Free Knifepoint by Alex Van Tol Page B

aren’t my thing. It’s hard enough for me to hang on to my own damn horse, let alone look after someone else’s.
    But I don’t say any of this. Maybe this guy will be able to handle himself.
    Being a wrangler and all.
    â€œRides start at nine o’clock.” I glance at him. “You might as well go in and have breakfast while you wait.”
    With that, I turn back to the work of catching horses. And I hope to hell that he can’t hear my heart as it tries to pound its way through my chest.

Chapter Two
    I work like a fiend. By a quarter to nine I’ve got ten horses fed, brushed and saddled. I stand in the middle of the barn, wiping my brow with my sleeve. It’s going to be a hot day.
    The horses rustle and munch their way through the hay I’ve forked up into their feed baskets. I’m even more tired than I was when I first woke up. My throat is dry and my stomach is rumbling. But I don’t have time to eat. Not yet, anyway.
    I unscrew the cap on my water bottle and take a long drink. I cast a quick glance toward the bunkhouse, hoping that Carrie and Laura are on their way over. Please, please let someone show up before this adventure ride goes out. As cute as Mr. Bar G is, I still don’t feel like racing across ridgetops with him.
    God, I feel like such a chicken sometimes. I hate it. I wish I could be as comfortable and brave on a horse as Carrie is. She’s just totally dialed in to what it means to ride. She and her horse are, like, one . Thinking and acting in tandem. I can’t help but feel envious.
    I’m still trying to figure out how to run with my reins in one hand instead of grabbing onto the saddle horn to keep from bouncing off. It’s a wonder James hired me at all.
    But I know why he did. It was obvious when we met last April that there was some pretty good chemistry between us. He put me up on a horse and asked me to ride around in a circle. Walk, trot, canter. When I didn’t fall off, I guess he figured I was good enough for the job.
    James’s parents own the ranch.
    And he hired all the summer barn staff. Not surprisingly, we’re all girls around the same age. Long hair. Long legs. James likes his ladies. I could tell he liked looking at me. Not that I minded. He has the hugest, bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. And the way he wears his black hat pulled low on his brow… he’s all dark and broodingly handsome.
    I still get a shiver when I think of him.
    Even now that things aren’t so good between us.
    James got pretty huffy a few weeks back when he found out I have a boyfriend back in the city. Tyler.
    But it’s pretty casual between Ty and me. Actually, it’s kind of on hold. I’m the one who decided to leave town for the summer. But whatever. When James found out, he got really mad. It was like he thought I’d tricked him by not telling him about Tyler right away. He gave me the silent treatment for, like, a week. I thought that was pretty lame, especially for a guy who’s nineteen.
    Eventually he came out of his funk and we started talking again. But he stopped spending time with me. And he stopped taking rides out with me. He started hanging around with Carrie and Laura instead.
    Yeah, and we all know how much work Carrie and Laura do around the ranch.
    That was a couple of weeks ago.
    Nowadays, it’s pretty much me and a couple of other wranglers—Martin and Roxanne—who take out all the rides. James stays back at the barn to flirt with Laura and Carrie. I guess he figures the ranch is kind of his, which gives him permission to be lazy and duck responsibility. And that pisses me right off.
    Yesterday, James and I finally had a blowout. It was bound to happen. I had just come back from a half-day ride.
    I was hot. Thirsty. My knees hurt after sitting astride a horse’s barrel for three hours. I hadn’t eaten since 6:45 that morning, and I was starving.
    I figured I’d be able