Page 9 of One Wild Chance

I press my lips together. Summer knows that the fastest way to get under my skin is to remind me that I’m trapped here. Looking at her with that chin up and a smile that’s equal parts challenge and sass, I already know she won’t make this easy. She’s good with the horses and stubborn enough to outlast me purely out of spite.

I give her a two-finger wave. “See you at five a.m., Daniels. Try not to miss me too much before then.”

“I’ll be there at four fifty-nine,” she calls after me. “And I won’t.”

Ah, there she is. Smart-mouthed Summer. I don’t turn around, but as I head back inside, I’m fighting a smile.

Chapter 4

Summer

Eat my dust, cowboy.

I turn over the engine in my truck and peel out of the parking lot, gravel crunching under my tires. Reba McEntire is playing on the speakers, and I turn it loud enough for the entire town to sing along. I need something to focus on other than that stubborn man who makes everything a competition.

As I belt out a tune with Reba, my mind still replays those glacier eyes and the clench of his jaw. Jaxon’s always been a smoke show, even when he doesn’t crack a smile—with those broad shoulders and the way his brown hair curls around the nape of his neck, just overgrown enough to be sexy but not long enough to warrant a haircut.

I’ll bet he still looks good on a horse.

I blink that thought away hard and fast. I have more important things to dwell on than Jaxon on a horse, or how my heart inconveniently stuttered when I ran into him today. Like the fact he’s already decided I stole land from his parents that should rightfully belong to him.

Truth is, Miriam offered it to me. I told her about my dream of starting a flower business, and she looked at the field next to the house and said, “Why don’t you take it? I’d love to see flowers outside my window.”

Together we came up with the name Wildflower Farms, after my mom’s nickname for me. Then she threw in the old red barn as a workspace before I could argue.

Unfortunately, Jaxon wasn’t around for that discussion. He just came home, found me on his land, and drew his own conclusions. In my defense, I’d had four people steal from the field this month, so I was ready to wage war on any thief before I realized who he was.

His reaction was what I’d have guessed. But I didn’t expect to care as much as I do. Because in his eyes, I’m just a squatter without a claim to anything of my own.

That’s exactly why my flower business has to succeed. Not to prove him wrong—although that would be a satisfying bonus—but because Wildflower Farms is the first thing that’s ever been entirely mine.

Golden Springs, though, is not a town that takes well to new ideas, and my little business hasn’t flourished the way I’d hoped. Most people won’t pay fifty bucks for a bouquet when they can grow their own out back. But drive ten minutes out of town, and you’ll find miles of white and black fences rolling over bluegrass hills, million-dollar stallions grazing in fields, and horse farms with names that go back several generations.

That’s where my money is. A farmer at the yearling sale might own a stallion worth more than most people’s retirement portfolios, but you’d never know it from his dust-covered boots and twenty-year-old truck that’s beat-up.

The air changes once you leave Golden Springs and hit farm country. Most folks around here would say it smells like money.

I turn onto the long drive and take in the rolling fields, thinking how lucky the Chance brothers are, inheriting all of this. During today’s meeting, though, Jaxon looked irate that he’d have to sacrifice anything for that inheritance.

Of course he just wants to sell the farm so he can get his money and leave. He doesn’t understand what it cost his parents to keep this place running. The long seasons, the poor investments, the years when the horses didn’t pan out, and the rare occasions when they did.

Jaxon got his dreams handed to him on a silver platter while resenting the very thing that gave him those dreams—the ranch that his parents devoted their lives to. Everything came easily to him, even becoming a pro hockey player.

I park my truck next to the mare barn before the rest of the day slips away. I’ve already done my morning rounds in the broodmare barn, but I didn’t have time to check on Rebel. She’s at the fence before I even reach it, pressing her nose into my palm as if she’s been waiting on me. “Sorry I’m late,” I whisper as I stroke her velvet nose.

For a horse that spent her first year here trying to put distance between herself and everyone on the property, she’s made progress. The Chances bought the unbroken mare at auction two years ago, with a reputation for being more trouble than she was worth. Unfortunately, John never got the chance to train her before he died from a heart attack, and she’s been unfinished business ever since.

She still won’t tolerate a saddle or a rider, but that’s because I have to earn her trust first. Rebel and I understand each other that way.

I rub my hand along her neck, thinking of the first day I showed up unannounced at the barn with no experience and a lot of nerve, and Miriam hired me on the spot. I thought it was because the barns were bursting with horses and she was desperate for extra hands.

But Miriam must have seen something in me—a sixteen-year-old girl raised by a single mother, who’d learned early that the only thing standing between her and a better life was a job opportunity.

Miriam marched me to the barn where Jaxon was mucking out stalls. “Jaxon, we have a new farmhand,” Miriam said. “This is Summer.”

His sleeves were rolled up over tan forearms, a bandana tied around his head to keep the sweat from his eyes. When he looked over, his gaze was the most striking metallic gray I’d ever seen.

He sized me up in about three seconds, then turned to his mom. “You hired a girl?” he said. “Does she know anything about horses?”