She tilted her head slightly, almost non-recognizable, but still there if you looked close enough. She crossed her arms, cocking on hip and looking him in the eyes. "What's your first thing you're gonna do?" SHe asked, taking a small step closer to him, a smile still on her face as she looked up slightly at him.

Rowan blinked, thinking deeply for a few seconds. "Not exactly sure, I didn't look at my list," He admitted, blinking once, twice, thrice in a bit of confusion.

"I just need to make sure the other horses are good and sound." She said, turning and walking away. She grabbed the first horse and groomed the mare out. Emma walked and grabbed a long lunge-line. She clipped the lunge-line onto the mare's halter before lunging her and 8 other mares out in the covered arena. Once Emma had finished with all the horses she was assigned, she grabbed Fury for a couple barrel runs. She let the mare walk around the covered arena before setting up 3 barrels in a clover pattern. She did a couple loping runs before giving Fury her head and did a few runs all out galloping and making under 16sec runs. Emma patted her mare's neck, walking her out before letting her explore again as she put the barrels away. Emma grabbed Fury and walked back into the barn, groomed the mare out, and put a cooler on her. She walked Fury to her stall and gave her a treat. "See you later, pretty girl." Emma murmured, kissing Fury's nose and walking to the tackroom to clean her saddle

Rowan nods and before he knew it they were both doing their own things. This time he didn't need to help with cattle, instead help break some colts that were late for breaking. It was not a good time and he got thrown once or twice, ending up with a few bruised ribs. Nothing new to the veteran, he wheezed as he walked into the barn, not wanting to ride at the moment and worsen his injury, so he instead fed Dyna like usual and went to clean some tack in the meantime. noticing Emma when he entered. "Fancy seein' you here," He teased as he grabbed his mares bridle and started to clean it, wheezing while he was completing his task.

"You okay?" She asked, hearing his breathing. She walked to the tack room and put her stuff away along with cleaning her brushes. She couldn't help but notice his muscles rippling along his arm

Rowan's head turned. "Had to break a few naughty colts today," He practically hissed with disdain. Taking a big inhale which was a bad idea, forcing a gasp of pain to leave him from his ribs. He could feel her gaze on him and it made him tense up slightly, but he watched her from his peripheral.

Emma sat down next to him with a nod and cleaned her saddle next to him, making sure to get every detail and intricate tooling cleaned and scrubbed if needed before putting conditioner on the leather and placing the saddle back on it's rack. She went and sat next to him again, playing with a piece of timothy that was on the ground mindlessly. "Where are you from?" She asked after a moment. Surely he wasn't from a low class of city slickers, but she couldn't pin down where he may be from exactly. She contimplated the possibilities in her head, waiting for his answer

Rowan inhaled, his icy, pale blue gaze met her for a moment before he went back to cleaning his mare's bridle. His gaze was absently fixated on the bit of the bridle. He let out a shuddering breath before responding.

"Somewhere where summers can be a ass.... Like Arizona, but not like dry-heat, more humid, the humidity will kill ya before the heat ever touches you, kind of humid summers. "

Rowan quietly rumbled with a small smile, shifting where he sat slightly as he worked on the bridle, every couple of minutes taking small glances toward the other. A small hum came from him as he worked before taking a pause.

"And it's not Florida,"

He adds with a harsh, wheezing laugh.

"How about you?"

He questions after catching his breath.

{Sorry for the new writing style, a lil- I kinda changed it up while working on other irl projects}

Emma nodded, letting this information sink in. "Georgia" She said simply, hearing the dinner bell from the house. "We should head back." She said, accidentally brushing his arm as she stood. "S-sorry" he said quickly, half running out