meet the Galloping Girlz. Trick riders. They’ll be performing with me out on the road.”
Trick riders. Ah. They had the look of performers. Pretty. Skinny. Self-confident. She estimated most of them to be younger than she was, although one of them, a brunette, seemed about her age. Inside the barn it was dark, the only light coming from the massive front entrance, but when that brunette narrowed her gaze, her lashes following the lowered sweep of her eyes, it wasn’t too dim for Natalie to spot the curiosity spilling from their blue depths.
“Samantha here is their leader.”
“Hi.” The woman charged toward Natalie and clasped her hand in her grip like a cowgirl wrangling a heifer. “Call me Sam.” She pointed a thumb in Colt’s direction. “Colt’s the only one allowed to call me Samantha.”
Natalie would have to be deaf not to hear the possessiveness in the woman’s voice. She had long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, the strands around her head held back by a crystal-studded headband that caught the light and sparkled in a way that matched the rhinestones on the front of her shirt. The woman was pretty, for all that she seemed to have the wrong idea about Natalie and Colt.
“We were actually just talking about you,” Colt offered.
When Natalie caught Colt’s gaze she still couldn’t tell what ideas ran through his head. He didn’t seem happy to see her. Then again, he didn’t seem upset, either.
“Uh oh.” She shot Samantha a smile meant to project: Friendly! Nice! Not interested in Colt! “I hope that’s a good thing.”
“Sam’s been trying something new.” Natalie watched to see if Colt reciprocated Sam’s feelings, but the man was good at hiding his thoughts. “She wants to jump through a flaming hoop, but she’s having trouble.” Natalie couldn’t be certain, but she thought that might be amusement she saw in Colt’s eyes. “I told her she’d be lucky if she didn’t set herself on fire.”
“Colt.” Sam made a big show of punching him in the shoulder before turning back to Natalie. “Colt tells me you used to be some big, famous jumping person.”
Internationally famous. Ranked first in the world. Everyone had said 2016 would have been her year, the year she’d represent the United States in the games. And then the accident.
“I did okay.”
There were times when disappointment and sorrow came out of nowhere and smacked her in the face. This was one of those moments, though she tried to hide it. When she met Colt’s gaze, his amusement faded.
“We were hoping you could help.” He gave her a small smile, one meant to tell her without words that he understood.
She took a deep breath, got hold of her emotions, and pulled her shoulders back. “Well it’s a good thing I showed up here then, isn’t it?”
“So you’ll do it?” Sam asked.
“Of course.”
“Wait, wait.” Colt held up his hands. “I told Sam she had to give you something in return.”
Sam’s whole face lit up with excitement. “I’m going to teach you to trick ride.”
He thought she’d be thrilled. Working with the Galloping Girlz would be an excellent way for Natalie to build upper body strength, not to mention recover her center of gravity.
Natalie didn’t seem thrilled. She seemed terrified.
“Oh, wow.”
But the subtext of her words clearly indicated she’d rather jump out of an airplane—without a parachute.
“We can talk about it later.” He motioned to the Galloping Girlz. “I think Sam would appreciate some help with Roger today.
“I would. He keeps stopping and I don’t know why.”
“Why don’t you unload your horses?” Colt eyed the girls. “I can talk to Natalie about my idea alone.”
“Sure,” Sam said, corralling her teammates, but not before shooting Colt one last smile, a grin that slid off the edge of her face when her eyes fell on Natalie. Colt made a mental note to set the record straight with Sam even though he’d told her half a dozen times already—he wasn’t interested in dating anybody.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your plans for the day,” Natalie ventured.
For some reason Colt had a hard time meeting Natalie’s eyes. Now that he thought about it, he’d had trouble with that since the moment he’d first met her. Something about her pretty blue gaze made him uncomfortable.
“No. It’s okay. I should have called you before now anyway.”
“But you weren’t going to, were you?”
He prided himself on being honest in most situations, but he wouldn’t be human if he didn’t get a little hot under the collar thanks to the guilt her words evoked. “Tell you the truth, I wasn’t. Well, I was. I was going to call to tell you to find someone else.”
She seemed surprised by his frankness, her long lashes parting a bit before swooping down to shield those amazing blue eyes from his stare. “But now you want me to work with Sam. What changed your mind?”
“You showed up at my front gate.” He shook his head. “And that tells me you’re stubborn, and that you probably wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“I wouldn’t have.”
“But you’re scared.”
That caught her off guard. “What makes you say that?”
“The look on your face when Sam volunteered to teach you trick riding.”
“I told you my equilibrium is all messed up.”
It wasn’t just that. He could tell that she was holding something back. “Are you afraid of falling off?”
Her blue eyes suddenly grew two inches wide.
“You are, aren’t you?”
She pulled her gaze away once again, as if sensing he could read the thoughts in them. “Well, I should be a little cautious, don’t you think? I mean, I’m basically learning how to ride all over again.”
Cautious, yes. Terrified, no.
But he had some experience with how she felt. He’d taken a nasty tumble off a bronc once. Took him nearly a year to get back into the groove of things. And then even more recently, when he’d been caught in a fire fight near the border of Benghazi, it’d taken months before he could head out to patrol without getting the shakes. The thing with the military, though, was that you didn’t have a choice. He might never have gotten over his fear if he’d been allowed to slink away.
“They
