toy? Size isn’t everything.”
“Does that big boy of yours have a tongue and hands too? Can your big boy take you from behind and whisper dirty things in your ear while he—”
“Stop!” I smacked his arm. Not that I was a prude, but now he’d gotten me thinking about what he could do with his tongue and hands and his big dick.
My eyes lowered to his crotch and he laughed. “You’re considering it, aren’t you?”
“Nope.” Admittedly, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, but he didn’t need to know that. “I just want to be friends.” I wasn’t even thinking about using him to get to Hayley. It was the truth. Even though he was moody, I liked hanging out with him. “I meet a lot of fake people. And a lot of users. People who ... just want something from me. It’s hard to know who to trust sometimes. But you’re different. You’re real.”
He set Rebel loose inside the pasture and closed the gate, turning to face me. The sun on his face made his eyes appear lighter, like golden honey. “And how about you? Are you real, Shiloh?”
“Not always,” I admitted. “But right now? With you? Yes. You’re getting the real Shiloh.”
He studied my face for a moment, searching for the truth in my words. Could he read people as well as he read horses? As if he’d made up his mind about me, he nodded. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to Dakota.”
We walked to another paddock, smaller than the first two, with only one horse in it. I didn’t know the first thing about horses, but this horse didn’t look like the others. She looked depressed. Sad. She was standing near the fence with her head down. Brody clucked, and she lifted her head and looked over at him.
“Why is Dakota alone?”
“She’s not ready to be put with the others yet. She was abused.”
“What happened to her?” This time I stayed outside the gate while Brody went inside, and Dakota slowly walked toward him. I leaned my forearms on the top of the fence and rested my chin on my hands.
“She was found in a stall standing in four feet of manure. Skinny. Malnourished. Neglected.” He rubbed the horse’s neck with firm but gentle strokes. “Not sure what all had happened to her but none of it was good.”
“And what do you do with a horse like that?”
“Start from the ground up. Take it nice and slow. You can’t rush it, or you’ll undo any of the good you try to do. For now, I’m just trying to get her healthy and get her used to human touch. I spend time with her, just talking and stroking her. She’s come a long way in the past few months.”
We spent about twenty minutes with Dakota and all Brody did was stroke her and talk to her. But I could have watched him doing that all day long. It made me feel so calm and peaceful, the warm sun on my face, the soft swish of Dakota’s tail that made me think was her way of showing appreciation. She trusted Brody to be kind to her.
These horses were so damn lucky to have a Brody in their lives. Even though he could be grouchy and sometimes rude, I knew deep down he was a good person. I’d been around enough bad ones to know the difference.
“Wish I could rescue them all,” he said when he joined me by the fence.
I wished he could too.
“The Paint was a rescue horse. The first one I led out of the pasture,” he clarified as we walked back down the trail toward the barn.
“With one blue eye?”
“That’s the one. When he came to me a few years ago, he was in bad shape. We suspected he’d been beaten and whipped. His owners had left his saddle on for weeks and tied his head to the stall.” Brody shook his head in disgust.
“And look at him now. You gave him a good life.”
“Doesn’t always work out. Some of them don’t make it. But yeah, when I can rehabilitate them, there’s no better feeling in the world.”
“You have a gift, Cowboy.”
He glanced at me. “So do you, Shy. So do you.”
