long have you had him?”
Again the cagey look. “Long enough to know he’s a good one.”
Honestly, he didn’t believe Jillian was some kind of horse whisperer, but he didn’t like the way the kid was responding to his questions, either. “Ever been bucked off him?”
If he’d looked uncomfortable before, he was positively sitting on tacks now. “No, sir.”
“Never?”
“Wellll, he can get a little high sometimes, but nothing someone with a good seat can’t handle.”
Wes had heard enough. “Okay, then. Thanks for showing him to me. I appreciate it.”
He turned away before he said something sarcastic. Cowboy fell into step beside him. Good Lord, the kid was a bad liar. He heard more than saw Jillian follow in his wake.
“Now, there’s a horse trader if ever I’ve seen one,” she said.
Horse trader. The scourge of the equine industry. People who picked up horses for cheap and tried to resell them, usually telling a whole boatload of lies along the way. He would bet if he looked at the horse’s registration papers, he’d see that the kid wasn’t even listed as owner. He stopped suddenly.
“Did you see him try to buck that kid off earlier?”
Jillian drew back, obviously offended. “No. I told you, I could tell something was off the moment I spotted him and so I dropped in on him last night.”
He looked away from her piercing green eyes, still not really convinced, but damned if he didn’t agree that something wasn’t right. Perhaps it’d been a lucky guess on her part.
“You believe me now, don’t you?”
He faced her squarely. “I believe you’re an astute horsewoman, one smart enough to check up on a prospect when nobody was around. And I believe you’re probably right. If he’s got issues in the stall, he probably has issues under saddle.”
“Thank you. I’m flattered.”
They stood in a place just outside the arena, in between the fenced enclosure and a long line of stalls. Horse heads bobbed up and down as they watched the activity directly across from them.
“I don’t know why you men are always such skeptics,” she added. “I get so tired of having to explain to your sex why I feel a certain way about a horse. For once it’d be nice to meet someone who says, ‘Oh, you have a gut feeling? I completely understand. Thanks for the tip.’”
A horse neighed in the distance. In the arena, one of the animals being ridden answered back. Typical sounds for an equine event except in the distance, off in the barns a ways away, one could hear the sounds of bulls calling to each other. Wes had planned to go look at them earlier, but then he’d spotted the kid riding the gelding...
He turned back to Jillian. She sure was cute, especially standing there, branches from a nearby tree sifting sunlight onto her hair and throwing dappled patterns on her shoulders.
“I see your point, and I’m glad you spoke up. I’m still interested in the horse, but I’ll be watching him more closely from here on out.”
“Suit yourself, but I’m telling you, you’ll be sorry if you end up buying him.” She bent and scratched Cowboy again.
“Duly noted.”
“Your dog knows I’m right, too.”
“Yeah?” Cowboy whined. When Wes looked down, he was chagrined to realize his dog sat at Jillian’s feet.
“Dogs have a sixth sense about other animals. They know when they’re bad. You ever watch a cattle dog run up to the rankest bull in the herd? They just know, and they step in to protect their master.”
“If you say so.”
“One more thing,” she said. “If you want your dog to stop chewing your boots, give him something else—like a pig ear or a cow bone. He’s never going to stop on his own.”
Wes jerked upright.
“What makes you think he likes to chew my boots?”
“Another gut feeling.”
He didn’t move for a second. Could she see the chew marks along the top? No, she couldn’t see them.
“Lucky guess.”
She must have realized she wasn’t going to get anywhere with him, because she nodded. “Just do me a favor. Stay away from that horse. He’s a bad one.”
“Duly noted.”
She turned away. He watched her for a moment before doing the same. Crazy. The whole thing was crazy.
“By the way,” he heard her call, “Cowboy strikes me as the type that likes to bury things, so if you’re missing a boot, check for fresh piles of dirt.”
He almost stumbled. She was looking over her shoulder, a wicked smile on her face. How did she know about that—?
She started walking backward, thumbs hooked in her jeans. “But that was probably just a lucky guess, too, huh?”
She turned away before he could respond, which was probably a good thing because she’d done something a woman hadn’t done to him in a long time.
She’d rendered him completely speechless.
Typical male, Jillian thought as she took her time walking back to the show arena. You had to slap them in the face with the truth before they believed you.
Story of her life.
If he had a hard time believing she had a sixth sense, then he’d really freak out when he discovered the truth. Still, he’d seemed nice, she thought as she reached the interior of the massive enclosed arena, the sound of Gene Robertson, this year’s clinician, droning on in the background. Oh, damn. She’d wanted to watch that. That was what she got for dillydallying outside.
“There you are,” said one of her closest friends, Natalie Goodman, a blonde spitfire who had every cowboy within twenty yards looking their way. Thanks to her trim figure, bright blue eyes and generous smile, men didn’t know what hit them when she looked in their direction.
“I was out talking to Wes Landon.” She took a seat on the aluminum bleachers that stretched along one side of the arena. Her backside instantly chilled. It was the end of January and if you weren’t out in the sunlight, you froze half to death.
“Landon, Landon,” Natalie was saying. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“Zach’s friend. The one who races horses, only he tells me he isn’t the one who breeds them or owns them. He just manages his mom’s farm.”
“That
