Pamela Britton - A Cowboy's Pride

“Good job,” the girl cried.

He was on a horse, could actually feel the saddle beneath his butt. He tried clenching his thighs, but he only had marginal feeling in them. Still, it might be enough to hold on...if he clenched hard enough.

“Well done,” Cabe echoed.

On a horse for the first time in almost a year. On a horse that hadn’t moved an inch and that seemed to realize he was a damn useless human being. His breath hitched as he inhaled, his eyes suddenly burning hot.

Don’t you dare blubber.

He closed his eyes, waited a few breaths, then opened them again.

He wasn’t useless. He would find something to do. Anything had to be better than staring at four walls.

Feeling sorry for yourself.

When he opened his eyes again, Cabe was staring up at him, but another person was by his side. Alana stood there, too, and she was smiling, her own eyes rimmed with tears.

“Congratulations,” she said softly. “You’re back on.”

If she’d been hoping to lift his spirits, her words had the opposite effect. “I might be back on, but I still can’t ride.”

His words came out like a death ray, melting her pretty little smile.

“Not yet.” She glanced at Cabe. “Not yet.” She appeared to take a deep breath. “We usually walk on either side of our guests when they ride for the first time. Did you need us to do that?”

Like he was some kind of toddler on a pony ride? “No.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

Alana mounted her own horse less than ten minutes later, but you’d have thought they had just secured Trent Anderson to a medieval torture device, so loudly did he protest. The man still grumbled under his breath.

“Okay, let’s go,” Cabe said, swinging up onto his own horse.

“This is ridiculous,” she heard Trent say. “I can hold on. You didn’t need to strap me into this thing.”

She risked glancing in his direction, although she sensed if he caught her staring, he wouldn’t be pleased. The man seemed to have taken an instant dislike to her. Well, the feeling was mutual, never mind how good-looking he was.

“It’s for your own safety,” Rana said. “Even though you might feel capable of balancing in the saddle, we can’t risk you falling off, especially since you don’t want us to spot you while you’re riding.” She grinned at him. “Try and use your leg to kick Baylor forward.”

“I’m a paraplegic,” Trent shouted right back. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

To give Rana credit, she didn’t let his words faze her. “You’re a partial paraplegic.”

Alana almost smiled. The girl sounded forty, not fourteen.

“Your horse responds to hip movement,” Rana added. “A portion of your thighs still work, so use them. Pretend you’re kicking. It’ll move your hips, which will cue Baylor forward.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Yes, it will. I know. I was once a paraplegic, too, a full paraplegic, so don’t tell me what you can and cannot do.”

Way to go, Rana, Alana thought. Don’t let him push you around. She shifted her gaze to Trent. The look on his face was priceless.

“You had a spinal injury?” he asked.

Cabe kicked his horse forward then. “Didn’t you know? That’s how we got into this gig.”

No, he hadn’t been told. Alana could see that. So what was the guy doing here? From what Cabe had told her, this was supposedly some kind of last resort, but he clearly didn’t want anything to do with therapy.

It was her turn to nudge her horse forward. “It’s time you rejoined the land of the living, Trent.” She met his gaze head on. “So either kick that horse forward, or get left behind.”

She gave Cabe and Rana a look, one that clearly said to follow her lead. They did.

“Hey,” she heard Trent call out.

Rana went so far as to kick her horse into a lope, Cabe following suit. Alana didn’t glance back.

“Hey!”

Keep riding, Alana.

“Don’t you dare leave me here.”

Reluctantly, she pulled on the reins, but only because she’d caught the edge of panic to his voice. But when she turned back, the man wasn’t even looking at her. Rage had him contorting atop that horse like a Jedi Knight trying to use the force. Alana almost laughed, although there was nothing funny about the situation.

“Use your hips,” she called out.

He could move them. Patients with an L2-S5 injury had movement through the pelvis. Some even had moderate to mild use of their limbs below the waist—like Trent. But the man acted as if he were a quadriplegic.

“Try pretending you’re scooting a chair forward.”

Miracle of miracles, the man finally listened, his hips thrusting so forcefully, it was a good thing they’d strapped him in. He’d have toppled forward otherwise.

The horse moved.

“There you go.”

He did it again. Baylor took another step. Alana turned her horse toward the pasture.

But when she caught up with everyone at the pasture gate, Alana turned back in time to watch Trent thrust his hips forward like he had a hula hoop around his legs and not a horse between them. Baylor ambled along, the animal’s head low to the ground, legs slowly moving in tune with Trent’s hips.

“Good thing we didn’t just rob a bank,” Alana quipped.

Cabe smiled at her. “You know, you were pretty hard on the man.”

She slouched in the saddle.

“That’s not like you.”

No. It wasn’t.

“Doesn’t have anything to do with how good-looking he is, does it?”

Alana glanced around quickly for Rana. She was out of hearing range, on the other side of the fence, holding open the gate for them all. “I’m not even going to answer that question.” She clucked her horse forward.

“I’ve heard the buckle bunnies talking,” Cabe said as he rode alongside her.

She had, too.

And that was exactly why she wanted no part of the man. He might be done with rodeo, but she had a feeling rodeo wouldn’t be done with him. Men in his position usually went to work for the Professional Rodeo Association in some capacity. He’d be on the road 24/7, not exactly boyfriend material. Besides, she would never leave Rana. Never. The girl had already lost enough people in her young life.

Boyfriend?

“I’m not interested in Trent Anderson,” she told Cabe. “So you can get that idea right out of your head.”

Cabe just shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I say so,” she firmly told him.

She just wished she believed her own words.

Chapter Five

Frustrated.

The word summed up how Trent felt two days later. The damn woman wouldn’t leave him alone. She kept strapping him onto a dang horse, insisting that he could use his hips better, clamp down with his thighs harder, use his lower leg to kick Baylor forward faster. He had rub marks on his calves and bruises on the insides of his thighs.

Today she agreed to take it easier on him, but only after he’d almost fallen out of his wheelchair after yesterday’s particularly grueling session. They would work on leg-strengthening today, she’d told him, and resume riding the next day.

He couldn’t wait.

A knock on the door sent his mood plummeting even more. “Enter.”

She swung the door wide, pretty blue eyes scanning the interior of his cabin as if worried he might be hiding from her. He wasn’t. He sat in his chair, which he’d positioned near the doorway of bedroom.

She smiled when she saw him. “Ready?”

Such a beautiful smile. Too bad she was a slave driver.

“Depends on what you have planned for me.”

The smile grew wider. “Actually, we’re going on a picnic.”

If she’d told him they were flying to Mars, she couldn’t have surprised him more. “A picnic is your idea of therapy?”