2. Nick
Chapter 2
Nick
M elanie’s not going to come by the ranch, not after last night’s catastrophe of a first impression. I couldn’t have made the idea of riding for me less appealing if I’d tried. My grand plan of waltzing into the museum gala and dazzling her went south before I even arrived at the venue when I discovered the tux I’d borrowed didn’t fit properly and I didn’t have any dress shoes, just my boots. I left the house pissed off, and by the time Melanie decided to join me on the roof, my plans were shivering with the penguins in the South Pole.
I ought to call her and apologize. It’s not Melanie’s fault I was waiting on that freezing rooftop for damn near an hour. The second I walked into the gala, I couldn’t wait to leave. It’s my fault for trusting that Mirielle lady when she promised to introduce Melanie to me first thing. Why the hell would I be her priority? It was clear from the way Melanie spoke to me that she had no idea who I am or why I was there. I shouldn’t have snapped at her, but she was so fucking hostile it was hard not to respond in kind.
Now I’m SOL. She was my one chance, and I went and pissed her off in less than five minutes. I know better than that. Women like her—rich, stuck-up, silver-spoon debutantes—have to be handled with care. They’re the fine china of humanity and I treated her like a Dixie plate. I’d hate me, too, if I were in her over-priced heels.
I slide my pocket knife along the top of a fresh bag of horse feed with too much force, and the bag splits down the front. Feed spills all over the ground, and pellets roll in every direction. I know it’s going to take me ages to clean up the mess—not to mention I’ve now wasted half a bag of feed. I can afford it now, but it still makes me flinch to throw thirty bucks in the dirt. Fifteen years ago, it would’ve come out of my paycheck and I would’ve gotten a dressing-down for the ages.
It doesn’t matter how high I climb or how much I achieve. Part of me will always be the scrawny teenager in ill-fitting boots, breaking my back day and night to take care of rich people’s horses for a pittance. All those years I spent bonding with some of the most incredible animals on Earth, only to watch a parade of jackasses in skin-tight white breeches and fucking spandex blazers take full credit for the horses’ success, bent my soul out of shape. There’s a bitterness under my skin I’ll never be able to purge. Last night only reinforced the truth: I might be closer to their tax bracket now, but I’ll never be one of them.
Edwin, my stable manager and best friend of thirty years, sidles into the barn, whistling. He eyes the mess I made and chuckles lightly.
“Skipped breakfast today, boss? Wanted a little snack?” he asks.
“No, that’s for you,” I say, gesturing at the pile of feed pellets at my feet. “You weren’t in your stall, so I didn’t know where to leave it.”
“So you chose to leave it everywhere?”
“Yep.”
He laughs, and grabs a shovel off one of the hooks on the wall near the front of the barn.
“I’ll clean this up and finish feeding the horses. Don’t want you to be late for your first appointment,” he says.
I squint at my watch. The face is scuffed up, but I can still see the hands clearly. It’s barely seven in the morning, and my first appointment isn’t until eleven. There’s a homeschool kid with Olympic dreams who boards his dressage horse with me, and after him there’s a long break before the afternoon riding lessons start. Edwin knows as well as I do that I’m not the one running any of those appointments, though. I’ve got a staff of trainers for the kids in the afternoon, and the homeschool kid has his own coach.
“What the hell kind of appointment do I have at this hour?” I ask Edwin.
Can’t be the bank, ’cause they’re not open yet. Won’t be a potential buyer, because I have enough sense not to schedule those visits until after morning chores are done, and I don’t have any horses for sale at the moment. I’m at a loss. Unless…it’s a long shot, but…
“You tell me. All I know is there’s a brunette chick in expensive athleisure headed down the drive,” Edwin says. “Figured you were expecting someone, since she seems to know her way around. She doesn’t look too happy to be here, though. Don’t know where you found her, but you might wanna put her back.”
From the way he’s grinning at me, it’s clear he thinks this woman is some sort of paramour. But I’d bet every last one of my hard-earned dollars it’s Melanie Archer, here to prove me wrong. I can’t help the self-satisfied smile the thought inspires. Maybe she’s not such fine china, after all.
“How close is she?” I ask.
“At the rate she was stomping, I’d say you’ve got thirty seconds,” he says. “You need a running start? I can hold her up a little.”
“Nah, I’m ready for this.”
It’s true; we’re on my turf now. I’m comfortable here, not stuffed into a borrowed tuxedo shirt with a too-tight collar and stranded in a sea of people with pedigrees to rival the finest racehorses. This is my barn, on my property. Surrounded by the scent of hay and warm animal, I couldn’t be more confident.
“Need me to make myself scarce?” Edwin asks.
“You might want to see this, actually,” I counter. “Our lives are about to change forever.”
He gives me a questioning look, but I don’t elaborate. The horse nearest me—Ophelia Jane—flicks her ears forward toward the open door. I cross my arms over my chest and lean against Ophelia’s stall door to wait for Melanie to appear. The path from the driveway to the stables is curved, so I hear her footsteps before she comes into view. I do my best to arrange my face into something pleasant—not one of my strengths, according to Edwin—while Ophelia nibbles at the collar of my flannel shirt.
“I know, I know. I spilled your breakfast all over the floor,” I tell her. “Don’t fret; you’ll still get fed.”
The footsteps get closer, and sure enough, Melanie is the athleisure-clad ‘chick’ Edwin spotted. She doesn’t look angry, like I expected, though. I’d say her expression is closer to discomfort.
Interesting.
“Morning, Miss Manners,” I call out. “What a pleasant surprise.”
Her lips purse slightly and her eyes narrow.
Shit. The nickname may have been a miscalculation.
“Good morning, Mr. Korbel,” she says stiffly.
Behind me, Edwin coughs, but it doesn’t quite mask his laughter.
“Please, Melanie, call me Nick,” I say. “This is Edwin Soteres, my stable manager and oldest friend. Edwin, this is Melanie Archer. She’s going to compete GT for us. I have a feeling she can take us all the way to the next Olympics. ”
Edwin pulls the work glove off his right hand and offers the limb to Melanie. She shakes his hand with a polite smile on her face that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, despite Edwin’s enthusiastic grin.
“Pleasure to meet you, Melanie. You’re gonna love GT—he’s an unbelievable horse! This is excellent news. It means a lot to us,” he says.
“I haven’t agreed to anything,” she says quickly. “Nicholas has gotten ahead of himself.”
I try—and fail—to keep the scowl off my face when she calls me Nicholas.
“Once you meet GT, you’ll sing a different tune, Mel,” I say.
“Don’t call me Mel,” she snaps.
“Then don’t call me Nicholas.”
Edwin coughs again. I don’t feel so bad about him cleaning up the feed mess anymore.
“Fine, Nick ,” she says.
“Was that so hard?” I ask. “Are you going to insist on calling GT Grand Theft Equine, too?”
She rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe you…never mind. Not the point.”
“No, finish the sentence, please,” I say. “I’d love to hear your thoughts.”
It comes off more sarcastic than intended, but once again, she’s pushing my buttons. It’s taking a significant effort on my part to keep this civil. I can’t afford to chase her off a second time, though, so I persevere.
“Why would you name a descendent of Secretariat ‘Grand Theft Equine’?” she asks. “That’s like putting truck nuts on a Bentley. What is wrong with you?”
Edwin doesn’t bother to hide his laugh with a cough this time. As amusing as it is to hear the phrase truck nuts coming out of Melanie’s mouth, I’m more focused on the subtext. She looked up GT’s pedigree at least eight generations back. Despite her outright refusal last night, not only is she here—she looked up my horse. There’s still a chance, then, that I can persuade her to compete for me; I just have to go about it carefully.
“Who says I named the horse?” I challenge.
“Unless there’s another Nicholas Korbel breeding thoroughbreds in the United States, you named that poor horse after a violent video game,” she says ferociously.
Whatever research she did after we met must have been cursory, since she hasn’t mentioned the all-important jr. suffix on my name.
“GT is no weirder a name than Explosions W or American Pharaoh. Any other pressing issues you’d like to shout at me?” I ask mildly .
“Yes, actually. Why are you jumping a racehorse? And why is your tack room full of nothing but Western saddles? What gives you the audacity to even approach me with this far-fetched idea about making it to the Olympics when you’re clearly nothing more than a rancher with more money than sense?” she asks, hands on her hips and eyes blazing. “Stick to trail rides and teaching the next generation of city-bred, wanna-be cowboys how to lasso things. I bet you don’t know the first thing about equestrian sports.”
There are plenty of things I could address there. She’s barely made it six feet into one of my three stables, so she has no idea what kind of tack I have. The woman doesn’t even know what kind of horses I’ve got on the property, or what my background is. She’s got no way of knowing I’ve been in the horse world longer than she has, because I was never the one in the saddle. Most importantly, she might know who GT’s parents are, but she’s oblivious about mine. I decide, however, to keep things simple and start with her first question.
“I’m not jumping him; you are.”
She snorts, sounding alarmingly like Ophelia Jane. “Don’t get cute with me.”
“Oh, you think I’m cute? I’m flattered, Miss Manners, but I’m afraid I’m still not interested in anything but your athletic prowess,” I tell her.
“I haven’t agreed to do this. I could still walk away,” she warns, all the warmth drained out of her tone.
But for some reason, I don’t think she’s going anywhere. I call her bluff by sweeping my arm out in a wide gesture toward the open door. “Be my guest.”
She doesn’t budge. The barn is silent with the exception of the scrape of Edwin’s shovel against the ground as he scoops up some more of the spilled feed at a glacially slow pace—probably so he can enjoy the show Melanie and I are putting on. He’s going to be insufferable about this.
“If you’re not here to meet GT and start your training, then why are you here?” I ask Melanie.
She looks down, her gaze landing in the vicinity of my boots. “I came here to apologize for my attitude last night, but I’m second-guessing whether or not I want to anymore.”
I avoid checking the sky for flying pigs, but just barely. She wants to apologize to me? Or at least she did before I opened my ornery mouth. After last night’s stunning performance, I ought to have learned my lesson. If I’m ever going to convince Melanie to work with me—and I need Melanie to work with me—I have to turn this situation around. And fast .
“I should apologize to you,” I say. “I wasn’t very gentlemanly last night.”
“Shocker,” Edwin mutters, loud enough for Melanie to hear.
Her gaze flits to him, then to me. For the first time, I see something in her expression other than hostility. Maybe I’m imagining it, but there’s a chance Melanie Archer is smiling at me. Not with her mouth, but her eyes are doing something new. Of course, it’s in response to Edwin mocking me, so it’s not exactly a win. I’ll take whatever progress I can get, though.
“The thing is, I’ve been trying to track you down for a while now,” I explain. “I tried calling. A lot. Not that you ever answered. You’re a tough woman to get ahold of, so when I spoke to Mirielle Cunningham and she promised you’d be at the fundraiser and she’d introduce us, I assumed she’d filled you in. You came barreling out of those doors toward me like you were on a mission, and well…you know the rest.”
To my utter bewilderment, she blushes. “That might be my fault, actually. Not the calls—I don’t take calls from unknown numbers. But last night, with Mirielle. She called me before the gala and asked me to find her when I got there, which I did, but then we got locked in a gallery with these breathing statues and my—well…long story short, as soon as the gallery doors opened, I bolted. She called again last night after I went home to see if I’d met you. So, I apologize for my part in last night’s unpleasantness. Let’s put it behind us.”
“Water under the bridge, Miss—Melanie,” I say, catching the Miss Manners nickname a split second before it escapes my mouth. When she says things like last night’s unpleasantness , it’s hard to hold back making fun of how formally she carries herself.
“Well, alright then. I’ll…probably not see you again, but have a nice day,” she says.
This time, she turns around and walks out the door, no bluff about it.
“Wait—don’t leave yet,” I call out. “You haven’t met the horse.”
She stops and her head falls forward, chin to her chest. I hold my breath until she turns around.
“I’m not making any promises,” she warns.
“I’m not asking for any,” I say, hands held up in surrender. “You dragged yourself out here at the crack of dawn to apologize for something that was mostly my fault. The least I can do is introduce you to the most incredible stallion I’ve ever known.”
She frowns slightly, and I realize she’s looking over my shoulder to where Ophelia Jane is probably chewing on the top of her stall door. I love Ophelia fiercely, but she’s no show pony. None of the horses in this stable are, since it’s the place where I keep the older, milder-mannered horses who are suitable for kiddie riding lessons.
“Okay,” Melanie says cautiously. “I’ll meet the infamous GT.”
“Right this way.”
To her credit, she only hesitates a second before following me further onto the property. The other two stables, where I keep my own horses and the horses I board for rich people like Melanie, are just behind the work horse stable—hidden from view if you’re on the road, but obvious to anyone headed to the corrals or the riding trails. I look over my shoulder so I can catch the moment Melanie sees them, and I’m not disappointed. From the way her lips part and her eyes widen, it’s clear she underestimated me again.
Good. I can use that to my advantage.
I lead her into the first stable. It’s roomier than the work stable with a larger tack room and fewer stalls. Melanie doesn’t bother hiding her surprise as she takes it all in—the extensive collection of English saddles, the excessive supply of blankets and fly masks, the fresh paint job, the sweet smell of clean hay, and the warm animal scent of expensive, spoiled horses.
I don’t need to point GT out. Even if he didn’t have a gold-plated name placard outside his stall, there’s no mistaking the proud chestnut stallion sticking his head over the stall door to sniff the air. Sometimes, I swear the horse knows he’s special. The way he stands has a certain awe-inspiring pride to it. Melanie can see it, too. She’s mesmerized, taking slow steps toward him like she’s being pulled into a whirlpool.
“Go ahead,” I tell her. “Like I told you last night, he’s more easy-going than your typical stallion.”
He proves me right, instantly. Melanie holds out her hand, palm flat, and he sniffs it loudly for a few seconds before determining she hasn’t brought him any food. Carefully, she strokes his muzzle, eyes glued to him. I know a woman in love when I see one, and she’s just fallen for GT, head over heels.
“He’s no racehorse,” she says reverently.
“Not nearly neurotic enough, no,” I agree.
She pets him a while longer, her slim fingers pale against the deep brown of his hair. I stay quiet, because it’s working. Little by little, the horse is winning her over. He was always my best chance, and I’m gratified to see how neatly he’s getting the job done .
“I’m out of shape,” she says, still looking at GT. “I don’t ride every day anymore. There’s no guarantee I’ll make it through a single qualifier, let alone five. I’m not making any Olympic promises.”
Bullshit. She rides a minimum of four times a week at a stable fifteen miles east of here where Edwin’s brother works. Even if I didn’t know that, she’s hardly out of shape. Her leggings don’t leave much to the imagination in terms of muscle tone. I’m not about to bring any of that up when she’s halfway to agreeing, though.
“I’m not under any illusions,” I say instead.
“I’ll train hard. I’m not in touch with a coach at the moment, but I could call in some favors.”
“No need. I’ll coach you.”
She arches an eyebrow so high it nearly hits her hairline. Her skepticism confirms all her research was focused on the horse, and not me. Works for me—it leaves me one last ace to play.
“My mom is Lisa Conway.”
Melanie’s other eyebrow joins the first. I know she recognizes the name; my mom was supposed to be Melanie’s coach when she moved up from the Children’s division into Juniors. Then Diana Walter’s parents offered Mom double her usual fee. We couldn’t afford to turn down that kind of money, and thus my family got pulled into a bitter rivalry between the Archers and the Walters.
Melanie steps back from GT slowly, like she’s reluctant to stop petting his muzzle. She eyes me up and down. I have the distinct impression she’s scanning me like an MRI machine, searching for weaknesses and flaws. It’s moderately terrifying, but I hold my ground.
“If I get even a whiff of nonsense, I’m walking away,” she says. “One sign that this is a joke to you or some kind of cruel prank, and I’m gone. Prize money—if there is any, because again, I don’t guarantee I’ll place, let alone win—gets split evenly. He’s your horse, but I’m doing the work. And I expect you to treat me with respect.”
I hold my hand out to her. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Miss Archer.”
She takes my hand and shakes it. Her grip is firm and the shake is decisive, but her expression is still dubious. I wonder what it’s going to take to get her to trust me.
“You asked for respect, Miss Manners. I’m doing my best,” I say.
She rolls her eyes, then glances down at our hands. I quickly let go and shove my hands in my back pockets .
“We start tomorrow. Eight in the morning,” she says.
“Can’t wait.”
She gives GT one last affectionate pat, then strides out of the stable, head held high. I give her a few minutes’ head start, then head back to the main stable to help Edwin finish morning chores. He’s got my feed pellet disaster cleaned up and has moved on to feeding the horses properly, so I start on mucking out stalls.
“How’d it go?” he asks eagerly.
“She’s in,” I say, grinning.
Edwin whoops, which sets off a flurry of snorts from the horses nearest him.
“So you really think it’s going to work? Are we going to save this place?” he asks.
I shrug. “I hope so. There’s always a chance it goes sideways and we lose it all, anyway.”
“Nah, think big picture,” he says, unflappable as always. “Once word gets out that she’s competing again and training here, we’ll be booked out for months. People still talk about her and Diana. It’d be nice to hang up a sign on the gate proclaiming that we’re the training grounds for a gold medalist, but all we really need is a little boost.”
“It’ll be a bigger boost if she qualifies for the Olympics,” I point out. Edwin’s right, but I’d rather trade on her talent than an old scandal. I’ll take the scandal in a pinch, though.
“Guess you’d better figure out how to coach her without pissing her off, then,” Edwin says. “I really thought you’d blown it when she called you Nicholas.”
“I thought so, too,” I admit. “Trust me, I know how delicate the situation is. I’m as shocked as you are that the plan’s working so far. But we’ve wasted enough time this morning—let’s finish up in here so we don’t lose the students we’ve already got.”
“You got it, boss,” he says.
When it comes right down to it, I’m not surprised Melanie agreed. This life is an addiction. Even with everything she’s seen, the magnetic pull of getting back in the saddle is too much to resist. The second she looked at GT, I knew she wouldn’t be able to walk away from him. For real horse people, no amount of pain is enough to kill the habit. Melanie saw Diana Walters’ career-ending accident up close and personal, and she’s still willing to hop back in a saddle for a horse like GT.
I’m no stranger to accidents, either. I was at the Del Mar racetrack when Mi Rey broke his foreleg mid-race on opening day. The image of thousands of people decked out in their finery and elaborate hats, shouting and cheering as Mi Rey galloped along the track, one hoof dangling by nothing but a tendon, isn’t an easy one to forget. It opened a pit in my stomach. When the white curtains went up in the center of the track and the ambulance pulled in, the pit got wider and deeper. They didn’t have to shoot the horse on the field for me to know what was going to happen to the gorgeous bay gelding. What a waste , I thought, over and over. What a shame that all that youth and vigor and potential was snuffed out so fast, so needlessly.
Yet I didn’t walk away. Twelve horses died on the track that season, but I kept coming back for another three years. Then I made the pivot to show jumping, and as luck would have it, my second season on the circuit was Melanie’s last. I saw Diana Walters’ accident. But I also saw a grim-faced teenage Melanie approach the judges to turn in her coach for sabotaging her rival and withdraw herself from the competition.
What a waste , I thought again. But that time, for the first time, I wasn’t thinking about the horses.