The colt followed him, pushed his head against Michael’s back. “Don’t try to make up. I’m only giving you this because I’m not on my way to the hospital.”

The colt nudged him again, then tried to eat Michael’s hair.

“Cut it out. You are such an ass kisser. Here.” The apple he offered was taken eagerly. “And you have revolting manners,” he added when bits of apple flew.

“I owe you an apology.”

Michael stopped rubbing his bruised butt and looked at Susan. In his concentration, he’d forgotten she was still there. “No problem. Maybe I was thinking about bashing him one.”

“No, you weren’t.” She stepped over, ran a hand over the colt’s smooth neck. “You’re in love with him.”

“I hate the bastard. Don’t know why I ever took him on.”

“Um-hmm.” She smiled, absently brushed some of the paddock dirt off the sleeve of Michael’s shirt. “He certainly looks ill-kept, ill-used. Ill-fed too.”

Embarrassed now, Michael shrugged. “He’s an investment. A good stunt horse earns good money.”

“I’m sure.” She simply couldn’t stand it—now she broke into excited questions. “How in the world did you teach him to do that? How do you keep him from trampling you? Aren’t you worried? How long have you been working with him?”

Rolling his aching shoulders, Michael settled on the last question. “Not long enough. He’s smart, but he’s got some rough edges.” Then he grinned. “You had me quaking, Mrs. Templeton. I figured you were going to grab the bat out of my hands and go to work on me with it.”

“I might have.” She caressed the colt. “I can’t stand to see something abused.”

“Can’t say I care for it myself. There was this wrangler on a set a while back. He had this terrific horse, sweet-natured, generous. But the wrangler was never satisfied, always pushing for more, working that horse to exhaustion and never giving anything back. It was bad enough to see him breaking that horse’s heart, and his spirit, but then he started using a whip, and his fists, and whatever else came in handy.”

Michael paused to shovel the hair out of his eyes, squint at the sun. “He got himself a bad rep. Nobody wanted to hire him or work with him anymore. They all said it was too damn bad, ’cause that horse was a rare one.”

“Why wasn’t something done?”

“There’s politics, the network—the wrangler’d been in the game a long time. I was pretty new at it then, and I never did care much for politics. I talked him into selling me that horse. Made a pretty decent stake working with him.”

“You talked the wrangler into selling?”

Michael looked back at her. “More or less.”

“Did you use the whip, or just your fists?”