Natural Attraction (20 page)

I quickly send her a reply text.

‘Am great.  Having lunch with his fam 2day.  Will txt when leaving to head home.’ 

Knowing that she will probably ring me the second the text arrives, I quickly switch my phone to messaging.  I know that she will want to grill me about last night and the lunch date with his family today.

I grin to myself imagining the thought of how pissed she is going to be when she I sent her straight to voicemail.

I arrive at Jax’s barn to hear the sounds of lids on tubs going on and off.  The sounds are coming from a small room halfway down on the right hand side.  I wander over and lean in the doorway to see Jax busily mixing feeds in a bucket with an electric drill. 

Once all the buckets have been stirred, he stacks the buckets carefully into a trolley and heads towards me smiling.  “All good with your phone?”

“Yep, I let Jen know I was still alive and turned it over to messaging.  No one else will ring me today.  Especially considering it’s a Sunday.”

“Your family doesn’t ring on Sunday’s?”  He asks, sounding concerned.

“Hell no, I’m lucky to get a call on my birthday.  We are nowhere near as close as your family is.”

I explain this as we walk together towards the day yards where several horses stand, keenly pricking their ears, eyes honed in on the buckets, inviting us to feed them.

“That’s sad.”

Jax sounds concerned but doesn’t say any more on the subject.  He then goes about tipping feeds out into various feeders and keeps moving along to each yard.

“I’ve made a small feed for Maverick as well,” he says as we finish in the yards and head towards the paddocks.  I soon see Maverick happily standing in a gateway, eyes honed in on us. 

“I’m sure he doesn’t need it, you keep him in great condition.  I just thought he might enjoy a breakfast while he was visiting too.”  He grins at me.

“Sure, sounds great.”

I watch Jax leaning over the gate to put the small feed into a hanging feeder on Maverick’s gate.  He is spoiling my horse as much as he is spoiling me.  My heart sighs.

I continue to follow Jax around his property like a puppy as he makes several stops to deliver feed buckets to horses in various paddocks.  Our last stop is of course the ever gorgeous Trouble.  Trouble bounces up to the fence with his neck arched, snorting softly and looking like a horse of the gods.   

Trouble ignores his food when Jax tips it out, much preferring the chance to get his lips on his man.  I watch with humor as Jax grabs onto Troubles tongue in an effort to stop him licking.  It’s not every day you see a horse hand its tongue to a person, but these two make it look commonplace.

Watching this tall, gorgeous man with his shiny black stallion I feel like running back to my car to get my phone to take a picture.  I’m sure any photo’s I take will be instant poster quality. 

After a few more minutes of watching the two boys and their antics, Jax gives Trouble a final rub on the neck.  He then turns to me with a soft smile and gestures towards the barn.

“You’re up next little girl.  I’ll grab you a rope halter and you can meet me in the round yard with Maverick if you like.”

In what seems like a matter of minutes, I find myself standing back in the round yard with my beautiful Maverick.  Maverick is looking super calm and relaxed with his ears pricked looking at me. 

The changes in my boy since yesterday seem amazing.  Even the trip to the round yard has been quiet and calm with him walking alongside me, almost heeling like a golden retriever would do.  I love it.

Jax has taken his spot at the edge of the yard and is now fiddling with his phone waiting for me to do something.  What exactly that is, I’m not sure.

“Um…
Jax?  What should I be doing?”  I ask looking at him and once again feeling my breath hitch at the sight of his gorgeousness. 

I swear, another day of looking at this guy is going to send me
blind, it is like staring into the sun all the time.

“The same thing you did yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah of course.” 

Well that sounds easy enough.   Gently unhooking the clip from his halter I set my boy free.  With my left hand pointing for him to circle to the left and my right hand giving a flick of my horseman’s stick I send him on his way. 

Well I think I am sending him on his way.  Obviously not.

This is because Maverick doesn’t get it today like he did yesterday.  Today he lets out an almighty snort, starts running the wrong way and then continues to explode into a fiery ball of horse dragon.  This particular horse dragon is bucking and kicking out as he rockets around the round yard at warp speed.

What the fuck.

I look over to Jax to see him grinning madly at Maverick and then his eyes swing to me.  “Bet you weren’t expect
ing that were you little girl.”

“Fuck no!” I yelp and stare helplessly as Maverick continues his mad dash around the yard.  “What did I do wrong?  What do I do now?” 

Shit, I almost feel like crying.  What is wrong with Maverick today?

“Just wait baby, he’ll calm down again.  He’s just giving you a little reminder lesson that your direct line approach is too much. 
Even when you are friends.”

He called me baby. 

I shake my head trying to clear the crazy news that Jax has just called me baby out of my head and listen to what he is saying. 

Direct line approach. 

What fucking direct line approach.
 

I was only doing the same thing as what I did yesterday.

“You’re not hearing me are you?” I hear him ask as he saunters over towards me.  I notice he is ignoring Maverick as he continues his mad flight around the yard. 

Gently prizing the horseman’s stick out of the death grip I now have on it, I watch Maverick continue to circle. 

I look helplessly up to Jax and say, “Please stop him.  And please tell me what I did wrong.”

Jax nods and with the horseman’s stick in one hand, steps towards Maverick and slaps the ground behind him,
hard. 
He slaps the ground with the string that attaches to the end of the horseman’s stick.  Maverick kicks out wildly at the ground where the string has hit and redoubles his efforts at setting a new land speed record for horses in a round yard.

As he flies by for another lap, Jax does the same thing again.  This time he adds more effort to the ground slapping by running towards his rear end at the same time as he yells a loud “Yah!”

What one earth is he doing? 

I asked him to stop Maverick not speed him up.

This got Mavericks attention.  Fully.  He slides to a stop, spins and looks at Jax, shocked at the noise and the movement.  He then pins his ears and eyes on Jax in horror, looking at him like he’s some sort of alien about to attack.

This is new
.

What is even newer is that as soon as Maverick screeches to a halt and starts staring at Jax with newfound interest, Jax turns and walks back towards me, ignoring him.  I find myself swinging my eyes between Maverick and Jax wondering what the hell Jax is doing when to my astonishment, Maverick chews and licks and starts following Jax towards me in the middle of the yard.

Holy shit.

“How did you do that?” I whisper, still stunned. 

“Magic babe.”  He chuckles to himself and turns to give Maverick a rub.

“Pretty much the equivalent of slapping a hysterical woman.
  You have to do it now and then.  He’d lost it and wasn’t able to think any more.”

“
Oh, and why did he lose it?” I ask, once again feeling like an idiot.

“’Cause you went straight in for the kill babe and didn’t warm him up.  You missed all the good stuff like touch
ing him and scratching him.  Even more importantly, working with him on the longline so he developed your trust again.  Just pointing and sending doesn’t cut it when your horse is not convinced you’re the leader. 

You need to remind him of it a little bit every day.  Granted, it won’t take as long each day, but each day you
need to cover the old ground and give him some reminders.  Go back to the start and do everything you did yesterday.  Better luck this time hey?” 

He leans down to pick up the rope and hand it back to me.  Then with another quick brush of his warm lips over mine, he returns to the side of the yard and starts fiddling with his phone again.

I look at Maverick who is once again pricking his ears and looking at me with keen interest.   He is still puffing lightly from his sprint session.  His nostrils are flaring lightly with each breath and I can see a slight line of sweat along the side of his shoulders. 

I sigh as I look him in the eye and say, “Sorry about that Mav, I’m an idiot.  Let’s have another go at that shall we?”

Maverick seems to understand what I am saying because he steps towards me and starts chewing.  I hear Jax chuckle and look across to see him looking down towards his phone with his eyes peeking up towards me under his brows and a cheeky grin on his face.

“You’re learning babe.”

*****

After our rather shaky start, things go better than expected.  I go back to the basics, of rubbing Maverick all over, picking up his feet and leading him backwards by the tail.  I
reestablish my sending and his circling on the lead and it only takes about an hour of running through my various exercises before I hear Jax call out that I can try him off the lead again. 

This time it all goes well and Maverick is listening and enjoying his ‘free time’ running around without a rope on. 

I have just finished asking him to come back to me when I hear Jax say, “That’ll do for now little girl.  It’s eleven.   You’ve only taken two hours to run through all the things that it took you all afternoon to do yesterday.  We should probably think about heading over to Ma’s house.”

“Okay, where should I put him now?”  I ask.

“Let’s just leave him here in the round yard.  I reckon this afternoon you might just be climbing on your fire breathing dragon there and having a ride.”

I feel my eyes widen and a small shudder of fear spirals down my spine.  Am I ready to ride?  I am still not sure.

“Don’t look so worried babe.  I told you I’d keep you safe.  It will be fine, just wait and see.” 

I give him a look that I’m sure he understands as an ‘I am not so sure about that’ as I bend down to scoop up the rope on the ground and we both head for the gate together.

“C’mon, let’s go.  Hope you’re hungry!”  He chirps as he once again grabs my hand and starts towing me towards the house to clean up.

Arriving back at the house, we quickly wash our hands and faces in his laundry.  I then head to his en suite to check my hair and assess what I actually look like after a couple of hours in the round yard. 

One look in the mirror and a small screech escapes my lips.

I hear heavy steps running towards me and Jax suddenly appears in the doorway, “What?  Are you okay?”

“No I’m not! Look at me!” I hit him with my OMG look and point at my face.

“Look at what?” he says, appearing genuinely confused.

“I look like
shit.
”

I emphasize the shit as I couldn’t look any worse.  My hair is all windswept and sticking out of my ponytail.  My shirt is once again filthy and chewed on.  There’s what I’m sure is Maverick poop on the side of one of my legs.  I’m also not wearing any make-up.  Along with that little list of goodies, I’m sure I stink again.

“No you don’t, you look
beautiful,
” he says smiling.

“I do not fucking look beautiful.  I look like a train wreck, don’t bull shit me.  I’m not going anywhere looking like this.”

I finish my growl and stare defiantly into his eyes.  Does he not realize that no female goes visiting
anywhere
without a shower and a change of clothes? 

I see him looking at me thoughtfully for a while as I continue to glare at him.

“Get in the shower, I’ll ring Teagan.  She can bring you some things to wear.”

He says this slowly, looking resigned to what he needs to do.

I feel the anger slowly slide away as the realization that he will do whatever he needs to do keep me here.  Happiness washes slowly over me.  He really does try so hard.

“No, don’t do that,” I feel sorry for being such a bitch. 

“How about you find me a clean shirt?  I’ll try to wipe some of the shite off my legs and I’ll just fix my hair.”

I see his eyes soften and he smiles gently at me. 

I feel myself softening as I stare into his gorgeous eyes and my eyes move down to stare at his beautiful lips.

Please kiss me
I think as I grab my bottom lip in my teeth and start nibbling nervously.  I see his eyes move to my lips and he steps in closer.

“Thank you baby.”
He whispers as he reaches out to gently pluck my lip from between my teeth with his fingers.  He sweeps his face in closer to mine and I can feel his warm breath whispering against my face.