Chapter 12
“Shay! Can you get that?” From deep in the house, Faith called out when they heard the doorbell ring.
They had been back in Kentucky for almost two weeks, and the two of them have been working diligently to clean up Faith’s life.
There were stacks of different things. Keep, sell, take, toss.
Faith had waited until the bulk of everything had been gone through before carrying on with dealing with them.
That would happen in the next couple of days, because beginning next week, a realtor would be there, and they had to start loading the trailer.
Shay’s walking had improved once the swelling and blackness from the horse kick had diminished, and the healing started. He still wore the brace, but didn’t have to use the crutch. He whipped open the door and stared at the man standing there with his hat in his hand, literally.
“Help you?” he asked gruffly.
“Sorry, I was hoping Miss Faith still lived here.”
“Who are you?” Shay demanded of the other man, not bothering to deny or confirm that Faith was there. Before he could answer, Faith approached. She let out a scream and actually knocked into him as she rushed the man standing in the door.
“PEDRO!” Faith yelled as she threw her hands around the stranger, and started talking a mile a minute. Shay caught like every fifth word. He sighed in relief when she turned to him with a gigantic grin, then scowled when her arm was still around the other man.
Faith must have noticed, because she immediately dropped her arm and stepped away, but not far. “Shay, this is Pedro.”
“Why do I know that name?”
“He was the trainer I told you about.”
“Chocolate Champion’s trainer?”
“Yes,” both of them said as one. Faith waved Shay back to invite Pedro in, and they went to the kitchen for coffee.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Pedro asked as he looked around at all the boxes.
“No, well, yes. I’m moving. Shay’s here to help me. I haven’t seen you in ages, what have you been up to? Who are you working for now?”
“No one, I took a couple of years off, and I’m trying to get back into the horse business, but it’s hard to find any good owners to work for.”
“Meaning?” Shay asked as he sipped his own coffee.
“Do you know of Miss Faith’s career?”
“I know she doesn’t push her horse by using a crop on it, I know she hates the enhancement drugs some owners and trainers use.”
“Good, the people I’ve gone to use those. And…” he said with a shake of his head and a look of disgust on his face.
“And what?” Faith asked as she reached out and placed her hand over his. For some reason, this didn’t bother Shay.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Pedro, I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.”
“The world’s gone to hell. At least, the racing world has. If what I’ve seen and been told is really true, we’re all screwed.”
“Oh, my, what possibly could be wrong?”
Pedro drained his coffee, looked directly at Faith, and said, “The owners I’ve been talking to in the last six months say that they have better trainers than what I could do for them.”
“Who, who do they have, because in my eyes, no one is better than you.”
“Thank you, Miss Faith, that makes me feel better. But, no, these owners are using something called AI where they put everything into the computer and expect the horse to perform like this computer program tells it to.”
“What? You can’t do that, the relationship between the horse and jockey, then the jockey and trainer is sacred. No computer in the world can dictate that interaction.”
“You know that, I know that, but these new, younger horse owners don’t understand that.
They are adamant that their way is the way of the future, and there is no convincing them otherwise.
” He sighed and scrubbed his face as he sat back in his chair.
“See, I’ve gone to six new owners. In their previous life, they had something like tech start-ups, sold them for millions or billions of dollars, and now want to try their hand at racing. ”
“Shit, they think because they have all that money, then they can join the big boys.”
“Correct. I sought you out to see if you were experiencing any difficulties like I have.” He looked at Shay sadly.
“I earned a big salary when I was Chocolate’s trainer.
I invested it like Miss Faith, and I finally took a couple of years off to go back to my home country.
I was born here, so I’m an American, but my parents came over from Spain.
They wanted to see their homeland one more time, and I took them home.
They passed away over there, and since they were still citizens of Spain, there wasn’t any nasty paperwork to deal with. They were buried in the family plot.”
“I’m so sorry, Pedro.”
“No, they were in their early nineties, they led a good life. I’m happy I was able to take them home before the end.
They died happy because they were able to show me in person the places they grew up in.
After their funerals, I toured around Spain to see if I felt a connection.
I didn’t. I visited places my parents would talk about, but I wanted to come home to America.
I returned eight months ago, after taking two years off.
I don’t have to, but I want to work. Being a horse trainer is all I know. ”
“Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you, Pedro. I’m sorry.”
Shay slid his chair back and walked away, and then called Faith seconds later, while hitting the wall, making it sound like he had fallen.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded as she ran around the corner at a dead run. She stopped quickly when she saw him standing upright, and not on the floor. “Did you fall?”
“No come with me,” he said as he gripped her upper arm and pulled her down the hall, at the first room he came to, which happened to be the one he had been staying in, he gently nudged her inside, then looked down the hall to yell, “Pedro! We’ll be right out, help yourself to more coffee!
” He hustled into the room and shut the door behind him.
“What the hell, Shay?”
“Sh, keep your voice down.” He held up his hands in a surrender motion, then grinned. “I needed your attention. I want you to do me a quick favor.”
“What? I need to get back out to Pedro.”
“I know, but trust me.” When it looked like she wouldn’t cooperate, he grinned wider. “Please.”
“Fine, you have two minutes.” She actually looked at her watch like she was going to time him.
“It won’t take that long. Close your eyes.
” Again, she gave him the stink eye, and he only cocked a brow at her.
When she finally did, he grinned. “Now, picture New Double. You’re getting ready to take Champ out on his first ever run, his virgin run.
The track is ready, you are ready, Champ is ready.
You climb onto his back, look over at your trainer, and who do you see standing there. ”
Her eyes popped open. “Holy shit, New Double doesn’t have a trainer. However, to answer your question, I saw Pedro standing there, and you. He was talking to you and showing you things on a clipboard, and the stopwatch.”
“Okay, now that I have your attention, how would you feel if I called Cole, and you called Naomi. Do they know Pedro?”
“Cole might, but I don’t know if Naomi would. She was into the rodeo, not racing. I see your point. I could ask her something like who she would want as a trainer, or along those lines.”
“Exactly. The only thing is, would Pedro want to move to Colorado?”
“Since I haven’t told him about Champ yet, we can save that as our ace up the sleeve. Now that you put the idea in my head, I’ll tell him about New Double.”
“One thing,” he reached out to stop her before she opened the door.
“Remember, he’s going to have to pass a background check.
To get it started we might have to take a photo of his license and social security card to send to Cole, so he can get it to Duane.
Then Duane will send the information on to Jake. ”
“Who’s that?”
“Jake Cogburn, he’s in charge of Brotherhood Protectors. They are all former military people that, well, from my understanding, they protect people. Before Duane started working for Erin, Jake did all the background checks on the new hires.”
“Got it. Why don’t you call Cole, I’ll go out and tell Pedro to hold on, and that I have a call to make. Keep him busy. I’m not keeping this a secret, I just don’t want to get his hopes up if Cole doesn’t need a trainer.”
“I agree.” When she went to leave, she looked at him with a grin, and as he lowered his head, she rose up on her tiptoes, and they kissed briefly, then looked at each other in shock.
“I liked that,” he said. “Now, one question.”
“What’s that?”
“What’s Pedro’s last name?”
“Oh,” she giggled. “Alvarez.”
“Thank you,” he said as he kissed her again, then grinned at her stunned expression. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and looked at her flustered expression with a raised brow.
“Oh, sorry.” She hurried out, and he dialed the phone.
“Cole, this is Shay. I’m going to get right to the point. I’m fine, I’m healing, and we’ll be ready to leave Kentucky on time as planned.”
“Okay, then why are you calling me?” Cole chuckled into the phone.
“Quick question, do you have a trainer for New Double? Someone to work with Faith?” Shay nodded when he heard Cole release a giant sigh.
“Unfortunately, no. Or maybe I should say not yet.”
“Are you familiar with some trainers?”
“I am, I’ve been out of it for the past year since the move to Colorado, but I still know people, why?”
“What about a man by the name of Pedro Alvarez?”
“Fuck me, Shay.”
“What? Wrong person?”
“No, if I could get Alverez, and he worked with Faith, New Double would be on the map. But I heard he retired and left the country.”
“What if I told you he’s back, that he’s sitting at the kitchen table here at Faith’s house in Kentucky, and he came knocking on her door, looking for a job.”
“Then I would call you a fucking liar.”
“Hold on,” Shay said with a laugh and made his way out to the kitchen. Both Pedro and Faith looked at him. He settled back in his seat, set his phone on speaker, and looked at Pedro. “I have a gentleman on the phone that called me a liar that you are not sitting here. Please, say hello.”
“Who am I speaking to?” Pedro asked.
“Cole Mercury, from New Double horse ranch, I’ve been the manager for the last forty years. Until last year, the ranch’s name was called Double A, and we were based out of Wyoming.”
“No,” Pedro said firmly. “Bad people, Benson Alcott, and Percy Biggins work there.”
“No, they never did, Naomi Alcott, Benson’s daughter is the owner.
She inherited everything from her grandfather.
Last year, because of Benson and The Big Pig, we moved the entire operation to Denver.
Oh, and Benson and Biggins are in jail. Have been for over a year, and we have lawyers working on keeping them there. ”
“I’m sorry, Sir, but didn’t Naomi die in that barrel race?”
“No, she’s alive and well, and here in Colorado. How do I know this is you, Mr. Alvarez?”
Cole lifted his phone, snapped Pedro’s picture with his permission, and sent it to Cole.
“Christ on a cracker. I had heard you retired and left the country.”
“I did. My parents were ailing, and I took them home to Spain for the last few months of their lives. I bummed around the country for a couple of years, but it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t settle. I wanted to come back to America and start working again. I miss the horses.”
“I totally understand. Where we are now, we run a tight ship, and we do background checks on our people. Something we didn’t do in Wyoming.
” He chuckled and sighed. “It’s much, much better being here.
If you could sent me a photo of your driver’s license and social security card, I will get that started.
If nothing flags, we’ll get the complete report in a week.
” He stopped talking, and everyone heard some whispering, then he was back on the line.
“Naomi just walked in, and she wants to know if you would like to come work for her at New Double?”
“As a trainer?”
“Yes.” Came a male and female voice, then Naomi spoke. “Talk to Faith and Shay, they know everything. We, Cole and I, hired Faith as our resident jockey.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I was going to save this for when you got here, but what would you do if I told you that I personally own Chocolate Champion’s grandson.”
“I’d call you a liar.”
“She does,” Faith spoke for the first time since Shay returned. “I’ve seen him. They have almost thirty horses, and two dozen are ready to be tested. Including Champ.”
“Are any for sale?”
“Maybe,” Naomi said. “The owners won’t talk to me until they get some sort of stats.
Once this snow clears, we need to condition the new track, it’s never been run on, and I’m going to need a trainer to help instruct the people working it.
Even though I was in the rodeo, I still listened to Grandpa and Cole about racing.
Pedro, you’re the best, along with Faith. Will you come work for me?”
“Yes!” Pedro yelled with a laugh as he dug out the information, and passed it to Shay, who snapped photos and sent it. “I might not be able to come until a couple of more weeks.”
“That’s fine, I sent Faith home to clean up her life there, then she’s coming back here.
Don’t worry, you’ll have a place to stay.
Talk to Faith and Shay. I can’t wait for you to arrive, Pedro.
Thank you for coming to work for me.” They hung up and Shay watched as Pedro sat there in stunned silence.
With fresh cups of coffee from Faith, she and Shay took the next two hours to tell Pedro what they knew about New Double and the horses.
Shay was more knowledgeable, but not by much because he had only been working on the ranch for two weeks longer than Faith, but he did recall what he had learned when he’d stayed weeks there before he returned to finish his military career.
When Pedro left that evening, he wore a shell-shocked but happy expression.