none of them lasted a week. You’re the horse’s last chance. You can’t fix him, he’ll have to be put down.”
This had to be why Richard hadn’t gone into specifics over email. He was afraid he’d scare Jo off. “Who’d you hire?”
The older man dug the tip of his boot into the grass. “Lansing, Hoffmire and Callet.”
Jo snorted. Lansing was a fraud. Hoffmire was a former farm manager, respected in horse circles. Callet was old-school—and an asshole. He’d tracked her down once to tell her to stay the hell away from his clientele.
She would take particular joy in saving a horse he couldn’t.
Moving slowly, she walked to the paddock gate, Betty trotting to keep up. She unhooked the latch on the gate and let it swing open about a foot and a half.
Sun stopped and watched her. Then he really began to pitch a fit. His legs flailed as he bucked and reared and slammed his hooves into the ground so hard she felt the shock waves through the dirt. Hours of this, Jo thought. And no one knows why.
She patted her leg, which was the signal for Betty to stay close. Then Jo stepped into the paddock.
“Miss—” Richard called out, terror in his voice when he realized what she was doing. “Logan, get the tranq gun!”
“Quiet, please.” It came out gentle because she was doing her best to project calm.
She heard footsteps—probably Logan and the other hands, ready to ride to her rescue. She held up a hand, motioning them to stop, and then closed the gate behind her and Betty.
The horse went absolutely wild. It hurt to see an animal so lost in its own hell that there didn’t seem to be any way out.
She knew the feeling. It was a hard thing to see, harder to remember the years she’d lost to her own hell.
She’d found her way out. She’d hit bottom so hard it’d almost killed her but through the grace of God, Granny and Itty Bitty Betty, she’d fought her way back out.
She’d made it her life’s work to help animals do the same. Even lost causes like Sun could be saved—not fixed, because there was no erasing the damage that had already been done. Scars were forever. But moving forward meant accepting the scars. It was that simple. She’d accepted hers.
Jo could stand here for hours listening to the world move, if that was what it took.
It didn’t. After what was probably close to forty-five minutes, Sun stopped his frantic pacing. First, he stopped kicking, then he slowed from a run to a trot, then to a walk. Finally, he stood in the middle of the paddock, sides heaving and head down. For the first time, the horse was still.
She could almost hear him say, I give up.
It was a low place to be, when living hurt that much.
She understood. She couldn’t fix this horse. No one could. But she could save him.
She patted her leg again and turned to walk out of the paddock. A group of seven men stood watching the show Sun had put on for her. Richard had a tranq gun in the hand he was resting on a bar of the paddock.
They were silent. No one shouted about her safety as she turned her back on Sun, no one talked about how the horse must be possessed. They watched her walk to the gate, open it, walk out, and shut it as if they were witnessing a miracle.
“I’ll take the job.”
Relief so intense it almost knocked her back a step broke over the ranch manager’s face. The hired hands all grinned, obviously thankful that Sun was someone else’s problem now.
“Provided,” she went on, “my conditions are met.”
Richard tried to look stern, but he didn’t quite make it. “Yeah?”
“I need an on-site hookup for my trailer. That way, if Sun has a problem in the middle of the night, I’m here to deal with it.”
“We’ve got the electric. I’ll have Jerry rig up something for the sewer.”
“Second, no one else deals with Sun. I feed him, I groom him, I move him. The rest of you stay clear.”
“Done,” Richard agreed without hesitation. The hands all nodded.
So far, so good. “We do this my way or we don’t do it at all. No second-guessing from you, the hired hands or the owners. I won’t rush the horse and I expect the same treatment. And I expect to be left alone. I don’t date or hook up. Clear?”
She hated having to throw that out there because she knew it made her sound as if she thought men would be fighting over her. But she’d done enough harm by hooking up before. Even if she was sober this time, she couldn’t risk another life.
Plus, she was a single woman, traveling alone in a trailer with a bed. Some men thought that was enough. Things worked better if everything was cut-and-dried up front.
Richard looked around at his crew. Some were blushing, a few looked bummed—but most of them were just happy that they wouldn’t have to deal with Sun anymore.
Then Richard looked across the fields. A long, black limousine was heading toward them.
“Damn,” one of the hands said, “the boss.”
Everyone but Jo and Richard made themselves scarce. Sun found his second wind and began a full-fledged fit.
“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” Jo asked Richard, who was busy dusting off his jeans and straightening his shirt.
“Shouldn’t be.” He did not sound convincing. “Mr. Beaumont wants the best for Sun.”
The but on the end of that statement was as loud as if Richard had actually said the word. But Phillip Beaumont was a known womanizer who made headlines around the world for his conquests.
Richard turned his attention back to her. “You’re hired. I’ll do my level-best to make sure that Mr. Beaumont stays clear of you.”
In other words, Richard had absolutely no control of the situation. A fact that became more apparent as the limo got closer. The older man stood at attention as the vehicle rolled to a stop in front of the barn.
Phillip Beaumont didn’t scare her. Or intimidate her. She’d dealt with handsome, entitled men before and none of them had ever tempted her to fall back into her old ways. None of them made her forget the scars. This wouldn’t be any different. She was just here for the job.
The limo door opened. A bare, female leg emerged from the limo at the same time as giggling filled the air. Behind her, Jo heard Sun kick it up a notch.
The first leg was followed by a second. Jo wasn’t that surprised when a second set of female legs followed the first. By that time, the first woman had stepped clear of the limo’s door and Jo could see that, while she was wearing clothing, the dress consisted of little more than a bikini’s worth of black sequined material. The second woman stood up and pulled the red velvet material of her skirt down around her
