River's End (River's End Series, #1)(50)
“I like doing anything with the horses. I don’t care what. So for a while, it’s helping you learn to handle them. It’s good for the horses too. They have to work however I tell them. Back to the basics. So actually, yeah, it’s doing some good. If you want to learn, that is.”
She nodded vigorously. “I do. I just don’t want to burden you anymore than I already have.”
He shrugged. “It just is what it is, Erin. I was there. We all know what happened and why you’re here.”
She looked at the horse as she asked him, “Why do you accept things so easily?”
“I’ve had to accept a lot worse than this,” he said, looking at her profile, then at the horse, becoming lost in his own memories. “I had to accept terrible things. So your situation, is not so tragic for me.”
“But you hated me.”
“No. I just didn’t trust you.”
“And you do now?” her gaze shot up to his face and he finally looked down at her. She was far too pretty for her or his own good. Her eyes were big, sad and vulnerable. Save me, kind of eyes. Jack shifted the weight on his feet, uncomfortable with his thoughts about her.
“I think you proved you weren’t here for reasons that had anything to do with the Rydells or the ranch. And I really don’t think you intended to end up stuck here.”
She shook her head no and pressed her lips together. “Thank you, Jack. You could have thrown me out.”
“No. Really. I couldn’t have. You’d have been walking down a dirt road a good ten miles from the nearest form of help. I, quite literally, couldn’t have thrown you out.”
She blushed, and glanced at her feet. Then she nodded. “You still went above and beyond what most people would have done, especially considering how Joey and you felt about me.”
He reached up and rubbed the horse’s flanks. Anything was better than trying to avoid what he wanted to do, which was stare into Erin’s eyes.
“So I’m getting bored with how wonderful I am. Do you want to do this or not?”
She nodded vigorously and gently laid her hand back on the horse. She looked up at him, her fear suddenly very real in her eyes as she took a first step, then another, until she eventually circled around the horse, all the while running her hand along the horse’s body.
When she got back to where he stood, she let go of the horse and let out a big breath with a huge smile. “I did it!”
He nodded and turned away before his proud smile seemed out of proportion with Erin Poletti’s relationship to him.
“So I guess it’s time you learned how to groom a horse.”
He spent the next while showing her how to rub the curry brush over the horse’s body, and brush the entire horse, her mane included. He watched her do the entire process. She was slow and clumsy at first. He soon discovered she did better when he walked away and found something else to do. She didn’t perform well under scrutiny. But she liked having him close. Just in case.
She came back each afternoon and worked with him and the horses until dinner. By the end of the first week, she had enough confidence to groom the horse and position the saddle blanket on the horse’s back. By the end of the second week, she could put a saddle over the horse’s back. It was hard for Jack not to step in and take the saddle from her. She was so short and weak in her arms, the heavy, cumbersome saddle looked like she would fall forward just carrying it. But she managed to wrestle it up over the horse, and beamed at herself as if she accomplished something truly important. He began to think she wasn’t just trying to pay her debt at the ranch, but actually enjoyed and looked forward to the work they did with the horses.
Week three: she could saddle the horse, cinch it, and wanted to learn how to lead the horse around. Jack soon had her walking the horse all over the ranch, the road, the pastures, and all the while, made her stop and start, walk fast, then slow, and kept showing her where the horse was to be with relation to her. He cringed whenever the horse’s feet got too close to hers. Last thing he needed was for her to break a toe. But eventually, she started to lead the horse, becoming much more aware of where it was, and where she was, and soon possessed a real command instead of the unnatural fear she began with.
Jack spent quite awhile showing her several different exercises she could do with the horse as ground work. One was merely standing in front of the horse and gently shaking the horse’s lead rope toward the horse indicating for the horse to step back. When Erin managed to get the horse to do as she commanded she almost started dancing around. Who knew she could actually command a horse to do something? Another “horse game” as Jack called them, was to start twirling the end of the horse’s lead rope whichever way she wanted the horse to start trotting. She eventually got the horse to circle around her in the desired direction. Jack was able to then make the horse stop and switch directions with barely the flick of the rope. She was just happy to get it doing what she commanded one way.
Finally she was able to get her horse to do all the games and she was able to tie it to the hitching post. All alone. Jack was saddling one of his horses for a ride. He leaned against the doorjamb as he watched her. She’d come a long way from the very first day.
“I think tomorrow, you’ll be ready to get on her.”
Erin turned around at his voice. “You mean get on the horse?”