She frowned, moving first to Lola’s stall and nickering softly to get the animal’s attention. The pretty gray mare lifted her head, and Jamie smiled. She was a beautiful horse. Dappled and lovely, with kind eyes and an easy disposition.

Jamie could hardly imagine the horse being used in the rodeo. She just seemed too mellow for the bursts of energy required.

Jamie didn’t have a problem with the way the animals were treated in the rodeo. She knew that they were expensive and valued, if not just for their monetary worth, but because the men and women who cared for them, who rode them, spent more time with animals than they did with people. There was a deep appreciation for them, and a whole lot of pressure to keep them healthy and in top form.

That was the good thing about taking on animals like this. At their age, though they’d led athletic lives, they had also been given vitamins and vet checks, and a great many things that horses left out in fields often didn’t have the benefit of.

She allowed her thoughts of Lola to push the conversations from the night before outside of her head. Allowed her jaunt around the arena to fill her senses. The breeze in her face, the dust in her nostrils.

She didn’t need to keep replaying that conversation over and over.

None of her brothers had come after her. And no one had said anything to her about it this morning.

Due in large part to the fact that she had scampered out of her house early and eaten in the mess hall, making sure to avoid Wyatt and Lindy as she did.

She didn’t regret it.

She lived in a small cabin on the property, the one that McKenna had lived in before she and Grant had gotten married. It made it pretty easy for her to come and go as she pleased, and if she wanted to go unseen, it wasn’t that difficult.

Not that she ever had occasion to be sneaky, really.

She finished up with Lola and moved on to Gus, getting a little kick of exhilaration as she took him up away from the property and up the winding trail into the mountains. It was what she’d been craving last night, but she had decided that not going out riding in the middle of the night was probably the better part of valor.

Gus was a dream horse, in Jamie’s estimation. He was so responsive and in tune with the rider, which was one reason he was bound and determined to fight someone like Gabe.

He was a horse who needed the trust of his rider, not a rider who wanted to control him overmuch. Far too soon, she was finished making her loop with Gus, and it was time to move on to the other tasks. She started with cleaning out water troughs, which was fine, if a bit boring, but she had told Gabe that she could do any of the work, and so she was going to.