Casey's Courage Read Online Free PDF

stalls. He watched Jake approach on a big, sorrel gelding.
    He stepped out of the pickup. “Morning, looks like you have everything going at top speed around here.”
    Jake reined in his horse. “Casey’s doing the organizing. I just see that everything keeps going. Anything we can do for you this morning?”
    Tres shook his head. “No, actually I came to see if you need any more help.”
    Jake gave a little jerk of his head toward the stables. “You might talk to Casey. She’s over there at the stables near the breeding barn. While you’re over that way, you might like to look at the studs. Ira will be around there somewhere.”
    Tres closed the door of his pickup. “I wouldn’t have thought Ira could get around anymore, as broken up as he was at one time.”
    Jake eyes glanced toward the road where dust fogged up. “Don’t look much older than he did when you were here last. He can still manage the stallions and the breeding sessions better than anybody I know. ‘Course he does have to have some young muscle for help now.”
    Tres saw what caused the dust. Two flatbed trucks toiled up the road with portable restrooms painted white and maroon. He grinned as Jake turned and rode toward them pulling a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, no doubt a diagram for placement of the portables. Tres headed to the stables. Before he rounded the corner, he heard Casey’s voice. It had a subtle, hypnotic quality with a seductive tone that stirred him. He listened.

    “Let’s do it again. Remember, it’s the horse, not you, on display,” she coached the group. “Now, keep the horse between you and the buyers. Always have one hand close under the chin of the horse with a loop of the lead-rope in the other hand. Turn so the horse’s chest is to the audience. Don’t walk in front. Turn your horse around so the rump is to the audience then lead it to the exit gate. Now, pretend the auctioneer hasn’t yet said ‘sold’, mount, and circle the ring riding bareback, directing the horse with your knees.”
    Tres rounded the corner as eight jeans-clad riders slid off the horses they were practicing with. Every one of them patted the horse he or she had been riding and watched Casey with grins. Tres could see they were confident.
    When Casey spotted him, she spoke to one of the riders. “Todd, you take over for me.” She turned to Tres. “Hi, come meet the people who’ll be showing the horses during the sale.”
    The young people eyed him speculatively. After introductions and a short, polite conversation about the sale, Casey sent her helpers to get more horses to put through their paces.
    Tres noticed dust had already coated her sweat-streaked shirt. “I came to see if you need more help to get things finished up before the sale.”
    She smiled. “I don’t think so. It would be great if you can be here for the sale. Buyers tend to be freer with their money when the owner socializes with them.”
    He wondered what those smiling lips tasted like. Instead of finding out, he said, “Can you give me a crash course in bloodlines and winning records?”

    She looked at him like he had lost his mind for just a second before she pulled a folded-up catalog out of her hip pocket. “I tell you what. Why don’t you take this and go talk to Ira about bloodlines? The records are listed in the catalog. You can study them for your homework tonight.”
    Tres scanned the area. “J.D. had no idea what he was getting into, did he?”
    Casey shrugged. “Probably not, but he would have loved being a part of it all.”
    Tres knew if he took off her sunshades he’d see dark circles under her eyes from fatigue. He gripped the catalog in his hand that still held the heat from her body. He suspected his grandfather and her father, while trying to make their dreams come true, had taken away her youth without even realizing it.
    A ripple of ire fizzed through him. “At the risk of sounding like I did the summer we met, I’ll give you