Women who’d grown up with mothers with soft voices and soft embraces. Who could afford to take risks because they knew they had a safe place to land if they fell.

The only thing Jamie knew she could count on was that if she fell—no matter how hard the ground—she’d pick herself back up.

From the time she could remember, when she had fallen down and scraped her knee, she wiped the blood on her palm, and wiped her palm on her jeans. Gone on with her day, not letting a single tear escape. She learned to suck it up and to buck up.

“I know when it comes to riding saddle bronc and dealing with horses who have a lot of fight, you’re one of the best. But trust me on this. I know these kinds of horses. This one is skittish,” she said, approaching the horse slowly. “And handling him like you are is just...” She did her best to find some words that weren’t overtly confrontational and it was damned hard.

She’d been raised by a man who didn’t mince words.

There hadn’t been a whole lot of softness in Jamie’s life, and that was fine by her. The fact was, she preferred direct methods of communication. Often things like this seemed unnecessary to her. But he was the boss and she was the employee. So she had to figure out some kind of way.

“Horses like Gus, who have a lot of trauma and a lot of years behind them, need a different kind of intuition. It’s not just which way they’ll move. It’s why they’re moving that way,” she said.

“He was doing fine for me,” he said, looking at the old gelding that he’d been riding only a few moments before.

She shook her head. “He did a lot better with me this morning. He’s balking. Pulling against your reins. He doesn’t like it.” Really, there was no point mincing words here. “He doesn’t like you.”

“All right, what’s the problem?” He crossed his arms, and her eyes flickered to his forearms. They were streaked with dirt and muscle, and there was a cut right next to his elbow that was just beginning to heal.

She returned her focus to his face. She could see his eyes, now that she was closer. Along with the hard, square cut of his jaw and the firm, set line of his lips.

He was not happy with her.

Too bad. She wasn’t happy with him.

“He’s got a soft mouth,” she said. “You need to be more sensitive to that.”

“Horses are big-ass animals who don’t need to be babied.”

She fought to keep her eyes from visibly rolling back in her head. “In general, I agree with you. But we are getting horses from all different backgrounds, and some of them will need to be babied. I have a firm hand, and I lay out expectations with my animals. But you also have to know when you need to be a little bit more forgiving. And Gus here needs forgiveness.”