“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve been told you’d rather not advertise that ability.”
“If I could count on it, I might. Some animals are more private than others. I’d hate to crush expectations. I have other skills.”
“As I’ve also been told. Best farrier in the business, complete with digital diagnostic equipment to use in examining gaits, alignment and sports performance. I can’t wait for a demonstration.”
His grin widened at that. “It’s the ONTRACKEQUINE software. I can’t wait to show you.”
“But I want to hear about the other skill.” She lowered her voice when she said, “The whispering.”
He tilted his head. “Do you garden?” he asked her.
“She’s a farmer’s daughter. She can grow anything,” Nathaniel answered for her.
Clay focused on Annie. “Do you talk to plants?” When she nodded he asked, “And do they respond by becoming tall and healthy? Robust?”
“Sometimes. I’ve heard it’s the oxygen you breathe on them,” she said.
He shook his head. “You emit more carbon dioxide than oxygen. Perhaps it’s the sound of your voice or your intention or it could be hypnosis,” he said with a shrug. “Whatever that is, it’s been working since the sun first warmed the ground. Sometimes it’s better not to question but just accept. And also accept that there are no guarantees on anything.”
She edged closer. “But if I promise not to advertise this magical thing that works sometimes, will you tell me a little about it? Some of your experiences? Friend to friend?”
“Yes, Annie. I’ll tell you training stories as long as you promise to remember no one knows if the horse and I communicated or if the horse just decided to stop screwing around and get with the program.”
“Promise,” she said with a laugh. “I’d better get in the shower,” Annie said. “I’ll have dinner ready in an hour and a half. Is there anything you need in the meantime?”
He shook his head. “I’ll grab my duffel. Nathaniel will show me where to park the truck and trailer and maybe I’ll get my own shower before dinner.”
So, Nathaniel was worried about the lack of amenities in the tech’s quarters, Clay mused. The biggest problem he could tell from checking the place out was the bed. He was a long-legged man for a regular-size double bed. And the showerhead was a little low. But there’d been times he’d slept in his truck or trailer, camped, borrowed cots or couches, made a nest in a stall, whatever worked. The best thing about Isabel’s big house was her extra-long king-size platform bed, good even when she wasn’t in it.
There had been no settlement in the divorce; he hadn’t wanted anything of hers and she couldn’t get away with asking a farrier for money when she had so much personal wealth. It was interesting that they hadn’t put together a prenup, that she trusted him in marriage and in divorce. He briefly wondered if he’d remembered to thank her for that. Trust was more valuable to Clay than money. But he regretted that he hadn’t asked for the bed. That was a good bed. Firm like the ground, not hard like asphalt, but with a little give like the earth. Spacious. Generous. Long.
Clay pulled clean jeans out of his duffel and a fresh denim shirt. He brushed off his boots and combed his long, damp hair back into its ponytail. With his bronze skin, high cheekbones and long, silky black ponytail, there was no need for him to drive the point home with Native American affectations, but his cowboy hat sported an eagle feather. Even when his hats got worn to death and he got new ones, he transferred the feather. Finding an eagle feather was good mojo.
He heard the grinding of an engine and distant barking of a dog. Of course his immediate thought was that it was a patient. He put the hat on his head and exited the stable in time to see an old Ford pickup back up to the barn’s double doors. It was full of hay and feed. As he watched, a young woman with black hair and tan skin jumped energetically out of the cab, ran around to the back, donned heavy work gloves, dropped the tailgate on the pickup and grabbed a fifty-pound bale. She was short and trim, maybe five foot four and a hundred and fifteen pounds, but she pulled that bale out of the truck, hefted it and carried it into the stable.
Clay backtracked into his new quarters and grabbed a pair of work gloves from his duffel. He joined her at the back of her truck when she returned.
She stopped in her tracks when she saw him. She looked more than surprised, her blue eyes wide with shock. It was almost as if she’d seen a ghost. “Nate didn’t mention he had a new hand,” she said, eyeing the work gloves.
“I’m Clay,” he said, introducing himself. “Let me give you a hand here.”
“I have it,” she said, moving past him to the truck. She jumped up on the tailgate and pulled another bale toward her.
Clay ignored her dismissal, but he smiled at the sight of her hefting that heavy bale and marching into the stable. She was wearing a denim jacket and he would bet that underneath it she had some shoulders and guns on her that other women would kill for. And that tight round butt in a pair of jeans was pretty sweet, too. But the kid didn’t make five and a half feet even in her cowboy boots. Tiny. Firm. Young.
He grabbed two bales and followed her into the stable. She actually jumped in surprise when she turned around and found him standing there behind her with a fifty-pound bale in each hand. She seemed to struggle for words for a second and finally settled on, “Thanks, but I can handle it just fine.”
“Me, too,” he said. “You do the feed delivery all the time?”
“Mondays and Thursdays,” she said, lowering her gaze and quickly walking around him, back to the truck. She reached in after another bale, leaving only a couple of feed bags in the back.
He followed her. “Do you have a name?” he bluntly asked.
“Lilly,” she said, pulling that bale toward her out of the truck bed. “Yazhi,” she added with a grunt.
“You’re Hopi?” he asked. His eyebrows rose. “A blue-eyed Hopi?”
She hesitated before answering. You had to have blue-eyed DNA on both sides to get more blue eyes. Lilly’s father was unknown to her, but she’d always been told her mother had always believed herself to be one hundred percent Native. “About half, yes,” she finally said, hefting the bale. “Where are you from?”
“Flagstaff,” he answered.
“Navajo?” she asked.
He smiled lazily. “Yes, ma’am.”
“We’re historic enemies.”
He smiled enthusiastically. “I’ve gotten over it,” he said. “You still mad?”
She rolled her eyes and turned away, carrying her bale. Little Indian girl didn’t want to play. Once again he couldn’t help but notice the strain in her shoulders, the firm muscles under those jeans. “I don’t pay attention to all that stuff,” she said as she went into the barn.
Clay chuckled. He grabbed the last two bags of feed, stacked one on top of the other and threw them up on a shoulder, following her. When he caught up with her he asked, “Where do you want the feed?”
“Feed room, with the hay. When did you start here?”
“Actually, today. Have you been delivering feed long?”
“Part-time, a few years. I do it for my grandfather. He owns the feed business. He’s an old Hopi man and doesn’t like his business out of the family. Trouble is, there’s not that much family.”
Clay understood all of that, the thing about her people and family. First off, most people preferred their tribal designation when referred to, and family was everything; they were slow to trust anyone outside the race, the tribe, the family.
“Couple