I pull my eyes away, taking a sip of hot coffee so hasty that it burns my mouth.

“You want some breakfast, too?” Raylan asks me.

I can hear that he’s smiling, even before I look at his face.

“Did you already eat?” I ask him.

“Yup,” he says. “I’ve been up a while. There’s oatmeal on the stove, though.”

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

“Well,” he says, pushing back his chair from the table. “You want to come out for a ride still?”

“Of course,” I say.

I’m trying to sound confident, but I’m regretting what I committed to last night. I am curious what it’s like to ride a horse, but I’m also realizing how totally out of control I’m going to be, sitting on the back of an animal five times my size. Or more—fuck, I have no idea what a horse weighs.

I could ask Raylan, I’m sure he knows. But that will make me look even more ignorant.

All I can do is follow him out the back door, out into the sprawling grounds behind the house.

I see a large vegetable garden, and another garden full of fruit and flowers: raspberry canes, rose bushes, lilacs, and apple trees.

Then, beyond that, I see the stables, two barns, and several large paddocks.

Everything looks clean and well-maintained. The barns look freshly painted, and the fields are nicely mowed. No trash or tools lay out of place anywhere in sight.

I can see two horses standing next to the stable, already saddled and bridled. One is huge and dark gray—so dark he almost looks black. The other is a pretty caramel-colored horse with a black mane and tail. Her coat is so smooth and shiny that she almost looks metallic.

“The big one is Brutus,” Raylan says. “The other is Penny. She’s a sweetheart—the nicest horse we’ve got. So you’ll ride her, while I take Brutus. He’s not as nice, but he gets mad if Penny goes anywhere without him.”

“Alright,” I say, giving Brutus a wide berth. He looks over at me with his large black eye, on which I can’t see any white. He doesn’t seem friendly, but he’s not aggressive at least.

Penny, by contrast, eagerly puts her velvety nose into Raylan’s palm, then rubs the side of her head against his shoulder, making a gentle snuffing sound.

“You miss me, Penny?” Raylan says, in his low, husky voice.

I don’t know why, but hearing the tone he uses with the horses has an effect on me, too. It sends little prickles down my arms.

“Alright,” Raylan says to me, calm and confident as ever. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna get you set up on Penny first . . . you’re gonna put your left foot here in the stirrup, and you’re gonna grab this little knob here on the saddle, it’s called the pommel. And I’m gonna help you swing your right leg over the horse. I’ll kinda help boost you.”