Page 46 of Hesi-Dating
I stared up at this man I wanted but couldn't have. My resolve melted into awhat the hell."Sure."
ChapterSixteen
JOLEY
When we turned off the highway onto a dirt road through a rusted metal gate barely hanging on by its hinges, I expected a trailer with a lean-to out back, not… majestic trees, a rustic house, and a barn. This had to have been the inspiration for a couple of cheesy Christmas romcom movies.
He parked beside a sheriff SUV in front of the house. Before I could release my seatbelt, he'd run around to get my door and helped me out of the truck. Heels weren't exactly the greatest to walk on dirt and rocks, but I didn't care. He also held my elbow to steady me.
God, this man…
We weren't in a relationship, but we were in something, even if it was a tug-of-war with me resisting the pull to him. He'd demand the type of intimacy I couldn't give. I knew it from the start. My being here wasn't smart. The rapport we'd developed in such a short time spoke volumes about our connection, which was something I'd never found with anyone else. I didn't know if I was ready to see this connection manifested between our bodies. I suspected it'd be something that would consume me.
"How did you ever get so much space with trees in this part of the world?" The place was beautiful in the early post-dusk darkness.
"My grandfather bought the land in the 1940s after the war. No one wanted a place this far out of town. Come, meet the guys." He waved me to follow him into the barn and hit the lights. A concrete hallway went between several stalls on either side. A big brown horse leaned his head out of a stall and kicked the door. The horse shook its head up and down as if communicatinghurry up.
"Easy, there, Trent." He disappeared into a room and came back with a bucket. "He’s angry I made him wait so long for dinner. They should be used to late dinners with the hours I work. But he’s twenty-two and a cranky old man." He poured the food into a bin attached to the stall wall and gave the horse a pat on the neck. Everything about him had changed into a relaxed guy who was almost happy. Love for this old horse poured off him. "There you go, bud.” He asked me, "You spent much time around horses?"
"Not really."
He opened the door. "Come on in. You can pet him while he eats. He’s a docile old guy who’s more an oversized dog than a horse. He can’t really do much since he’s lame on one leg. Vet says it's arthritis we can't fix." Seth petted the horse's sleek neck.
I reached in and ran my hand down the warm skin on the slope of his neck. "He's beautiful."
"He needs to be brushed. Maybe tomorrow. Let's go see if I can get Rainbow in. He's a rescue I took in two weeks ago from the Humane Society."
"Rainbow?"
"He came with the name. Bit of a fix-up project, but he's a good guy." He put some food into a bucket and walked through another stall which opened into a pasture. He shook the bucket. "Here he comes."
A white and brown spotted horse limped up to the stall. His white had orange stained patches here and there from rolling in dirt.
"He was surrendered to the shelter from a hoarding situation. They expected to euthanize him since he foundered so bad in his front hooves."
"What's that?"
"They get inflammation around the bone in the hoof that causes the bone to shift. Hurts a lot. Probably can't ever be ridden again. He's a giant pasture potato."
"Poor guy. Are you going to keep him here forever?
“As long as he needs to be here, he can stay. It'll take a lot of rehab to get him going, but when I talked to the farrier last week he said we can probably help him." He shut the stall.
"Do you have a horse you consider yours? That's not a rescue?"
He compressed his lips and stared at a locked room across the aisle. "Not right now. Someday I'll get another one." He closed the room with the horse feed. "You want to see the house?"
This was it. The line that if I crossed, I wasn't going back. Oh, hell. I'd crossed that line when I said yes to seeing his horses.
The house wasn't large, but it was modern. Yet, it retained the feel of a log cabin with a steady theme of Old West in every picture, every throw blanket, and even the worn leather furniture. It didn't smell like most bachelor pads I'd visited. No stale food or musty odor. It smelled of leather and a hint of lemon. There also wasn't stuff everywhere.
"My dad was into Native American stuff and cowboys." He waved at a Navajo blanket thrown across the sofa beneath a huge print of cowboys herding cattle. "The house cleaner was here today. That's why it looks so good."
Ah. That explained the lemon smell.
"Want a drink? Beer? Wine? We can go out on the back porch."
"Beer works." I wandered onto the back porch that overlooked the property. It was so quiet. No highway or car noise. I gazed up into the dark sky.
