Page 30 of Taking What Was His

Mike took a step away. “Let’s go to the barn.”

“I’m with you.”

Roman followed Mike to a huge barn. Three sides of it were opened up to let air drift through. There was a waist-height fence around the arena. The area was filled with sand and different-sized wooden jumps. Shit, this wasn’t going to be much better to watch.

She smiled and waved when she and the horse walked in.

He waved back.

“I’m glad to see she’s got a life outside of this place and Jayden. I wasn’t around when her husband died, but I heard it took a while to get her even to smile.” Mike looked at him. “What do you do?”

“I’m the Police Captain at the ninth.”

“Oh, wow. I didn’t think she’d go for another cop.”

“I’m not in the field anymore, so it’s not dangerous.”

“That’s good.”

“I have to say what she does is way more dangerous than anything I ever did.”

Mike laughed.

“I’m not kidding. I think I’d rather be in a gunfight than to do what you guys do.”

“It’s not bad when you grow up with them as we did. You’ve never been around them, so they are still scary to you.”

Their attention was caught when she started to gallop around the ring. Her first jump wasn’t tall, but he still caught his breath. Another woman stood on the other side of the barn and talked with her the whole time.

Every jump got a little bigger as she went along. The second-to-last hurdle, the horse’s hoof caught on the top board and dropped it.

“I’ll be right back,” Mike said and jumped over the fence as another guy came from somewhere else to help put the board back up. All the while, Beth kept flying over other jumps. The other guy ran off, and Mike climbed over the fence next to him.

Beth came around and picked up a bit more speed and retook the jump. He heard the hoof hit the board, but it didn’t fall that time. She then took the last one and made it fine.

“Why doesn’t she look happy?”

“Even a hoof touching the pole takes points off.”

“Oh.”

“She’ll keep working with him until he gets it. He’s still young and new to this.”

Roman watched her stop by the woman, and they talked. The other guy took the reins, and she jumped off. The horse was led out, and another came in.

“You’ll love this. That’s her own personal horse that she jumps. She’ll be jumping her in a few weeks here at a low-key competition.”

“Yes, she told me about that. I’m planning on being here for it.”

“Jayden comes to every one of them.”

Roman watched as she was lifted onto the back of the new horse. The horse was beautiful. Pure black with a long mane and tail. It pranced around like it was dancing.

“She likes to show off,” Mike said.

Roman’s brows rose. “Beth does?”

Mike laughed. “Oh, good Lord, no. Loki. She knows she’s beautiful and likes to show everyone.”