Taboo: A Dark Romance Boxset (Stud Ranch 1)

I straighten up and let go of Sugar. Whoa. How did I just let myself get so totally absorbed in her? And how long has Xavier been staring at me like that?

I swallow and give Sugar one last pat. “She’s amazing. A real sweetheart. What’s her story?”

“She’s a mustang like Samson. BLM rounded her up from the wild and I adopted her about a year and a half ago.”

“What?” I exclaim as she lands an especially sloppy lick all the way up my cheek. She was a wild horse? As recently as a couple years ago? I wipe my cheek and look at Xavier to see if he’s messing with me. But he looks completely serious as he steps up and pets her muzzle.

“Did they,” I wave a hand, “tame her or something before you adopted her?”

He actually gives a half roll of his eyes—my statement is apparently that ludicrous. “I’m the only one I’d trust to train any horse on this property. Besides, that’s not what the BLM does. No, she came here just as wild as Samson.” He nods in the direction of the stable and the front pasture beyond it.

Then he looks back at her and his face softens like it did earlier when he was with Lulu. “She just needed someone to show her she didn’t have to be afraid anymore. She was always a sweet girl underneath.” He runs a hand up her long nose, his voice gentling. so that I’m not sure if he’s talking to me anymore, or the horse. “She had to learn how to trust. It took a while for me to break through, didn’t it, girl? But we got there in the end.”

He bows his forehead to her nose like he did with Lulu, doing that strange communing thing where both animal and man are still and quiet for a long moment.

When he speaks again, his voice is still just above a whisper. “But once I did, it was the most beautiful thing. You’re my beautiful girl, aren’t you, sweet Sugar?” Then his voice drops and he starts whispering things to her that I can’t hear at all. She nuzzles into him and makes little delighted horsey noises.

I swallow hard, uncomfortable all of the sudden. Does he look at me the same way he did when he first got Sugar? As another animal he just has to train?

Finally, he steps back. “All right, now that you’ve met everybody, let’s get started on the day’s work. Lulu and Pioneer still need to be let out for the day. Then I want to get started with Samson.”

Samson. The wild one. “You mean training him? So you just start straight off?”

He nods as we start walking back to the barn. I guess it’s obvious, but I don’t know. I thought maybe he’d leave the stallion alone for a day and let him just get used to the paddock.

You know, kind of how he did for me.

I cringe a little at the thought. God. I am not a freaking horse! Thankfully there’s not much time to think about it anymore because we’re soon back in the stable.

Xavier keeps encouraging me to interact with the animals. Pioneer allows me to approach him and touch his shoulder. Hesitantly, I rub down his left side to his flank. He steps and licks his lips and Xavier reminds me to breathe.

Yeah, I try that, but I’m relieved when Xavier takes the huge gelding’s lead and guides him out into the center of three paddocks that branch off from the stable. Except for the fact that Xavier’s also got my lead line in his hand, so, you know, again I get that feeling that I’m just another of the horses he’s letting out of the stable for the day. Because that’s not degrading or anything.

When he goes in to work with Samson, he ties me to a fence post.

“Stay,” he says unnecessarily after looping the rope around the post. He ignores my furious huff and pulls a baseball cap out of his back pocket, which he settles on my head. I guess so I don’t get too much sun? It’s always such a weird mix of caretaking and humiliation with this guy, I don’t know how to make heads or tails of him.

That goes double for the ‘training’ he spends the afternoon doing with Samson. I was expecting to at least get a little spectacle out of the whole thing. You know, like getting to see a real live cowboy break a horse. Isn’t that what they call it? Sounds a bit barbaric, but hey, I didn’t make up the term.

Instead, the afternoon just goes on and on and on endlessly. And all Xavier does is walk up to Samson. Samson starts stamping his feet and backing away and then Xavier walks back. Sometimes Xavier will snort and throw his head around like a horse. He walks back and forth in a manner a little reminiscent of Samson himself.