round pen was its own universe, a place out of time.
She straightened her shoulders, an almost imperceptible movement, and took on the leader’s role in her mind. The horse reacted instantly, arching his neck and backing one step away. He stood stock-still, poised between submission and flight.
He chose flight. Good horses always did.
Sarah heeded him around the ring, keeping just behind his flank, urging him into a lope with nothing but her own intent and the subtleties of body position. He moved beautifully, his mane and tail sailing behind him as his hooves ate up the ground.
Anyone watching would have said they were just a woman standing still and a horse running, but there was so much more going on beneath the surface. They were testing each other, deciding who would lead and who would follow. She could feel the horse considering his options, and finally he slowed almost imperceptibly. The circle grew smaller as he bowed his body and eased into a trot, bobbing his head down once in a while and working his mouth.
He was getting tired of running. He was asking to stop.
But it wasn’t time yet. She stiffened slightly and took a step backward. Breaking into a lope again, the horse kept one eye on her, watching for permission to slow. She stepped left, and like a dance partner he caught the cue and dropped into a trot, neck arched and tail high. He was flirting with her, trying to charm her into giving way.
Not gonna happen, buddy, she thought. Not yet.
She took another step and he dropped his head and smoothed out his gait. She remembered riding in the round ring while Roy stood in the center offering advice.
Move your right leg back. He’s not flexing.
Get back on your seat-bones, girl—you’re not a jockey.
Relax. Stop thinking so hard. Let it be.
She so wished he could share this moment, see this horse. She wished she could finish this training session and sit in the barn with him afterward, dissecting every move she’d made, talking technique, figuring out what worked for the horse, what worked for her. Roy had trained her like he’d trained the horses, with deep understanding and an almost eerie sense of what she was thinking.
God, she missed him. She blinked away tears, realizing she’d lost her concentration. To work with horses you had to be present, a conscious participant in the process. She’d broken that rule and the horse had stopped. She swiped at her cheeks, chiding herself for losing focus, but when he stepped up and pushed at her with his nose the tears started again.
The horse shoved the length of his muzzle against her arm and she rested her head on his neck, feeling a rare, easy kinship with the animal. She’d never been able to bond with Flash like this. Never. He’d always held a piece of himself apart. Now he was giving his whole heart.
She buried her face in his mane, breathing in the sweet scent of him and struggling to smother her tears. He stood patiently, letting her recover, easing her turmoil with his own level calm.
Stepping back, she sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. She didn’t know where Lane had gone, but she was glad he hadn’t witnessed her emotional breakdown. And she was glad she’d had a chance to be alone with this horse—whoever he was.
Because she knew it couldn’t be Flash—he was too young. Flash had to be his sire, so whoever had bought him had bred him.
“Where did you come from, baby?” she murmured to the horse. “And what happened to your daddy?”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
***
Lane stood a few feet from the gate, watching Sarah perform the intricate dance of teaching a horse to be tame.
Much as Lane loved rodeo, bronc bucking was a sad reminder of the old way of training horses—the fast, brutal method of riding an animal to a standstill. In the real world, a horse that had been bucked out gave up, and then he wasn’t a whole horse anymore. He’d be your servant, but he’d never be your partner.
The new methods were respectful but not soft. There was no doubt who was the leader and who had to follow, but neither horse nor rider was diminished by the process if you did it right.
And Sarah did it right.
He’d been worried the sight of Cinnamon Chrome would freak her out. There was no way anyone who’d ever seen Flash wouldn’t know this