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A terrified yell, that’s what the words sounded like in his skull, a litany of other words pounding between his ears.
You haven’t been on a horse since the accident. No horse is completely trustworthy. What if it moves? What if you fall?
This is a bad idea.
But he would not, under any circumstances, back away from the challenge his mother’s words had evoked. And so he rolled his chair as close to the saddle as he could, glancing at the bay gelding. The horse didn’t look one iota interested. In fact, it had its head down, its lower lip hanging...as if it were asleep.
See that, Trent, they put you on the old nag. A horse you wouldn’t be caught dead riding a year ago.
He trembled, yes, trembled in anger at the whole situation, at his life, at the fact he felt goaded into doing this, that he was even here, at this ranch, when all he wanted to do was be back home in Colorado. Still, he reached for the saddle, slowly testing his weight on the padded seat as he prepared to slip from his chair to the horse’s back.
The horse didn’t move.
Quickly, before he could think better of it, he shifted from his wheelchair to the saddle, sitting sideways for a moment before using his hands to lift his right leg and somehow managing to get it swung over the saddle’s horn, the limb, like his left leg, dropping like an anchor.
“Good job,” the girl cried.
He was on a horse, could actually feel the saddle beneath his butt. He tried clenching his thighs, but he only had marginal feeling in them. Still, it might be enough to hold on...if he clenched hard enough.
“Well done,” Cabe echoed.
On a horse for the first time in almost a year. On a horse that hadn’t moved an inch and that seemed to realize he was a damn useless human being. His breath hitched as he inhaled, his eyes suddenly burning hot.
Don’t you dare blubber.
He closed his eyes, waited a few breaths, then opened them again.
He wasn’t useless. He would find something to do. Anything had to be better than staring at four walls.
Feeling sorry for yourself.
When he opened his eyes again, Cabe was staring up at him, but another person was by his side. Alana stood there, too, and she was smiling, her own eyes rimmed with tears.
“Congratulations,” she said softly. “You’re back on.”
If she’d been hoping to lift his spirits, her words had the opposite effect. “I might be back on, but I still can’t ride.”
His words came out like a death ray, melting her pretty little smile.
“Not yet.” She glanced at Cabe. “Not yet.” She appeared to take a deep breath. “We usually walk on either side of our guests when they ride for the first time. Did you need us to do that?”
Like he was some kind of toddler on a pony ride? “No.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
Alana mounted her own horse less than ten minutes later, but you’d have thought they had just secured Trent Anderson to a medieval torture device, so loudly did he protest. The man still grumbled under his breath.
“Okay, let’s go,” Cabe said, swinging up onto his own horse.
“This is ridiculous,” she heard Trent say. “I can hold on. You didn’t need to strap me into this thing.”
She risked glancing in his direction, although she sensed if he caught her staring, he wouldn’t be pleased. The man seemed to have taken an instant dislike to her. Well, the feeling was mutual, never mind how good-looking he was.
“It’s for your own safety,” Rana said. “Even though you might feel capable of balancing in the saddle, we can’t risk you falling off, especially since you don’t want us to spot you while you’re riding.” She grinned at him. “Try and use your leg to kick Baylor forward.”
“I’m a paraplegic,” Trent shouted right back. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
To give Rana credit, she didn’t let his words faze her. “You’re a partial paraplegic.”
Alana almost smiled. The girl sounded forty, not fourteen.
“Your horse responds to hip movement,” Rana added. “A portion of your thighs still work, so use them. Pretend you’re kicking. It’ll move your hips, which will cue Baylor forward.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Yes, it will. I know. I was once a paraplegic, too, a full paraplegic, so don’t tell me what you can and cannot do.”
Way to go, Rana, Alana thought. Don’t let him push you around. She shifted her gaze to Trent. The look on his face was priceless.
“You had a spinal injury?” he asked.
Cabe kicked his horse forward then. “Didn’t you know? That’s how we got into this gig.”
No, he hadn’t been told. Alana could see that. So what was the guy doing here? From what Cabe had told her, this was supposedly some kind of last resort, but he clearly didn’t want anything to do with therapy.
It was her turn to nudge her horse forward. “It’s time you rejoined the land of the living, Trent.” She met his gaze head on. “So either kick that horse forward, or get left behind.”
She gave Cabe and Rana a look, one that clearly said to follow her lead. They did.
“Hey,” she heard Trent call out.
Rana went so far as to kick her horse into a lope, Cabe following suit. Alana didn’t glance back.
“Hey!”
Keep riding, Alana.
“Don’t you dare leave me here.”
Reluctantly, she pulled on the reins, but only because she’d caught the edge of panic to his voice. But when she turned back, the man wasn’t even looking at her. Rage had him contorting atop that horse like a Jedi Knight trying to use the force. Alana almost laughed, although there was nothing funny about the situation.
“Use your hips,” she called out.
He could move them. Patients with an L2-S5 injury had movement through the pelvis. Some even had moderate to mild use of their limbs below the waist—like Trent. But the man acted as if he were a quadriplegic.
“Try pretending you’re scooting a chair forward.”
Miracle of miracles, the man finally listened, his hips thrusting so forcefully, it was a good thing they’d strapped him in. He’d have toppled forward otherwise.
The horse moved.
“There you go.”
He did it again. Baylor took another step. Alana turned her horse toward the pasture.
But when she caught up with everyone at the pasture gate, Alana turned back in time to watch Trent thrust his hips forward like he had a hula hoop around his legs and not a horse between them. Baylor ambled along, the animal’s head low to the ground, legs slowly moving in tune with Trent’s hips.
“Good thing we didn’t just rob a bank,” Alana quipped.
Cabe smiled at her. “You know, you were pretty hard on the man.”
She slouched in the saddle.
“That’s not like you.”
No. It wasn’t.
“Doesn’t have anything to do with how good-looking he is, does it?”
Alana glanced around quickly for Rana. She was out of hearing range, on the other side of the fence, holding open the gate for them all. “I’m not even going to answer that question.” She clucked her horse forward.
“I’ve heard the buckle bunnies talking,” Cabe said as he rode alongside her.
She had, too.
And that was exactly why she wanted no part of the man. He might be done with rodeo, but she had a feeling rodeo wouldn’t be done with him. Men in his position usually went to work for the Professional Rodeo Association in some capacity. He’d be on the road 24/7, not exactly boyfriend material. Besides, she would never leave Rana. Never. The girl had already lost enough people in her young life.
Boyfriend?
“I’m not interested in Trent Anderson,” she told Cabe. “So you can get that idea right out of your head.”
Cabe just shrugged. “If you say so.”
“I say so,” she firmly told him.
She just wished she believed her own words.
Chapter Five
Frustrated.
The word summed up how Trent felt two days later. The damn woman wouldn’t leave him alone. She kept strapping him onto a dang horse, insisting that he could use his hips better, clamp down with his thighs harder, use his lower leg to kick Baylor forward faster. He had rub marks on his calves and bruises on the insides of his thighs.
Today she agreed to take it easier on him, but only after he’d almost fallen out of his wheelchair after yesterday’s particularly grueling session. They would work on leg-strengthening today, she’d told him, and resume riding the next day.
He couldn’t wait.
A knock on the door sent his mood plummeting even more. “Enter.”
She swung the door wide, pretty blue eyes scanning the interior of his cabin as if worried he might be hiding from her. He wasn’t. He sat in his chair, which he’d positioned near the doorway of bedroom.
She smiled when she saw him. “Ready?”
Such a beautiful smile. Too bad she was a slave driver.
“Depends on what you have planned for me.”
The smile grew wider. “Actually, we’re going on a picnic.”
If she’d told him they were flying to Mars, she couldn’t have surprised him more. “A picnic is your idea of therapy?”
“Yup.” She motioned him forward. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
She turned and left him standing there, a habit of hers, he’d noticed. The woman waited for no one, least of all him.
“Just a sec.” He grabbed his cowboy hat off the peg by the door. He turned back to the front door in time to spot her scooping up a basket, a breeze throwing back the smell of fried chicken and...pie? Was that what he smelled?
His stomach grumbled.
“What is that?”
“Lunch.”
He hadn’t eaten all morning. Frankly, he’d been too exhausted to do much more than sleep.
“Can we eat here?”
She glanced back at him. “Nope. Where we’re going isn’t far.”
“Smells good,” he grumbled.
His chair picked up speed as he rolled toward her. She wore a red shirt this morning, one that emphasized a natural bloom on her cheeks. Her black hair had been left loose, and Trent had observed her enough times to know that she preferred it that way. She liked to flick it out of her face when she was determined to make him do something, which was pretty often, he admitted, his eye catching sight of her rear end, or more specifically, the crystal beads on her pockets. They caught the light and beamed out rainbow-colored prisms. Pretty jeans for a pretty woman.
Now, now. Just because she’s taking it easy on you today is no reason to have thoughts like that.
A blind man would notice how gorgeous she was. The woman might be a termagant, but she was a good-looking termagant. And even though he might despise her militant attitude, she knew exactly what to say to motivate him into action. He respected that.
“How many guests can you accommodate here?”
The words caused her to slow down, Trent finally able to stare at her profile. That was good. The view from the rear was entirely too distracting for his peace of mind.
“Eight families.” She glanced down at him and Trent found himself wondering if maybe he should have kept quiet. When she wasn’t giving him orders, he had a hard time focusing on her words because suddenly he was noticing how her eyes matched the color of the sky, and how the red shirt tucked into her jeans made her waist seem smaller.
“Most of the cabins sleep four people,” she added when he kept quiet. “Although two of them, the ones on the end—” she pointed to the last two cabins “—they’re bigger and can comfortably sleep six.”
He couldn’t care less, but if he were honest with himself, he could admit to feeling more relaxed. Between the light breeze on his face, the quiet gurgle of the river to his right and the pleasant tone of her voice, Trent found himself relaxing for the first time in ages.
“How long has this place been a guest ranch?”
