THE CLOUDLESS, CLEAR blue sky the following morning promised that the day was going to be another scorcher. Being an early riser, I wasn’t bothered much by the time difference, so I was up and had fed and watered Moth and given him his morning walk by the time Bliss came into the practice ring that she and Vandal had used the day before.
“Good, you’re on time; I like that.” She nodded in greeting. Behind her the gray mare she’d ridden earlier bumped her nose against the back of Bliss’s head, mouthing her hair. I flinched, knowing just how much it could hurt to have a horse eat your head, automatically reaching for my own hair, now pinned up in a braid. “Geoff’s going to help us this morning. Is that all you have to wear?”
I looked down at my wrinkled jeans that were the only riding cloth
