“You want Mrs. Morgan cleaning up after you?”
“No, of course not!” Silver said hotly and then grimaced. He must think she was a completely spoiled brat. “Okay, I get it. I’ll clean up.”
She rushed around, randomly stuffing clothes and shoes back into the cases, and loaded them back into the Jeep while Ben continued checking the horses and mules. She finally shut the rear door and turned to face him, only to find he was staring down at his phone, his brow creased as if she didn’t even exist.
“Are we good to go now?” She advanced toward him.
He put his phone away and considered her. “If you’re okay with having a bra hanging off the back of your hat, then sure.”
She snatched at the pink lacy bra, threw it on the ground, and stamped hard on it.
“Satisfied?”
“Seems like the waste of a perfectly good bra to me, but it’s not my call.” He nodded toward her horse. “Can you mount by yourself?”
She stalked over to Ladybug, who seemed to get bigger and bigger the closer she got. When she’d tried the two horses out earlier, she’d used the mounting block and BB had settled her on the back of each horse. Silver tried to remember how the heck to get up from the ground, and almost jumped when Ben’s calm voice sounded right by her ear.
“Left foot in the stirrup, reach up and grab the pommel or a handful of mane, bounce off your right foot, swing your leg over, and you’re good to go.”
“Why can’t I use the mounting block?” Silver asked.
“Because there won’t be any where we’re going. I need to know that you can mount up from the ground if we have to move fast.”
She tried, she really tried, but ended up looking like a demented, one-legged grasshopper. She had paused for breath, her face pressed against the side of the horse when Ben spoke again.
“Can I help you?”
For a second, she wished the ground would just open up and swallow him, but she wasn’t a quitter, and she wanted to be on that horse.
“Sure, thanks.”
Before she could get another word out, his hands came around her waist and she was airborne. He lifted her like she weighed nothing and settled her gently on the saddle.
“Put your feet in the stirrups and then stand up for me so I can check the length, okay?”
He fussed around by her leg, shortening the leather straps; his head was lowered so that she couldn’t even see his face. She wiggled her toes experimentally. She’d asked Ayla to buy her new cowboy boots and this was the first time she’d worn them.
Eventually, Ben stepped back and looked at her appraisingly. “Do you remember how to hold the reins?”
Seeing as he’d already watched her ride around the paddock, she gave him a haughty stare. “Weirdly, I haven’t forgotten how to do that in the last hour.”
He passed them over to her. “Like an ice cream cone, right?”
“I know.”
He nodded and set off for his own horse, mounting with such fluid grace and power that Silver actually gawped at him.
“What’s up?” He straightened and met her stare, his brown gaze steady.
“Nothing.” She found a smile. “How far are we going this morning?”
He glanced at his steel-faced watch. “Seeing as it’s almost lunchtime, not as far as I’d hoped. We’ll be lucky to make it to Morgansville.”
“I suppose that’s my fault.” Silver sighed sweetly and waited for him to contradict her.
Instead, he nodded and picked up his reins.
“Yeah, you’re right. It absolutely one hundred percent is.”
Chapter Three
She certainly wasn’t used to picking up after herself.... Ben checked that Silver was still following along behind him. She wasn’t exactly moving fast, her hat pushed back on her head as she took in the amazing view of the Sierras and the foothills leading up to them. Seeing as they weren’t going that far now, he was happy to let her get used to the horse and settle in.
If he’d been famous since the age of five, he guessed he wouldn’t be much better. Sharing a room with Kaiden had drummed tidiness into his bones. If he didn’t keep things nice, Kaiden would dump all his stuff in the cow barn. Even though they now had separate rooms, he still complained when Ben didn’t leave the bathroom quite how he liked it. Silver Meadows was obviously used to being waited on hand and foot.
There had been a moment when she’d looked around the yard like some haughty princess, and he’d almost gone and put her stuff away for her himself. But he couldn’t let her think that was the way things were going to be. She might look like some modern-day version of Doris Day, whom his auntie Rae loved to pieces, but when they were out on the trail, they’d have to rely on each other. If she wanted the real experience, he was more than willing to give it to her.
The turnoff to the ghost town of Morgansville appeared on his right, and he waited for Silver to catch up with him.
“We’re going this way, so take it slow, okay?”
She paused beside him, her blue eyes direct as she inspected the narrow cutout. “This looks man-made.”
“It is.” He pointed up the straight line of the slope. “There used to be some kind of rail system up to the mine, and this is all that’s left of it.”
“Mine?” She sat up straight. “Like a gold mine?”
“Silver. We can check it out on the way if you like. It’s scheduled for being filled in after someone nearly got trapped in there, but you can still see the main entrance and where the buildings used to stand.”
In the last year, he’d taken a dozen trail rides out past the mine and up to the ghost town of Morgansville, and he’d yet to meet someone who wasn’t interested in the history of the place. Even though the trail rides went from the Morgans to the Lymonds and beyond, all the best places in his opinion were right here.
He led the way up the rapidly narrowing path, aware of the gradually encroaching silence as the vegetation was stripped away, leaving an unrelenting dusty whiteness that sometimes hurt the eyes. He took another turn off the road and finally came to a stop at the flattened piece of land where all that remained of the once-prolific Morgansville silver mine remained.
“That’s it?” Silver asked. She sounded just as disappointed as everyone else who got to visit.
“Yeah.” He pointed past the sealed-up door of the mine and the fluttering yellow tape around the cave-in. “The mine buildings used to stand to the right, but they took out the machinery and anything useful years ago.”
“It’s kind of sad,” she said, her gaze fixed on the DANGER DO NOT ENTER sign. “Is it really dangerous in there?”
“Nearly came down on Rachel Morgan and Cauy Lymond last year when they were trying to locate some drunken dude ranch guests.”
She shivered slightly. “Well, don’t worry about me going down there. I hate small spaces.”
“So does Cauy,” Ben said dryly. “I’m surprised he made it out.”
“I used to be in this kids’ cowboy show—”
“—The Crazy Catsby Cowgirls, yeah.” Ben completed the sentence for her.
She gave him a curious glance. “Most people who watched that show were girls.”
He shrugged. “I used to mind my baby sister, Daisy, and she loved it so I