“Right,” she said.
“Drink your coffee,” he said.
Because now he just felt like an ass. It wasn’t her fault that he was being a horny jerk.
He wasn’t going to do anything. It was Elsie. So what if he noticed she was good to look at. A lot of women were. And he didn’t have any intentions on sleeping with them.
Elsie was... Elsie. And the thing was, he wasn’t all that comfortable thinking of her as a woman. Because he felt protective of her. That was the thing.
That was the thing.
They finished their coffees, then got into the truck, and neither of them said much on the way to the ranch.
Until they arrived.
“Oh wow,” Elsie said, sitting up straight and looking around the facility. It was pristine. Dark green buildings with bright white trim, perfectly manicured lawns. They parked outside the main barn, and were met by the primary caretaker of the place. And he took them to the paddock where the five horses they were interested in were housed.
They got a quick rundown of where everything was and were essentially left on their own.
And one thing he couldn’t get over was Elsie’s absolute delight over being around horses. Always.
But he related to her on that level. Horses, in his experience, were better than people. And he knew that she agreed.
That was one of those things. If they were under your skin, they were under your skin. If you understood them, then that was it. They understood you.
There was an old Appaloosa that Elsie fed a sugar cube to, and then let out of the stall.
“You want to go for a ride?”
And he found that he did, even though he did it every day.
“Sure.” He led one of the other horses out of the stall, and they tacked up, looking at a map that was posted at the end of the barn, deciding where they wanted to go.
The horses were as docile as expected, and there was no real attention to be paid to anything.
“Well, it would be easy to start with horses like these. Entirely broken completely ready for what we’re after,” he said.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s amazing how big this place is. Just totally different than... I mean, obviously Four Corners is huge. But so much of that is for cattle.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Do you remember that you’re the first person that ever put me on a horse?”
He stiffened. “No. I don’t.”
“I do,” she said softly. “I was, I dunno, four maybe? My grandma was still alive, and it freaked her out.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “I do remember that. She was hollering at me because I put you on a horse that was way too big for you, and I was fourteen, and an idiot, and had no business being put in charge of a kid. That was the real issue,” he said.
“We didn’t always fight,” she said. “That was the best day of my life. And I thought that you were my hero.”
“Your grandma definitely disagreed,” he said. Now he remembered. He remembered that he got a tongue-lashing to the end of days.
“She said, ‘Hunter McCloud, if you injure one hair on my granddaughter...’”
“Yeah, and she didn’t have to finish the rest, because I knew. I knew that I was going to meet Jesus a whole lot sooner than I anticipated.”
“That definitely sounds like her.”
June had been the best and softest adult influence in his life growing up.
She might’ve been hard sometimes—especially when it came to Elsie—but she had cared for Hunter like he was one of her own grandkids.
“I knew that I loved horses that day,” she said. “More than anything. I dunno, I guess it felt like fate. It always has. Sometimes I was just so lonely, and I would go out to the stables and...smell them? And there’s always been something about the way they smell that made me feel better. That made me feel different.”
“When did you feel lonely, Elsie?” He couldn’t help himself. He wanted to ask the question. Because she had her brothers, and she had Alaina.
“Sometimes I just missed my mom,” she said. “And I don’t even remember her. So that’s about the silliest thing that I can even think of, but I did. I missed her. And there was nothing really that I could ever do about it, and nothing I could say.
“Poor Wolf and Sawyer, they remembered their mothers. They really missed them, not just a feeling they thought they ought to have. That’s all I could ever miss. This idea of something that I never even had an experience of.”
“Look,” he said. “You miss your mom whether you knew her or not. Because we all know we’re supposed to have one.” He never wasted time missing his, though. She had to leave. She had to. And it never would’ve worked to...
“Your mom left before I was born. I only ever knew any of you after. And your dad...after.”
He looked at Elsie, and his chest was a tangle of things he couldn’t sort out. He wondered what she’d seen. What she knew about his home life, not because she’d been told, but because she’d seen it.
The idea that she’d been touched by any of it...
Shit, it knocked the wind out of him.
He wanted to protect her. And that was the damned silliest thing. It was all in the past and he couldn’t protect her from it any more than he could go back and protect his brothers.
“Yeah. I’m sorry you were ever exposed to my dad.”
“I wasn’t much. Sawyer didn’t want me around him. But sometimes it was either that or be with mine by myself.”
“Did you ever...”
“I never saw anything,” she said.
The relief he felt was...
“I didn’t want you to... Hell, I’d feel terrible if you ever saw him being violent.”
“You were the one who got hit,” she said.
“Yeah, but that’s just how it was. You weren’t part of it and I’d have never wanted you to see.” To see him get hit. To see him in a weak moment.
“I didn’t,” she whispered. “So many of my memories are good. Because of Sawyer and Wolf and...and you.”
He and Elsie had lived their childhoods pretty much together. But he hadn’t remembered when he’d put her on the horse until she’d mentioned it.
He’d been hiding away from his father, hanging out at Garrett’s Watch, like he often did in those situations. But he remembered Elsie had wanted to ride a horse so badly. And he had thought then...honestly what he thought now. That she’d find a way if he didn’t help. And she would likely get herself in trouble.