Page 50 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“Okay,” Grace wiped her face. “Okay. That horse hates me.”
“He don’t hate you. He’s just particular.”
“Particular. Sure.” She balled up the handkerchief and shoved it in her apron pocket. “Is thereanythin’on this ranch I can touch without it explodin’, flippin’ over, or sneezin’ in my face?”
“Come on.” Logan tilted his head to the far end of the stable. “There’s somebody I want you to meet.”
The last stall on the left sat apart from the others, wider by two feet, with a window cut into the back wall that let afternoon light pour across the straw. Logan unlatched the gate and swung it open, and the mare inside lifted her head from the hay net and blinked at them.
Penny.
A chestnut Morgan with a blaze running crooked down her nose and a disposition so calm she could sleep through a thunderstorm. Fifteen years old. Broad in the back, easy in the gait, and so gentle-mouthed she’d take a carrot from a baby’s hand without so much as a nick.
Ma’s horse.
The horse Ma had ridden every day for eight years, brushed every morning, and talked to every evening. The horse that’d stood in this stall since the day Ma died and nobody had ridden since, because riding Penny would’ve meant sitting where Ma had sat, and none of them could bring themselves to do it.
“This is Penny.” Logan stepped into the stall and ran his hand down the mare’s neck. “She belonged to Ma.”
Grace’s face changed. The set of her mouth softened, and she moved into the stall slowly, the way she moved around Miriam when the baby dozed, like the air itself might crack if she pushed through it too fast.
Penny swung her head to Grace and blew warm air through her nostrils. Grace held out one hand. Palm up. Fingers loose. The mare dropped her nose into Grace’s palm and lipped at it, searching for a treat, and then, when no treat appeared, just rested her muzzle there.
“Hey, girl.” Grace curled her fingers and scratched under Penny’s jaw. “You’re a sweet one, ain’t you?”
Penny leaned into the scratch and closed her eyes.
And the thing in his chest that he’d been trying real hard to file under nothing important for about three weeks now shifted again, and this time it had a name, and the name was the kind of word a man like Logan didn’t use lightly, so he just sat there with it and let it be true.
“She likes you.” He cleared his throat. “She don’t do that for everybody. Thomas tried to pet her last spring, and she turned her whole backside to him.”
“Can’t say I blame her.”
“I want you to have her.”
Grace’s hand stopped mid-scratch. “What?”
“Penny. She’s yours.”
“Logan, I can’t take your Ma’s horse.”
“You ain’t takin’ her. I’m givin’ her. There’s a difference.”
“She’s yourMa’s. That’s too much. I don’t even know how to ride.”
“I’ll teach you.”
Grace looked at the mare. Penny opened one eye and bumped her nose against Grace’s hand until the scratching resumed.
“She’s been standin’ in this stall for two years with nobody to ride her.” Logan leaned against the stall wall. “My Ma would’ve hated that. She’d have wanted Penny out on the trails, workin’, breathin’ fresh air. And she’d have wanted her with somebody who treats her right.”
Grace bit her lip. Then she pressed her forehead against Penny’s neck and stayed there for a few breaths, and the mare curved her head around and rested her chin on Grace’s shoulder.
“Alright.” Grace’s voice came out muffled against the horse’s coat. “But if I fall off and break somethin’, that’s on you.”
“You ain’t gonna fall off.”
“You don’t know that.”
