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“I’ll do it.”
An hour later she brought the John Deere Mule—an ATV-like vehicle with a miniature truck cabin and bed—to a coasting stop in front of Trent’s temporary home, the tires crunching on the drive. There was no reason to have butterflies in her stomach, she told herself. He might be a rodeo legend, but his injuries were all the proof she should need that he was also just a man.
“Knock, knock,” she said, rapping lightly on the door.
Of course, there was always the chance he wasn’t up yet. She’d no sooner had the thought than she caught a whiff of maple-cured bacon, the sweet smell making her stomach growl. They’d had oatmeal for breakfast. Boring.
“Hello?”
Would he ignore her? She had to admit, it was totally possible. He might choose to stay in his cabin the whole—
The door opened.
Good Lord, he wasn’t dressed.
Her mouth dropped open next.
“Yes?”
Keep your eyes up.
But it was hard when he had an upper body that would rival an action figure—six rippling, symmetrical bulges that decreased in size the lower her gaze drifted, and it drifted lower. His skin was a soft gold in color—and damn it, her eyes kept traveling lower and lower despite her best efforts, her cheeks turning molten when she spotted the tiny wisps of brown hair that seemed to point toward—
“I, um...”
Pull it together, Alana.
His gray eyes. Focus on those. “I was, um, asked to check on you.”
Not check him out, Alana!
“I’m fine.”
Yes, you certainly are.
She coughed, sputtered, tried gasping in a breath. What was with her? She was acting like a sex-starved adolescent.
Yes, and when, exactly, was the last time you had sex?
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she wheezed, her mind mentally scooting away from the question. “Did you need anything?”
Coffee? Tea? Me?
She almost—almost—laughed.
“I’ve been able to take care of myself for months.”
“I see.”
He stared up at her. She stared down at him. He smirked.
She snapped, “Cabe wants us all to go on a ride today.”
His turn to be caught off guard. “Excuse me?”
“Cabe. He said—”
“I heard you, but I won’t be going.” He jerked his hands on his wheels, rolling back like a race car driver. His hand found the door.
“Whoa, there, ace.” She shoved her foot in so fast, she bit back a gasp of pain when it slammed into her. “That wasn’t a request.”
If a look could incinerate a person, she should have been a puff of smoke. Or maybe a black smudge on the ground.
“I’m in no condition to ride.”
She smiled brightly. “Someone will be down to pick you up at ten in the morning.” She gave him her sweetest I-don’t-care-what-you-think smile. “I’ll see you then.”
* * *
TWO HOURS LATER they were all standing outside the barn. Alana had just finished saddling up her horse, and she played with the dark bay’s forelock. Cabe was to her left, saddling up one of two horses—a bay and a gray—that he had tied to the hitching post to the right of the barn. Opposite the hitching post stood what looked like parallel bars, a deck built next to them and a handicap ramp that led to the top. They’d have to use that if Trent actually agreed to Cabe’s crazy idea. Not that he would agree. Too bad, too, because it really might be good for him.
She soothed her horse’s forelock down.
You’re fussing.
No, she wasn’t.
Nerves.
It wasn’t that, she firmly told herself. Trent Anderson didn’t make her nervous.
Yeah, right.
“Go on down and get him,” Cabe said as he tightened the cinch on a big bay-colored horse wearing a saddle that looked like a cross between a barber’s chair and a car seat. A specialty saddle, it was called. This one had a seat back that was shoulder high and a wide leather strap where a man’s waist would be. “I’ll be done here in a sec.”
The animal pinned its ears and wrinkled its nose in protest when Cabe tugged on the leather strap. “Uh-uh,” he warned. “Enough of that. Only one cranky male allowed on the ranch.”
And that would be Trent.
“You want me to go get him?” The last thing she wanted was to deal with Trent Anderson. “Rana should do it.” She glanced past the rump of her horse.
Rana, who was busy feeding a carrot to Ellie, turned sharply when she heard the words. She’d been the first one to finish saddling up her sorrel mare. “I don’t think so.”
She’d been kidding...sort of. After yesterday’s disastrous first meeting, she wasn’t about to send the teenager to deal with the surly cowboy.
“I don’t blame you,” Alana grumbled.
“I’m sending you because you’re a good-looking woman he won’t say no to.” Cabe gave her a wicked grin, one meant to tease the irritation off her face. It didn’t work.
“I think we should all ride the horses down together. You know, shame the jerk into doing it. We can lead Baylor down there with us.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Alana groaned. She knew who stood in the barn aisle to her right, didn’t need to glance behind her to verify it. So she didn’t. The damn man must have found the hiking path they’d constructed for people in wheelchairs, the same path he could have taken yesterday—if he’d been civil.
She pushed away from the hitching post, checked her horse’s girth, pasted a huge smile on her face, then turned and said, “Glad to see you found the trail.” Not that it would have been hard to spot. There were signs pointing to it all over the ranch.
He ignored her comment. “I came up here to tell you I’m not going.”
Big surprise.
“You are going,” she said, “even if I have to be the one to hoist you up on your horse.”
She moved around the rear of Radical, her own dark bay mount, meeting the man’s gaze for the first time.
He was livid.
And just as handsome as he had been this morning, darn it all to hell, but at least he’d put his dang shirt on. Still, the white button-down did little to conceal his muscular frame. She’d been hoping the butterflies in her stomach had been a reaction to seeing a half-naked man...since she hadn’t seen a half-naked male in, well, a long time. But, no. That wasn’t it at all because, as she stared into those silver-gray eyes beneath the off-white cowboy hat, she became acutely aware of how gangly she’d always felt, and of how dowdy she must look with her hair all loose, her light blue shirt tucked into the waist of her jeans and stall dust all over her face. She fidgeted with her horse’s forelock again.
Stop it.
“The only way you’ll get me up on that horse is if you knock me senseless.”
“That can be arranged,” she muttered.
Cabe stepped in between them. “Trent, your mom told me to tell you to do as you’re told.”
Trent tipped his head back, glaring from beneath the brim of his hat. “I’m not ten years old.”
“No, but I was told to tell you Anderson men don’t shy away from anything. And that if your dad were alive, he’d be ashamed of your lack of ‘try.’”
Alana turned in time to watch the words change the landscape of Trent’s face. His eyes narrowed. His mouth pinched together. His cheeks filled with color. Brows that matched his dark blond hair came together in a frown. He hooked her with his gaze, the depth of his emotions bringing back memories of her own horrible loss, and Cabe’s and Rana’s, too.
“Fine.”
No, a little voice told her. It would never be fine. Not for him. Nothing would ever be the same again—and she knew exactly how that felt. A surge of sympathy rolled through her.
But it was more than that.
It would never be fine between the two of them, either, because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop the attraction that tickled her insides.
And that worried her most of all.
Chapter Four
He wanted to kill his mother.
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!
