Broken Trouble (Broken Storm Series Book 1)

Chapter 20

After helping Polly pick the fruit for her pies, it didn't take very long for her to shoo me out of the ranch house and into the yard to find Landon. Apparently she had said everything she felt the need to say to me in private and just wanted me out of the way now.

I glanced around the yard, searching for Landon or really any of the guys for that matter. It was like a ghost town outside and after circling around the yard, looking through all the horse pens and fields, I gave up. It wasn't like I could walk all over the ranch searching for them, I would just end up getting lost, especially beings I had no idea how big their ranch was.

It was obvious they weren't around, which felt odd considering the entire time I'd been on the ranch, one of them had always been around. The silence of the country air was deafening, with just the random horse snort and the muffled noise of Polly inside the house.

I wandered over to Storms corral and went inside. I didn't get to spend much time with him. It seemed like the guys were always taking up most of my time, so I spent time with Storm whenever I could. Aside from rebuilding the barn, he was the reason I was staying around, wasn't I?

I sighed and relaxed as soon as Storms muzzle touched my hand, his breath wafting across my skin in soft whispers. I always felt calm around Storm, our trust growing with every minute we were together.

I pulled out some Sugar Straws from my back pocket, something I always seemed to be carrying around with me now, and opened one up to feed it to him. Finding a brush on the other side of the arena, I walked over to him. He reached his nose out towards it, his ears pinning back as he snorted, obviously not liking the brush idea. I reached forward with my hand and ran it across his shoulder, feeling his muscles twitching underneath my hand. Alternating between running my hands across him and feeding him Sugar Straws, I worked my way across his body, avoiding all of his sensitive spots that I had learned last time. When I reached the other shoulder, I nonchalantly raised the brush in my other hand and gently touched it to his coat.

With a squeal of rage, his ears pinned back, his head snapped around to grab the brush in his teeth, before flinging it to the ground. There, he commenced trying to stomp it into the dirt. When he seemed satisfied with his hoofwork, he snorted and bobbed his head, like he was proud that he had killed the brush. I laughed, holding out my hand towards him. Storm walked forward, nudging my hand, then my pockets.

"Okay, Okay, I get it. No more brushes, just hands and Sugar Straws," I pulled out a few Sugar Straws and poured them into my hand, letting him eat it out of my hand. With the brush broken and stomped into the dirt, he was back to being mostly relaxed and carefree, the danger of the evil brush gone. "I probably shouldn't even be giving you this, you'll think I'm praising you for killing the brush."

Storm snorted, then nuzzled my hand for more. I only had one Sugar Straws left in my pocket and I needed to save it for when I left the corral. Storm nudged me again, pushing me forward. "Not yet." I said, moving away from him, only for him to follow.

It made me wonder how long he would follow me around for. Walking forward across the corral, I could hear Storm following close behind, not stopping or even hesitating until I paused in the middle of the arena to pet him. He sniffed at my hand as it passed him, then his ears flickered and he lurched away, insulted that I wasn't giving him to last Sugar Straw immediately. I watched as he picked up speed, until he was running as fast as he could around me and the arena, his head held high, only lowering when he bucked occasionally.

He might be on a sugar high.

After a few laps around, he suddenly turned and ran straight towards me. I froze, unsure of which way to move, but then decided not to. I was building our friendship off of trust. What would that say to him if I didn't trust him not to trample me into the ground?