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***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***
Copyright © 2019 Michelle Hazen
CHAPTER ONE
A perfect barn was like a perfect woman: suspicious.
LJ Delisle didn’t have much experience with perfection, which was why he was giving a little side-eye to the stable’s immaculate floor. As he explored up the aisle, brass name plaques glinted at him from the stall doors. The horses themselves were glossy and muscular, but so manicured there was no sign that they’d ever broken a sweat.
He stopped to pet one’s velvety nose. “You been juicin’, hmm? Don’t lie to me now.” The gelding whickered, blowing speckles of snot all over his white job-interview shirt.
LJ chuckled. Well, the horses seemed normal enough, even if the stable was straight out of a magazine shoot. He left his new friend and stuck his head into the tack room. “Anybody here?”
No answer from the racks of saddles.
Probably he was just uncomfortable because this was so different than where he was from. There was nowhere as beautiful as New Orleans, and few places as screwed up. The crumbling brick sidewalks he loved were edged by jagged potholes and scattered with glass from windows broken by burglars and vandals. The red sizzle of boiling crawfish spiced the air, and humidity squatted heavy over the ever-threatening river. Mud backed up into the streets with every hard rain, a reminder of the sharp edge between civilization and chaos.
To LJ, flaws felt like home.
He continued down the barn aisle, reminding himself not to get his back up when this caliber of facility was exactly what he’d come to Montana to find. Along with a fresh start and a chance to train horses his way. Besides, getting out of the deep south was just about the only choice for a black man who wanted to break into the exclusive club of the horse showing circuit.
Now, he just needed to find the person who was supposed to be interviewing him, and convince them the spritz of horse snot on his shirt only increased his qualifications as a trainer.
He reached the exit on the far side of the barn, and his strides stuttered as he saw the horse outside in the arena.
“Glory hallelujah,” he muttered.
The Lawler Ranch quarter horses looked classy in their stalls, but in movement they were the difference between a dumpster full of sheet music and a song. The stallion outside was all muscle, his tail as dark as the long braid of the woman riding him. He was giving her hell, trying to buck, but instead of fighting him, she funneled all that energy into grace. The horse’s hooves floated over the ground, transitioning to a half pass as seamlessly as an Olympian.
LJ leaned a shoulder against the barn doorframe and watched. It was how people were meant to ride. Not battling for dominance or jerking at the reins. Flowing, all the potential of two beings focused on one goal.
He forgot all about brass nameplates and just soaked it in.
Eventually, the woman dismounted and walked her stallion toward the barn. LJ shook off his daydreaming and stepped back out of sight, trying to buy time. When people met him, their brows usually rose right along with their eyes as they looked up, then up some more. Six and a half feet was too much for most, so he liked to have a smile and quip at the ready to put them at ease. Except watching her ride had wiped his mind clean of jokes.
She had to be Andra Lawler, the name at the bottom of the emails that had invited him to drive to Lawler Ranch for “the extensive, in-person interview process.” Anybody who rode that well must be in charge of hiring the other trainers.
Even off the horse, she drew his eyes. Her walk was all grace and confidence, the stallion following along meekly at her heels. As she got closer, the pale skin and delicate features under the shadow of her hat became clearer. She hadn’t seen him yet, but even in relaxation the lines of her face teased at his imagination like a story only half told.
LJ approached the doorway, taking a breath to introduce himself and raising his hand to shake hers.
She crossed the line of shadow cast by the barn and walked straight into his outstretched hand, his fingertips bumping her ribs. Her chin jerked up and a scream ripped out of her, so unexpected and loud LJ startled, too. The stallion reared, his hoofs flashing as she flinched away from LJ and into the far greater danger behind her.
He grabbed her and yanked her out of the way. The scream cut off into eerie silence and her muscles tensed under his hands. Goosebumps broke out on the back of his neck, his instincts shrilling all the alarms at how fast this whole situation had gone wrong. Before he could try and diffuse whatever the hell this was, she jerked away from him and fell. Her sunglasses jumped off her nose with the impact of ass on concrete, but instead of reaching for them, her wide green eyes unfocused and she gasped for air. She didn’t even seem to register the stallion, who reared again. His hooves pawed the air inches from her u'protect'd head. Close. Way too damned close.
LJ jumped in front of her and caught the reins, swinging his body in between the frightened horse and the woman on the ground.
“Andra!” A male voice sounded from behind him.
LJ started to look, but then the stallion tried to bolt and the reins burned through his fingers. He blew out a breath and steadied himself, speaking low and sweet to the horse until it quieted, too. As soon as he could, LJ turned to check on the woman. She was still on the ground, hunched convulsively forward with an older man crouched at her side. Solid shoulders filled out his faded shirt even as a pot belly tested the last button above his belt buckle. “Talk to me, sweetheart,” he said.
No response.
“Your horse,” the man tried. “Andra, your horse!”
“It’s okay. I have it under—” LJ stopped as the man flapped a hand at him, not glancing away from Andra.
As soon as he mentioned her responsibilities, she blinked, taking a small breath. Then she shot to her feet, glancing around. She registered the horse first. Then LJ, her lashes widening in the belated reaction to his height he'd been expecting. He didn’t have a joke ready this time, either.
He swapped the reins to his left hand and put out his right, letting her see it before he came forward. “I’m LJ Delisle. And damned sorry I startled you that way.”
Her throat worked, her shoulders tense beneath the old tee shirt that said “Eat. Sleep. Ride.” She took his hand, her grip strong and certain despite the sweat still dampening her palm. “No, I'm sorry. I didn't expect anybody to be standing there.”
“That'd be your cue to explain what in the blazing hell you’re doing in my barn, son.” The challenge came from the older man’s mouth with all the softness of a pistol being cocked. Beside them, the stallion’s ears swiveled forward and he danced on the end of the reins.
LJ snapped up taller, bristling, then slapped on a smile to cover it. It was a fair question, however little he appreciated the other man’s wording. “I was about half an hour early for my interview. Nobody answered the door at the house, so I came on up to the barn.”
“Interview for what? We're not hiring.”
Or maybe they were hiring until he scared his future boss flat on her ass. He'd seen a lot of people get leery at the breadth of his shoulders, but her reaction was a long way past normal.
“Dad, were you listening to me last month at all?” Andra’s voice was tight. “If we had somebody to get the colts from weaned to saddle broke, Jason and I could train a lot more horses per year. We might even have a shot at matching demand for once.” Her father opened his mouth, and she glared at him.
“Uh, I'm happy to wait up at the house until my scheduled time.” LJ glanced between father and daughter, then offered the stallion’s reins to Andra.
“No, it’s okay.” She swept her sunglasses off the floor and waved them toward the stallion now standing patiently at his side. “That can count as your first interview question.”
A smile tickled his lips. “Hell, if all you needed was to see if I could hold a horse, you might as well start filling out my W-4’s.”
“That won't be necessary,” Mr. Lawler said. “We're not hiring.”
Andra scowled at her father, the pallor that followed her attack starting to give way under a flush of anger. “You agreed to let me place the ad.”
“I agreed if an appropriate candidate came along…” He cleared his throat.
LJ's jaw locked and this time, he put the reins in Andra's hands without asking permission. “I’ll wait at the house,” he said to her. “If you want to speak to me about a job, that’s where I’ll be.”
He headed for the exit, his insides all fists and fire. He was all too aware that he’d just turned his back on the owner: an owner who'd decided after his first glance that he wasn’t an “appropriate candidate” for employment. His new chance here was cinders, and there was no point even glancing at the beautiful horses he passed.
His friends had warned him how it would be out west, but fool he was, he figured anyplace had to have more opportunity for a black cowboy than southern Louisiana.
"You agreed I could pick someone I was comfortable with," Andra’s voice hissed behind him as he tried to shut out the sounds of the argument he was leaving behind.
"Comfortable? He wasn't here five minutes and you were having a panic attack!" Mr. Lawler protested. "I don't care about training more horses per year, Andra. What I care about—” Mr. Lawler’s voice was lost in the snap of the breeze as LJ’s long legs carried him further from the barn.
Even if she wanted to give him the job, he'd probably always be in the middle of an argument between her and her father. That wasn't going to earn him the freedom he wanted to try his own, gentler training methods.
LJ hesitated, thinking of Andra’s kind hands on that stallion's reins. But then his gaze fell on his old pickup, parked in front of the Lawlers’ log and river rock mansion. He’d left his second-hand suitcases stashed by last night’s campsite, but the rust-fringed dent in his driver’s side door told the whole story he was trying to hide. And it wasn't one of years of experience with the caliber of horses who were named in sentences instead of single syllables.
When he graduated college and chose the stables over an office, he knew it'd probably be ten years or more before he was training horses instead of shoveling up after them. Which is why when he’d gotten Andra’s email asking him to interview for a trainer position rather than a groom, he should have known it was too good to be true.
“Mr. Delisle!”
Her flat accent mangled his name so badly he almost didn't recognize it. She jogged up to his side.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I asked you all this way, and I do want to interview you. I'm sorry about my dad.” She glanced away, a wisp of black hair blowing against her cheek. She was younger than she sounded in her emails. Possibly younger than his own twenty-eight. But at least she hadn’t written him off the way her father had.
“I appreciate you wanting to give me a chance, especially after I startled you.” Startled didn't really cover it, but he didn't want to embarrass her. If it weren't for the scream, he’d think she had some kind of asthma attack, or maybe a seizure, because it was so violent. Except there was no denying he’d triggered it. He wouldn't blame her daddy for wanting to get rid of him after that, but the “appropriate candidate” comment still itched under his skin. “Still, I don't think there's any reason to stick around if the owner of the ranch isn't of a mind to get to know me past the obvious.”
“Oh, it's not because you’re um...African-American.” She glanced up at him.
He tried to smile, but it felt strained. “You can say black. My people lived on Saint Domingue before it was called Haiti, and we lived in Louisiana before that belonged to America. I’m black Creole from way on back, Ms. Lawler, and proud to claim it.”
She blew out a breath. “I’m sorry this has been such a mess. Can we just start over? I’m Andra Lawler.” She emphasized the ahn-sound at the start, and he realized he’d been saying it wrong inside his head. This time she held out her hand to shake his.
He hesitated. This job would mean everything to him. But this ranch might not be big enough for him to avoid her father.
Andra was still holding out her hand, waiting for him, and he couldn’t stand to leave her hanging. The horses he’d seen in that stable were worth putting up with a jerk of a boss, and Andra really seemed to want him to stay. He tried out a smile. “LJ Delisle, and so happy to meet you.” He let the syllables of his family name roll off his tongue so she could hear the De-lye-el, the “s” ignored by everyone except well-meaning cowgirls.
She shook his hand, strong as any cowboy. “I thought the initials were only for emails. You go by LJ?”
“The name my mama gave me is a mouthful and a half. Best to stick with plain old LJ.” He winked, screwing his Proper Interview Front all to hell. Though it would be completely worth it if he could tease her out of her own stiff formality. “Now how about this extensive interviewing process?”
As soon as she met his gaze, he got lost all over again in that half-told story behind her eyes.
She took a little breath, as if she was the one who needed to prepare herself, and started toward one of the barns. Not, he noted, the one they'd left her father in. As he followed, he caught the sound of Lady Gaga playing from a tractor shed nearby, drifting out along with the sound of curses in a very female voice.
In this new stable, the horses were younger than the last bunch, but the light in their eyes was the same: quick, bright, curious. Not the dull stare of a horse left in a pasture until its brain went sludgy with stillness. LJ's pulse quickened. Here were animals begging to be given something to do. This job might not be as fresh of a start as he’d hoped for, but the horses at least were everything he’d been dreaming about and then some.
“This is Taz. Her father was the AQHA Farnam Superhorse, and despite our best efforts, she’s terrified of lead ropes.” Andra threw open a stall door, and her fingers held none of the frozen hesitation of that moment when she’d collapsed backward onto the floor. “She’s your second interview question.”
