Chapter 9 #2
Cara comes through next, and Wren closes out the rotation, her horse fresh and forward the way young horses get when the arena energy runs high.
I move toward Rhea while the next rider sets up at the gate.
"Lynette's going to post the best time of the week before this is done," I say.
Rhea watches Lynette trot back toward the rail. "Every clinic she's come to, same thing. Comes in quiet, takes two days, and then on day three, something opens up, and she runs."
"Does she know she does it?"
"Probably not." Rhea glances at me. "You saw Fever ducking that second barrel before Sawyer did yesterday."
"That mare telegraphs everything she's going to do before she does it."
"Sawyer noticed."
I look back toward the rail where Sawyer is. She's talking to Wren, one hand gesturing toward the second barrel.
***
The session runs through two full rotations before Sawyer calls it.
I find the rhythm of it. Barrel clinic energy runs faster and more combustible than horsemanship.
Less patience in the air and more want. Every rider comes in carrying something, and the horses know all of it before they hit the first turn. I like that. I'm good at it.
I turn from the gate after the last run ends and catch movement at the wood stack between the dining hall and the arena. Levi is there, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, splitting wood with an easy rhythm. He sets a log, swings, splits it, and moves to the next one.
I watch him for a minute. Maybe longer.
I've been calling this noticing. Tucking it away like information I could leave on a shelf somewhere and deal with later. But standing here in the afternoon light, I'm done pretending it's that simple.
I'm attracted to him. That's what this is. I know it. I'm not doing anything about it. Both of those things are true at the same time.
I turn back toward the barn and let them be.
***
Cricket is grazing along the fence line when I get to the pasture after the afternoon session wraps. She lifts her head when she hears me coming, ears forward, and walks over. I pat her neck, and she drops her head back to the grass.
I stand with her for a while, then head back to the cabin. The afternoon is cooling off at the edges, the light going longer across the pasture, and I take my time getting there.
Sutton finds me on the porch twenty minutes later, Bingo tearing circles around his feet.
"Can I see them now?" he asks.
"Okay," I say.
I crouch down and look into the gap under the boards. Mae is there against the wall, four kittens tucked against her, all of them small and eyes still closed.
"Go slow," I tell Sutton.
He crouches beside me. Bingo lunges toward the gap. I grab him by the collar and hold him back while Sutton gets his face down near the edge.
"Oh," he says, quietly.
Mae watches him. She doesn't move.
"She's not scared," he says.
"That's because she knows you're not a threat."
He stays there just looking. Bingo whines. I put my hand on his head, and he goes still.
"Okay," Sutton says. "Which one is Tornado?"
"You haven't named them yet."
"I'm naming them now." He points at the small black one pressed closest to Mae's belly. "That one's Tornado."
"That one's Biscuit." He points at the orange one tucked against her side. "Lightning." He gestures at the gray one beside it. "And Steve." The littlest one, a tiny tabby, is curled at the end of the row.
I look at the four of them. A black one, an orange one, a gray one, and a tabby.
"Steve's the littlest one," he says seriously.
"You can't tell which one is the littlest."
"I can tell," he says. "Steve's the little tabby one."
He straightens up and looks at me with the complete confidence of someone who has never once second-guessed himself.
"Steve's going to be the best one," he says, and heads off across the property with Bingo bounding ahead of him.
I stay crouched at the edge of the porch for another minute, looking at Mae and her kittens tucked against the wall.
Rhea finds me there. She's coming back from the dining hall, gloves tucked in her back pocket.
"What are you looking at?" she asks.
"The calico had kittens," I say. "Under the porch."
Rhea crouches down and peers into the gap for a second. Then she stands up.
"Are their eyes open yet?" she asks.
"Another week, maybe," I say.
I straighten up beside her, and it turns into a conversation without either of us deciding to have one.
"Kira had a solid afternoon run," Rhea says. "Better than the morning."
"Lynette's going to break something loose tomorrow."
Rhea glances at me. "You've only been here a few weeks, and you already call these people better than I do some days."
"I've been paying attention."
"Clearly." Rhea leans her forearms on the rail. "Some people have to figure things out for themselves. You're not one of them."
We talk about whether Darla will be making cornbread tomorrow. Rhea thinks yes. I think Darla's waiting for someone to ask, and nobody has because everyone figures someone else will do it. Rhea laughs.
"You've been here a few weeks, and you've already got the whole operation figured out."
I lean on the rail beside her. The afternoon light is long across the pasture.
I think about Garrett driving out through the gate two days ago. I think about Levi at the fire after, the way he sat with it. I think about what it costs someone to leave a place, and I think about what it costs to stay. I'm not sure those are different things.
I came here because staying where I was felt like disappearing slowly. I didn't want to find out what came after that.
I don't say any of that out loud.
Rhea doesn't ask. She stays long enough that it feels like company and then pushes off the rail.
"I want to try Darla's cornbread," I say.
"I'll ask her," Rhea says and walks toward the dining hall.
***
I go to check on Cricket before bed.
Kade is already in the barn doing his last walkthrough, moving through the stalls at that slow pace of his. Cricket's water is topped off. Fresh shavings are banked along the wall of her stall. I stand at the door looking at it, and Kade comes down the aisle and stops beside me.
"Is she doing better after the colic?" he asks.
"Yeah. She's been good today."
"Glad to hear it." He looks at Cricket.
"Did you do the shavings?"
He looks at me like it's not worth answering. "Yeah, the stall needed it."
I look back at Cricket. She's got her head down in her hay, completely unbothered.
"Thank you," I say. "For looking out for her."
Kade's quiet for a moment. "She's a good mare," he says. "Easy to look out for."
He moves to the next stall. I hear him check the latch, top the water off, and move on.
I stay after he's gone.
The barn is quieting down, horses settling into their evening, and I stand in Cricket's doorway looking at the small things that got done when I wasn't watching. The clean stall. The topped water.
Kade banked those shavings, topped that water, and didn't say a word about it beyond "Yeah, the stall needed it."
I think about Sutton naming the kittens, as if it cost him nothing. I think about Rhea staying on the rail without needing it to be anything more than what it was. I think about Sawyer's four minutes at the breakfast table and the one sentence I've been carrying around all day.
"You're doing it like you belong here."
I turn from Cricket's stall and head back toward the cabin.
I've been telling myself all week that I'm watching from a distance. Getting the lay of the land. Being careful, the way I've always been careful, the way that keeps things from getting complicated.
But Sutton knows where my cats sleep. Rhea knows how I take my coffee. Kade banks the shavings in Cricket's stall without saying a word about it.
I'm not watching from a distance anymore.
I don't know when that changed. The gap between me and this place is smaller than it was when I got here. I stopped noticing when it happened.