She wiped under eyes and sniffed. “Do you really think they talk?”

“I know they talk. We just don’t understand their language.” To cheer her up, he smiled at her. “Lighten up, Erin. Firecracker will enjoy going. And once we get tents set up for ourselves, plus a cook shack, you can take some time each evening to work with her, pretty much like you are right now. That way, she won’t be left alone for days on end and forget everything you’ve accomplished so far.”

* * *

Erin saw her trip up the mountain as a brutal test of her willpower. Wyatt Fitzgerald turned her on in every possible way a man could. Even worse, she both admired and respected him. Every time she thought about his decision to live the rest of his life without having sex, especially with her because she mattered to him, her heart melted. He truly cared about that Medford woman and what he’d accidentally done to her. Erin couldn’t really blame him for not wanting anything like that to ever happen again. It was a noble stance for him to take, and Erin felt obligated to honor their friendship-only agreement. She absolutely could not flirt with him.

Erin rode a mule named Barbwire. He was a veteran trail mule that Uncle Slade had chosen for her. Uncle Slade said mules were smarter than horses, especially when it came to their own safety. He claimed horses might panic if they got bunched up on a narrow trail, and it wasn’t unheard-of for an entire string to plunge off the side of a mountain. A mule, on the other hand, would back away from the cliff, stand fast, and watch his idiotic cousins kill themselves. According to Uncle Slade, Erin would be as safe as a baby in its mother’s arms on Barbwire’s back.

Unfortunately, Uncle Slade had forgotten to mention that Barbwire had a stubborn streak, a memory like an elephant, and some set ideas on how he should be handled. Erin, being an inexperienced rider, made mistakes, and when Barbwire got it into his head that she didn’t know what she was doing, he stopped. And then he wouldn’t move until she figured out what she was doing wrong.

It was frustrating for Erin. She’d chosen to ride behind the pack string, and when Barbwire went on strike, Wyatt had to tie off the lead packhorse and circle back to see what she had done.

“You’re holding the reins too tight again,” Wyatt told her when Barbwire decided, for about the umpteenth time, to balk. “To a mule, pulling back on the reins means it should stop. You need to hold the reins in a loose grip and let them rest on his neck.”

“But then I have no control,” she protested.

“You don’t need to have control. Barbwire loves horses. Some mules have an inborn desire to be a horse and be with horses—except when they panic and do stupid stuff. He’ll follow the string. It’s your job to just go along for the ride. Just loosen your grip, and when I head out again, Barbwire will follow. He won’t want the horses to leave him.”