Seventeen-year-old Chloe Matthews is done with guys, done with her ex, and done with the cowboys of the Grand Teton Mountains. She refuses to get hurt again.
All that matters now are the horses. Every horse Chloe helps is another piece of herself pu...
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Jackson, Wyoming. My new town. So different from home. Better in most ways. It was the promise of a new life, a place where nobody knew me. My future was open and wild.
And I was free.
Burgundy clouds cast a mystical glow over the streets filled with horse-drawn carriages and slow-moving cars. I made my way past shops with western-style storefronts and overhanging balconies. Flowers burst out of barrels in each doorway, beckoning shoppers and blending their perfume with the scents of cinnamon, coffee and the crisp piney air.
I'd spent the last two hours posting my horse-training flyers up and down the plank-wood sidewalks of town. Flyers that featured a photo of my horse, Piper, and me, forehead to forehead, my hand on her cheek. I headed toward the next light pole as laughter and music tumbled out of cowboy bars, and shots thundered from an old west show a few streets over.
All I needed were a few good clients to work my way up to giving horse-training workshops with my gentle techniques. It was less about money, more the need to stay busy. But my phone showed that I hadn't received a single message yet. Determination spurred me toward the huge white antler arch that welcomed visitors to the grassy town square.
"Horse trainer, huh?" a girl my age said as she walked up and squinted at the flyer. She was a living, breathing Barbie doll. I could almost smell the plastic in her long legs and thick flaxen hair.
"Yep." I smiled. "Need a trainer?"
"Uh, no." She glared through her eyelashes as she walked away. "I already have the best trainer in town."
Okay. Not my first client. I headed down the street and just as I taped my last flyer to a light pole at the corner of Cache and Broadway, a sinewy arm reached over my head and tore it off.
"Hey!" I spun around to see a jerk cowboy squinting at my flyer in his hand. He couldn't have been more than a year older than I, but he was a foot taller in his jeans and cowboy boots, with the stubble on his chin glinting in the sun.
"Don't need any more horse trainers around here." He crumpled my flyer in his fist. "Especially no punk-rock, SoCal wannabes." His blue eyes challenged me from beneath his black cowboy hat.
The hair prickled on the back of my scalp. I almost backed away, but my anger urged me to I step up and rip the flyer out of his hand. "Give me that."
He gave me a sideways grin that was way too charming. Talk about cover material for American Cowboy magazine with his dark eyebrows and strong jawline, but I was done with guys. All of them. So I decided not to notice.
"I'm the only trainer this town needs," he said.
Heat flushed my cheeks. I drew myself to my full height, all five-feet-two of me. "You really think you own this whole town?"
