When River informed her crew she wouldn’t be accompanying them back to Easton’s place to go over the footage, Jessie looked skeptical and murmured something about Easton murdering her in the woods. Bree’s eyes brightened.

“Can I follow and film it?” she asked.

Jessie snorted. “The murder or the sexy stuff right beforehand?”

“There’s not going to be either,” River told him, knowing she should say yes to the filming. But really, this time, she kind of wanted to say no.

“We have to go through this footage,” Jessie decided. He pressed the handheld at her. “Here. Get everything you can.”

River shook her head. “I’m only going for a ride. This doesn’t have anything to do with the movie.”

“The documentary.” Enunciating the word, Jessie rolled his eyes at her. “First rule of a documentary: you document.”

“Fine.” River accepted the camera. “But if I drop it, that’s on you.”

“If you drop it, the bill’s on you.”

When River returned to the paddock, Easton had pulled two saddles out of wherever they stored their tack, with worn leather bridles hanging ready on a nearby fence post. Chance, the handsome gray, was already saddled, and the second saddle was sitting on the fence rail next to the aging palomino.

“You’re putting me on Skip?”

“She’s a good horse,” Easton said. “Heck of an endurance mare back in her day.”

“I’d like to ride Sonny.” When Easton hesitated, River patted his arm. “Don’t worry. I can ride anything that moves.”

With a shrug, Easton did as she asked, saddling up the little bay instead. He looked even more handsome with his tack on, but River was an experienced enough hand to know a gleam in a horse’s eye when she saw it.

Easton frowned at the horse. “You might want to let me lunge him out a few circles before we go.”

“Nope, we’re good.”

And they were. At least they were for the first two steps around the yard while Sonny decided what he wanted to do about her being on his back.

“Don’t even think about it, buster,” River warned him.

Sonny snorted, decision made.

Boy, that guy could buck. There was no viciousness to his antics, more feeling his oats than anything particularly dangerous, and River was laughing breathlessly by the time the horse came to a stop.

“Are you all done?” she asked him. Sonny snorted again, stamping a rear hoof. Twisting around to grin at Easton, River called over, “I think that means he’s done.”

Standing there, Chance’s reins in his hand, Easton stared at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Easton shook his head. “Just never seen anyone enjoy a horse trying to pitch them off.”

“I like him. There’s nothing wrong with a little spunk.”

River wasn’t certain, but she could have sworn she heard Easton murmur something about redheads.