“Good” was putting it lightly. Instead of forcing obedience, he’d teased the horse toward a curiosity that soon had it doing exactly what he’d wanted in the first place. She liked his style.

LJ patted the filly one more time and let himself out of the stall, smiling almost shyly. “Tell me you’ve got another twenty questions as smart as that one, and I’d just about work for free.”

Without the fence between them, anxiety tightened her belly, like it did every time a man got within arm’s reach of her. Her vision was drawn to the thick knuckles of his work-scarred hands. They were big enough that his fist could cave in most of her face with a single blow.

He frowned. “Are you all right, Ms. Lawler?”

She blinked. She was at home, and safe. Not only that, his talent with horses made it clear she couldn’t afford to let her phobias keep holding her back from hiring men.

She planted her feet, the decision already made. “You can call me Andra. How long will it take you to gather your things and move up here? We’ve got an on-site apartment furnished and ready to go.”

This was about her horses, not her. She wouldn’t have to see him that often, so it didn’t matter if she still wasn’t comfortable around men. She faked calm for the benefit of a dozen animals a day—every trainer did.

Doing it for a single human shouldn’t be any harder than that.

•   •   •

LJ walked across the stable yard, wondering exactly how much tonight’s dinner was going to suck. On a scale of one to aggressive foot fungus, he was guessing maybe an eight.

Jason Lawler walked with him, dead silent, which seemed to be the normal state of being for Andra’s brother. He’d met broken trombones with more to say. Of course, LJ had been known to talk the ears off everything from horses to grocery checkers, so he wouldn’t have taken Jason’s relative quiet too personally if he hadn’t been getting the freeze-out from the rest of the family as well.

Daddy Lawler had spent most of the last three days giving LJ heavy-browed sideways looks, always finding tasks to do nearby, as if LJ might shoplift a quarter horse. And Andra, the Lawler whose opinion he cared about most, was straight-up avoiding him.

Since starting here, he’d glimpsed her only a few times: once in the far pasture, jumping ditches on a chestnut gelding. In the main arena, teaching a bay mare to do lead changes. Her back, heading out of the stables every time he headed in.