Calden
rides up
on a horse.
Seriously: this is how the Stagsman who owns the house, the ranch, and the animals on the ranch shows up. He rides up on the back of a big chestnut, and it's too bad Eva's little girl Ellie isn't around because she. would be. beside herself to see what a Genuine Cowboy™ Calden really is. He has the reins looped around the saddlehorn, his dusty trailworn boots parked square in the stirrups; guides the animal with his knees, one hand relaxed atop the horn. A rope coiled from the back of the saddle. A battered stetson low on his brow, blue jeans on his ass, and his shirt-sleeves rolled up in deference to the heat.
He sees them a long way off. He doesn't change his pace, though. He comes straight at the small terrace on the lower level, just outside the guest suite, and when the chestnut starts to veer toward the barn he's accustomed to Calden guides him right back.
Some twenty or thirty feet away, the horse doesn't want to come any closer. It shies, it dances, its nostrils flare and its eyes roll. It's the rage. It's the smell. Calden steadies it with a hand on the side of the neck, the brim of the hat and the angle of his head hiding all but his jaw, his mouth. That mouth is set. It's frowning. When he has the animal under control, he sits back in the saddle and his eyes find Tamsin.
"Who the hell are these people?"
-- is what he asks her. Which might give her a sense of his reaction to all the hubbub on what amounts to his back porch. Not to mention: the stink. The mess.
rides up
on a horse.
Seriously: this is how the Stagsman who owns the house, the ranch, and the animals on the ranch shows up. He rides up on the back of a big chestnut, and it's too bad Eva's little girl Ellie isn't around because she. would be. beside herself to see what a Genuine Cowboy™ Calden really is. He has the reins looped around the saddlehorn, his dusty trailworn boots parked square in the stirrups; guides the animal with his knees, one hand relaxed atop the horn. A rope coiled from the back of the saddle. A battered stetson low on his brow, blue jeans on his ass, and his shirt-sleeves rolled up in deference to the heat.
He sees them a long way off. He doesn't change his pace, though. He comes straight at the small terrace on the lower level, just outside the guest suite, and when the chestnut starts to veer toward the barn he's accustomed to Calden guides him right back.
Some twenty or thirty feet away, the horse doesn't want to come any closer. It shies, it dances, its nostrils flare and its eyes roll. It's the rage. It's the smell. Calden steadies it with a hand on the side of the neck, the brim of the hat and the angle of his head hiding all but his jaw, his mouth. That mouth is set. It's frowning. When he has the animal under control, he sits back in the saddle and his eyes find Tamsin.
"Who the hell are these people?"
-- is what he asks her. Which might give her a sense of his reaction to all the hubbub on what amounts to his back porch. Not to mention: the stink. The mess.
BECAUSE OF LIGHT AND DUTY AND REASONS.