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were afraid I ’ d start some kind of hippie cult up there.”
    “That ’ s great.” Wolf laughed.
    “You think so?” she said, looking like she’d never gotten a compliment in her life. “Thanks.”
    Wolf looked down at the table top, embellished with pocket-knife graffiti. Miles loves Julie. Casey ♥ Caitlin forever. What had possessed him to take her to Norm ’ s, where half the kids in Kalispell flirted and fell in love? He should have just taken her for a damned walk somewhere. No, that would’ve been even more romantic. Pull yourself together, man.
    “So, Bridget filled me in,” he said. “You were engaged, or about to be?”
    “Never one for chit-chat, were you?”
    “If you don ’ t want to talk about it, it’s fine.” He looked her in the eyes. “But I’m genuinely interested.”
    “Okay, here goes: His name was— is —Ben. He was a classmate of mine. It was nothing set in stone. We had different ideas about the veterinary life, that ’ s all. He wanted to open up a big-city practice in Portland or Seattle. I wanted to work with horses exclusively. And I wanted to become a whisperer. Ben had absolutely zero interest in that.” She shrugged. “So that was the end of us.”
    “Zero interest in being part of your hippie cult?” said Wolf. “Good riddance, then.”
    She laughed, and he realized how long it had been since he’d made a woman do that, outside of a barroom or a bedroom, anyway. He wanted to make her laugh again. “I mean, you ’ re so into horses and doing your own thing. It ’ s hard to imagine you de-worming a cat in some Seattle office,” he said.
    She laughed again. Yes! “You’re right, I don’t work with cats, although they ’ d probably have something to teach me.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know the way a cat or a dog ’ ll take off and find a quiet place to soothe itself when it ’ s sick or hurt?”
    Wolf couldn ’ t take his eyes off Abby ’ s face. Her cheekbones, high and polished, her full, sumptuous lips. He realized this might be the one time he’d be allowed to stare at her, really take in her beauty, while he was in town, so he indulged himself. “Sure, I know,” he said.
    “Well, a horse ’ ll do that in the wild. And depending on the elements, it might not survive. But what if we humans could understand a horse ’ s natural ability to heal itself and combine that with our own skills? I ’ ll bet we could cut equine mortality by half.” Abby shook her hair loose and leaned forward. As she talked to him about these things she cared most passionately about, she had never looked sexier.
    “So, Wolf? You with me?” Abby asked.
    “Of course. I get what you mean. I ’ m just wondering, would what you ’ re talking about ever apply to rodeoing?”
    “Sure, it would.”
    “ But don’ t you think a rodeo horse is a different animal entirely?”
    “Not necessarily. Depends on its background, on how it was trained. You cowboys are so focused on performance, on the short-term results you need from an animal, you skip all the most important steps. You forget you ’ ve got to build a rapport with a horse.”
    “Come on now, don ’ t lump us all together. I love Bullet. We definitely have a—whadya call it—a rapport .”
    “Wolf, rapport or not, I know how the rodeo works. You pick out a good horse, ride it into the ground, then go out and pick another one. There ’ s no time for a real connection.”
    Connection. That’s what he was enjoying so much about this—when was the last time he’d connected with a woman, with anyone? “Give me a little more credit than that. I treat Bullet like a queen.”
    Abby stirred what remained in her coffee cup in slow circles. “That ’ s good to hear,” she said.
    Treat her like a queen… just how Wolf should have treated Abby on prom night, instead of calling to cancel the morning of. Was it his imagination, or was she thinking the same thing he was? It was the last thing he wanted to