“I’m getting back on, jackass. That’s what you do.” She felt prickly and uncomfortable, and like her skin was too tight for her body. Combined with the pain, it was a damned annoying sensation.

She gritted her teeth and touched the horse’s neck before putting her foot in the stirrup and launching herself up onto her back. They rode a quick easy loop, with Gabe’s gaze on them the whole time, and then she dismounted before leading the horse back to the barn. She ignored the fact that Gabe was following her, still clearly irritated.

“I’ll put her away,” he said.

“No,” she said. “I’m going to put her away. I’m going to finish my work. I’m fine.”

He didn’t seem to take that as his cue to leave. Instead, he leaned in the doorway, muscular arms crossed over his chest, his blue eyes like ice as they appraised her every movement. Like he was waiting for her to crumble to the ground and swoon like a maiden from an old movie from all the pain at any moment.

“It’s just pain,” she said. “There’s a big difference between being in pain and being injured, Dalton. Don’t tell me you don’t know that.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You make a pretty good doorstop, I’ll give you that,” she said. “But you could also go do anything else.”

“You’re a potential liability,” he commented. “I need to make sure you’re okay.”

“I told you that I am,” she said, fierce.

“Next time you ride one of the new horses, one that no one has ever ridden, you make sure I’m out there.”

“Oh, that sounds like a great idea. Had you been out there would you have gotten down on your hands and knees and intercepted the squirrel before it got into the arena? Because that’s what you would have had to do to prevent this.”

“I could have appraised the situation.”

“I appraised the situation,” she said. “If the horse hadn’t been startled it wouldn’t have been a situation.”

She patted Gem on the rump and sent her into the stall, closing it behind her.

“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Gabe said. “That’s the new rule.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m your boss. And I say that’s the protocol now.”

“You’re being ridiculous and you’re treating me like a child. I’m not a child, Gabe.”

She moved to walk past him, and he reached out and grabbed hold of her arm. Those same rough hands connecting with her skin. “If you have a problem with the order, Jamie, you can take your things and go, and don’t bother to come back tomorrow.”

Just like that, she saw everything she was working toward evaporate into dust. Those blue eyes were still boring through her, right through all her shields, and she couldn’t catch her breath, much less find it in her to defy him one more time.

That strange sensation that felt like a shimmer of heat over hot pavement was coursing through her. An intensified version of what she’d been feeling in his presence ever since that first day of work.