Anderson men don’t shy away from anything.
Yeah, well, none of the Anderson men had ever been paralyzed from the waist down. Okay, okay...not entirely paralyzed. He still had partial feeling in his thighs. And some feeling in his lower extremities, too, but it was spotty at best, and it had spelled the end of his rodeo career.
Still, though he tried to banish the words, he found himself wondering how many times he’d heard them over the years. First when he was little and in the mutton-busting events, then later when he’d decided to try bull riding. He closed his eyes, his hands aching he held them so tightly clenched. Back then, he’d been scared. Hell, if you weren’t scared of riding a bull, you had no business riding them. His father used to tell him that, too.
When he opened his eyes, his mouth tightened into a mirthless smile.
And the bitch of it, the thing that should make him laugh right now, was that he hadn’t been maimed by a bull. No. He’d been ruined by a worthless piece of shit with four DUIs. A man who’d been so drunk, he’d walked away from the wreck without a scratch on him while he’d barely escaped with his life, and Dustin...
He closed his eyes again. Dear God, he didn’t want to think about Dustin.
“We have a mounting block for people with disabilities over there.”
His eyes sprang open. Alana stared down at him...and was it his imagination? Or had that pretty blue gaze softened? She caught a glimpse of his hands again, and Trent unclenched them instantly. The only limbs that still functioned without a problem: his hands and arms.
“I can help you mount,” she added. And, yes, her eyes had definitely lost their edge.
“I can do it myself.” He gritted his teeth.
“Okay.” She stepped back.
He jammed his cowboy hat down on his head in determination. But as he turned toward the ramp, he almost balked when he caught sight of the saddle again. It was ridiculous. Like a bar stool built into the back of a horse. It was even padded with red leather like a stupid stool.
He pushed his chair forward. What would they do? Strap him in as if he was some kind of felon?
Every inch he traveled, every second that passed, his wheels turned slower and slower until, at long last, he stopped at the base of the ramp, staring at the horse with mutiny in his heart.
“Are you sure you don’t want some help?” he heard the teenager ask. He bit back an immediate retort, words that he knew would be colored by irritation.
“No.”
The ramp didn’t concern him. It was getting on the horse. He’d be damned if he asked for any help, not with that woman watching his every move. Cabe had led the bay gelding between some parallel bars with a platform built up next to them, the bars holding the animal in place.
For special-needs people...like him.
The sickness returned, the same woozy feeling he’d gotten when he’d woken up in the hospital and tried to slip from the bed...only to find he couldn’t move his legs.
Anderson men don’t shy away from anything.
His chest expanded as he took increasingly deeper and deeper breaths. The ramp was grooved to allow for tire traction, and at such a gentle incline he doubted anyone would have issues. Still, he felt the muscles tighten in his arms, felt his breath begin to labor as he shoved his wheels forward. His heart pounded. His mouth had gone dry, too, but damned if he let that woman see how he struggled.
He made it to the top in seconds, expertly spinning his chair to face the horse and the ridiculous saddle. The deck was at the perfect level, the saddle sitting waist high. It should be a simple matter to pull up alongside the animal then lift himself on the horse’s back, just like he did getting into a chair.
Then why did it seem as if he were about to lift weights, his breath whistling past his lips, every muscle in his shoulders strung as tight as a guide wire?
Just lift and swing.
Onto a horse!
A terrified yell, that’s what the words sounded like in his skull, a litany of other words pounding between his ears.
You haven’t been on a horse since the accident. No horse is completely trustworthy. What if it moves? What if you fall?
This is a bad idea.
But he would not, under any circumstances, back away from the challenge his mother’s words had evoked. And so he rolled his chair as close to the saddle as he could, glancing at the bay gelding. The horse didn’t look one iota interested. In fact, it had its head down, its lower lip hanging...as if it were asleep.
See that, Trent, they put you on the old nag. A horse you wouldn’t be caught dead riding a year ago.
He trembled, yes, trembled in anger at the whole situation, at his life, at the fact he felt goaded into doing this, that he was even here, at this ranch, when all he wanted to do was be back home in Colorado. Still, he reached for the saddle, slowly testing his weight on the padded seat as he prepared to slip from his chair to the horse’s back.
The horse didn’t move.
Quickly, before he could think better of it, he shifted from his wheelchair to the saddle, sitting sideways for a moment before using his hands to lift his right leg and somehow managing to get it swung over the saddle’s horn, the limb, like his left leg, dropping like an anchor.
“Good job,” the girl cried.
He was on a horse, could actually feel the saddle beneath his butt. He tried clenching his thighs, but he only had marginal feeling in them. Still, it might be enough to hold on...if he clenched hard enough.
“Well done,” Cabe echoed.
On a horse for the first time in almost a year. On a horse that hadn’t moved an inch and that seemed to realize he was a damn useless human being. His breath hitched as he inhaled, his eyes suddenly burning hot.
Don’t you dare blubber.
He closed his eyes, waited a few breaths, then opened them again.
He wasn’t useless. He would find something to do. Anything had to be better than staring at four walls.
Feeling sorry for yourself.
When he opened his eyes again, Cabe was staring up at him, but another person was by his side. Alana stood there, too, and she was smiling, her own eyes rimmed with tears.
“Congratulations,” she said softly. “You’re back on.”
If she’d been hoping to lift his spirits, her words had the opposite effect. “I might be back on, but I still can’t ride.”
His words came out like a death ray, melting her pretty little smile.
“Not yet.” She glanced at Cabe. “Not yet.” She appeared to take a deep breath. “We usually walk on either side of our guests when they ride for the first time. Did you need us to do that?”
Like he was some kind of toddler on a pony ride? “No.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
Alana mounted her own horse less than ten minutes later, but you’d have thought they had just secured Trent Anderson to a medieval torture device, so loudly did he protest. The man still grumbled under his breath.
“Okay, let’s go,” Cabe said, swinging up onto his own horse.
“This is ridiculous,” she heard Trent say. “I can hold on. You didn’t need to strap me into this thing.”
She risked glancing in his direction, although she sensed if he caught her staring, he wouldn’t be pleased. The man seemed to have taken an instant dislike to her. Well, the feeling was mutual, never mind how good-looking