Nikki flashed her another smile before leading the horse away.
“What kind of site?” She’d known Luke did something with horses, but her aunt hadn’t really said a whole lot. And Josie didn’t know a lot about this type of business anyway.
“For the horses. When they’re ready, they go up on the website. People wait for them to go up.”
“So you raise and train them?”
“Some,” Luke said. “Some are bought at auction. And sometimes Cade will take on someone’s horse and train it for them. But that takes a lot of time. Nikki and Jim, who’s not here today, are the trainers, and my brothers and I train, too. Cade really runs this end of the operation. No thanks to our father.”
“I see,” she said carefully.
Luke didn’t look at her. Instead, he watched Nikki lead the horse back to the barn. His tone was almost expressionless, but she saw a muscle tick in his jaw. “When I got back here after—after everything ended in Nashville, the ranch was in bad shape financially. My father had made some risky decisions to try to save this place and then he died before he could really make them pan out—if they would have panned out at all. We almost lost the whole thing because of his carelessness. So when Cade wanted to do this it was a far more calculated risk. He’s been known for years for his way with horses. We’ve all worked together to use our strengths to make this place profitable. My dad never would have understood how something like this works. He wasn’t any kind of a team player, even when it came to his kids.”
There was no real way to respond to that, so Josie just said, “How is it doing?”
“Thankfully, really well. It’s been going about seven years now. Cade brought Nikki in as soon as he could and Jim right after. The first year was no profit, but we told Cade to stick with it.” He turned from the paddock and started back toward the second barn, the one she hadn’t seen yet. “I’m glad he did.”
“I’m sure,” she agreed.
“Do you ride?”
The question shouldn’t have caught her off guard, considering what they were discussing, but it did. “I do. Well, I did. It’s been many years since I was on a horse.” Like nearly half her life ago, actually, now that she thought about it.
“Do you want to ride out with me tomorrow? I’m going up to the ridge in the northern pasture—” he pointed in the direction “—and it’s a pretty easy ride and an amazing view. That way I can show you more of what we do out here.”
She snapped her mouth shut before he turned around and saw her standing there with it hanging open in shock. Since he was looking at her expectantly, she said, “Yes. I’d like that.”
What did you just do?
Not seeming to notice her flustered state, he smiled at her, the full-on smile that made her forget her own name for a heartbeat. That wasn’t good. “All right. We’ll ride out after breakfast. Say, eight? That give you enough time?”
“Sure,” she said weakly. “Eight’s fine.” What she should have said was “no, thanks.” Josie walked next to him, and in this huge space, their arms still managed to bump into each other. It threw her off a little bit, yet neither of them made any move to walk farther apart.
“You’ll need boots,” he said, glancing at her sneakers. “If you don’t have any that are appropriate, Rosa has a few pairs. They are probably in the mudroom. If not, my mom probably has extras for sure.”
“I’ll find something,” she assured him, trying not to laugh at the idea of her boots, which she’d bought on sale but had still cost her more than six hundred dollars, actually on the back of a horse. They were city-girl boots. Not country-girl boots. She’d nearly destroyed them slogging through the mud when she’d gotten here. The death knell for them might just be an actual horse.
He stopped at the barn entrance. “Thanks for coming out here today.”
“Thank you for showing me,” she said, and meant it. “Cade thought it’d be a good idea for me to see what goes on here. I’m glad I did.”
Hank trotted up then, all wagging tail as he sniffed both Josie and Luke. Luke rubbed his ears. “Hey, boy. You come out with Josie?”
Her heart sank as she eyed his coat, which was wet, dirty and matted in places. “He didn’t look like that when he came out. Hank! What the heck did you get into?” The dog wagged harder but didn’t answer, of course.
Luke laughed, and Josie was momentarily awestruck. God, he was gorgeous when he stopped being grumpy. Apparently being around animals made him happy. “There’s a pond down the way. Lots of tall grass around it. He went exploring is my guess.” He gave the dog another pat. “You’ll need to hose him off and brush him down when you get him back to the house.”
This time, Josie didn’t even try to stop her jaw from falling open. “Hose him off? How am I supposed to do that?”
He gave her that grin. “There’s a doggie shower in the mudroom. Use it and stand back when he shakes it off.”
Josie thought of the small handheld shower in the mudroom. So that was what it was. She’d thought it was to clean boots. She looked down at the dog doubtfully, who looked right back up at her, tail still wagging. She would have sworn he was laughing at her. She’d never walked a dog, much less washed one. She sighed. “All right. Let’s go, Hank.”
* * *
She managed to get the dog mostly clean. She also got herself sopping wet—possibly wetter than Hank himself—and dirty in the process. Alice met her in the kitchen and laughed. “Oh, dear. Did Hank win?”
Josie looked down and plucked her shirt away from her body with a laugh. “Looks that way. That was my first dog bath.” And hopefully, her last.
Alice patted her arm. “It’s a skill. One that develops over time.”
“Mmm.” She sighed. “I think he knew I was a novice.” They both looked at Hank, who was sprawled on his back in the sun, looking for all the world as if the bath had worn him out. She had to laugh.
“It’s a dog’s life,” Alice said fondly, and Josie couldn’t disagree.
Josie hurried down the hall to her room, where she washed up and changed quickly into dry underthings, jeans and a hot pink T-shirt. She hung her wet things in the bathroom, since she didn’t have time to do laundry right now. She’d prefer to wait until later, when the place wasn’t quite so busy. The last thing she wanted to do was run into Luke with her underwear in her hands. That was way too personal. It seemed as if they danced around some kind of unspoken thing, as though if they didn’t acknowledge the thing between them, maybe they could pretend it wasn’t there.
She was willing to give it a shot.
* * *
That night, Josie lay on her bed, the full moon shining through her window. It bathed the mountains in an unearthly light, a cold glow, even though the night was comfortable enough to have the window open. It had cooled down significantly as the sun had dipped down lower and lower.
But the low fire in her belly jumped every time she thought of Luke.
She had her TV on, and a police drama played that she wasn’t paying any attention to. To get her mind off Luke, she called her aunt to see how she was doing in Arizona. She’d gotten an email saying Aunt Rosa had arrived just fine but had wanted to give her a few days to get settled before she checked in.
Her aunt answered on the second ring. “Josie! How is everything up there?”
“Just fine,” she assured her