Grumpy Cowboy (Single Dad Collection)

Cautiously, she puts a foot in the stirrup and lifts her body up onto the saddle as instructed. She’s nervous, though, I can tell by the pink of her cheeks and the shake in her arms.

Even though I’ve made it within hearing distance, I suddenly have the desire to step even closer—to provide comfort—but given the fact that she doesn’t know I’m here watching, it doesn’t seem like the most viable of options.

Instead of kicking her leg over Saunders’s back and mounting all the way, she leans her body into the saddle and freezes, clutching at Saunders’s mane and the cantle of the saddle. She might as well be Elsa for how well she’s doing an impression of ice.

Obviously, a dad can’t watch Frozen six hundred fucking times without knowing who Elsa is.

“What’s a’matter?” Joey asks from her place holding the lead line. “You stuck ’er somethin’?”

“No. Well, yes. Frozen in terror, I suppose,” Leah mutters to the crowd and my perplexed daughter. Rodney steps forward then, a smile on his face and eagerness in his bounce.

Reaching up, he places a hand to the back of her left thigh and squeezes, and my chest locks up so damn tight I can barely breathe. I’m not entirely sure why, but the urge to intervene is suddenly damn potent.

“Go on, Miss Leah,” Rodney says congenially. “Saunders isn’t goin’ anywhere, and I’ll hold you steady from here. Just swing your right leg up and over.”

Leah’s head shakes back and forth rapidly. “I, um… No. I don’t think I can. I need to get down.”

Rodney chuckles good-naturedly and squeezes her thigh again, and before I know it, I’m standing next to him, gently pulling him out of the way.

“Hey there, Rhett,” Rodney says, clearly surprised, and Leah’s head whips around at the sound of my name, her dark hair flying up and out like a dramatic fan.

I want to be angry that I’m suddenly doing things outside the bounds of my normal control—making moves without any thought or restraint—but unfortunately, the real fear in her eyes is enough to calm any would-be embers on the inside of me.

“It’s all right, darlin’,” I find myself saying with a gentleness I normally reserve for kids. “Saunders here is like an old grandma. Sweet as pie and gentle as hell. He won’t hurt you, no matter what you do.”

She shakes her head again, and I smile. “Just swing your leg on up there. It’ll feel better once you’re settled in the seat and you’ve got both feet in the stirrups.”

“But that’ll mean I’ll be on him.”

Rodney and I both chuckle, and I try to ignore the overwhelming urge to tell him to get the hell out of here. The source of my inconvenient jealousy or not, he’s just doing his job.

“That’s kind of the point, Leah.”

“I just…I don’t know that horses are for me, you know? Certain people are horse people, and then other people are definitely, like, hamster people. I think I’m a hamster person, personally.”

I shake my head with a smile at how funny she is.

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. Hell, Joey’s not gonna let anything happen to ya either. You’re surrounded by horse people, darlin’, and if you just relax, I think you could be one too.”

Finally, Leah takes a deep breath and loosens her clinging hands. I reach up and put my hand where Rodney’s once was, and terrifyingly, I do not feel anger. I don’t feel frustration. I don’t even feel apathy. I feel—too damn much of an emotion I’m completely unwilling to name.

Carefully, I pull my hand back and put it to Saunders’s neck to give him a rub and a pat instead. I swear the look he gives me out of the corner of his eye is a knowing one. Horse sense is a thing, but I never knew it applied to this.

Shaking visibly, Leah finally kicks her right leg up enough to crest the saddle, and she lays over into the horn, clasping it with both hands for dear life.

I chew my lip and tip my hat to hide my face as amusement washes over me.

“I can’t believe you’ve been here almost an entire month without gettin’ up on a horse before. How the hell did you manage that?” I comment, looking up at her in the saddle.

“With careful avoidance,” she responds cheekily, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Are you gonna ride with us, Daddy?” Joey asks, the hope in her voice nearly enough to kill any mortal man. But I know I don’t have time, and frankly, if Leah has anything to say about it, I don’t really have permission either.

“I wish I could, baby girl. But I gotta go over to the exhibition arena and help make sure everything’s going okay. Tiny’s probably in the middle of a panic attack as we speak.”