The women stood still, the air between them and the trailer charged with something they couldn't quite name. Isobel felt it settle low in her chest — the certainty that she was watching a man entirely in his element. Ryder's movements were unhurried, deliberate, like he was keeping time with a melody only he could hear. His voice, low and steady, threaded through the restless swish of the mare's tail.
Delilah's eyes darted, muscles quivering under her buckskin hide, but she eased fraction by fraction under his hand. The tension that had been snapping off her like static began to dissolve, replaced by the quiet pull of his presence.
He unlatched the partition with the kind of care that made the small sound of metal on metal seem loud in the stillness. Isobel couldn't look away — the way he moved, the way the light caught the rough edge of his jaw, the way calm seemed to rise off him like heat from summer asphalt.
When he stepped back with the lead rope and coaxed Delilah down the ramp, Isobel's eyes widened. She'd seen Rose try this before — bracing, coaxing, working the rope like a tug-of-war. But Ryder's touch was all glide and give, the kind of confidence that never had to prove itself.
The mare flinched, then lunged, trying to take her freedom in one hard pull. The rope snapped tight, and Ryder's body absorbed the jolt. His features didn't break, but a shadow of pain crossed his eyes as he rolled his shoulder, holding firm.
He kept his gaze locked on hers, circling with her in slow, patient arcs until the fight began to bleed out of her. His voice never rose, the cadence of it smoothing the last frayed edges of her fear.
When Delilah finally slowed, head lifting high, Ryder stepped in close, scratching the center of her forehead before trailing a hand over her eye — a slow, sealing motion, as if he were pressing quiet back into her bones. He murmured something soft, the words too low to catch, meant only for her.
The women stood rooted, watching the shift ripple through Delilah like a tide turning. With every pass of Ryder's hand, her head sank lower, the tension sliding out of her body in slow surrender. She licked her lips, the steady, rhythmic motion a quiet signal to anyone who knew horseflesh — the fight was gone.
Rose cut a glance toward Isobel, eyes wide, voice pitched low with awe. "He's a horse whisperer, for sure."
But Isobel barely heard her. Her gaze was caught on Ryder — the way he seemed tethered to the mare in some invisible line, as if they shared a language too old for words. Delilah eased in, pressing her head to his chest, and he met her with a slow stroke down the curve of her neck, fingers finding that sweet spot at the withers before scratching gently over the peak of her shoulder.
The air seemed to thicken, not with tension now, but with a quiet stillness that felt almost sacred. Under his touch, Delilah's eyes softened to a glassy calm, her breathing deep and even, every trace of panic melted clean away.
When Ryder finally stepped back, it wasn't a break — it was a release. His gaze met hers, horse to man, in a silent exchange that seemed to last longer than the space between breaths.
Isobel felt something turn over in her chest — wonder, yes, but also a pull she couldn't name. This man — dust on his shirt, rope burns on his hands, and the kind of composure that came from surviving far more than eight seconds in an arena — held a knowing in him that made the world tilt just a little.
The sun had dropped low enough to spill gold across the barn lot, stretching long shadows over gravel and grass. Ryder stepped back from Delilah, his hand falling away slow, his gaze still resting on the mare's softened face. "There it is," he murmured, voice low and smooth, like he was talking more to himself than to anyone else.
Isobel tilted her head toward Rose, curiosity flickering in her eyes. "There what is?" Her drawl wrapped around the words like ribbon, warm and lilting.
Rose's mouth curved in a knowing smile, the light catching on the loose strands of blonde hair that had worked free from her ponytail. "The lip lick, sweetie. Means she's startin' to understand what Ryder's askin' of her."
Isobel's eyes widened, the faintest breath of wonder leaving her lips. "I had no idea horses could talk back like that."
Ryder's gaze shifted to her then, steady and unhurried, his features lined from years under sun and dust, yet carrying the quiet authority of a man who'd also spent decades reading rooms where the currency was power, not pasture. "They do — just not in words. When a horse starts to catch on, they'll lick their lips. It's their way of tellin' you they're thinkin' it through."
Rose clapped her hands once, the sound sharp in the evening stillness. "That's what I was hopin' to hear. I couldn't stand to see her end up in a kill pen. I knew there was somethin' in her worth saving."
The young mare, Delilah, stood in the paddock like she'd been carved from tension and shadow. Her buckskin coat was matted, the sheen dulled beneath the weight of old neglect. Every twitch of her ear told a story of hands that hadn't been kind. Ryder could read her the way he read a market report or a bull's body in the chute—quiet, coiled, and looking for an exit. But under all that wariness, he felt it—a spark worth saving.
He held the lead rope loose in his hand as they headed for the barn, the soft creak of leather and the sharp tang of hay hanging in the air. He didn't say much. He didn't have to. Control was in the set of his shoulders, in the slow, measured steps of a man who could wrangle a two-thousand-pound bull or negotiate a billion-dollar merger without breaking stride.
Beside him, Rose tipped her head toward Isobel, voice dropping low but carrying just enough for the mountain breeze—and Ryder's sharp ears—to catch.
"Wrangler butts are the best, don't you think?"
Isobel's eyes flicked to her friend, a warning there, but the faintest tug of a smile betrayed her. And that was the trouble with small-town air—it carried whispers like confessions. Ryder's mouth curved, slow and dangerous, a chuckle rumbling out of him, low enough to vibrate in the chest.
Isobel swatted Rose's arm, the sound a light pop in the warm air. The two women's laughter spilled between them, a bright, reckless thing in a world that knew too much dust and danger. It didn't last long—nothing this sweet ever did—but for a moment, it was enough to ease the weight of the work ahead.