14. Rory
Rory
“Oof!” I toss another shovel full of manure into the waiting wheelbarrow, then wipe my forehead with the back of my hand.
My muscles burn and my lungs are on fire, but it’s not taking the edge off the rage and grief that threaten to come pouring out of me.
One benefit of physical labor is supposed to be that it takes your mind off things. And it usually does for me.
Since I was little, mucking stalls has been where I’ve come to let my mind go blank and lose myself in the monotony of picking up scoop after scoop of dirty sawdust. But even though I’m on the second-to-last stall, it’s done nothing to take my mind off Nate, or off my mom.
Nor has it given me any clarity on what to do.
Ugh. Another scoopful, my shoulders aching. How is everything falling apart?
I’ve gone from blissfully happy to a complete wreck in a matter of weeks. The only constant in my life now is the barn.
“You look like you need a break.” Mandy taps my shoulder. “Any chance you could teach a lesson? There’s a seven-year-old here for a first-time lesson. I could use the help.”
Sighing, I lean the shovel against the wall. “Sure. Mucking isn’t doing anything to fix my headspace. Who do you want me to use for the lesson?”
She eyes me. I’m sure I look crazy after hours of shoveling manure, but Mandy’s seen me like that hundreds of times.
Maybe she’s checking for the crazy in my eyes. I’m sure it’s there.
The more I think in circles about Nate, Mom, and life in HiLo, the less I feel like I have any grip on what I’m doing with my life.
“You sure you’re okay?” Mandy asks.
Her brows pull together, concern in her eyes.
No, I’m not okay. I’m the furthest thing from okay. But there’s nothing Mandy or anyone else can do to make it better.
I force a tight smile onto my face. “Yep. I’m okay. Wally for the lesson, maybe?”
Mandy snorts, clearly unfazed by my attempt to deflect. “Sure. When you’re ready to talk about it, you know where to find me. And yes, you can use Wally.”
She wanders away without another word.
“Move your butt.” I tap the big old horse on his flank. “You move slower than molasses in January.”
Wally gives me a look. His half-open eyes seem to be asking what the rush is.
And there isn’t a rush, not really, but Helena is here for her lesson, and she’s getting impatient. And impatient kids tend to get bored quickly and get into things they shouldn’t.
Like the time I almost got kicked by a horse on one of my first visits to the barn.
For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to braid a horse’s tail while she was being saddled.
Turns out horses don’t like being surprised in general, and definitely not while someone is tightening the girth that goes around their stomach.
But the bruise healed and I learned a valuable lesson.
Wally finally moves to a spot in the hallway where I clip his harness into place, holding him there while I show Helena how to brush the horse and clean his feet.
“He’s really tall,” Helena says, reaching as high as she can go.
I retrieve a step stool and set it next to Wally so she can reach all the way onto his back. Together, we brush him in long, slow strokes.
Once the grooming process is done, I grab a saddle and bridle and walk Helena through the process of getting a horse tacked up and ready to ride.
The process takes close to thirty minutes, almost three times longer than I usually take when I’m doing it myself, but there’s something to be said for learning to do things yourself.
It’s a key part of Mandy’s barn culture, and one of my favorite things about Lonesome Acres.
There was no showing up and expecting to be handed a horse who’s saddled and ready to go. You did it all: fetch the horse from his stall, groom him, tack him up, and once you’re done riding, you undo it all in reverse.
And if your horse leaves a present on the floor of the barn? You’re the one responsible for picking it up.
I whined about it a lot as a kid, but I’ll admit now that I learned more about life from my time at the barn than anywhere else.
It’s getting chilly now that the wind has picked up. The ground hasn’t frozen, though, and the sun is out, so I help Helena onto Wally in the outdoor arena.
She settles onto the horse’s back, Wally finally waking up a bit when Helena’s slight weight hits him.
He’s old and lazy, but he’s a good horse. Patient, solid.
Kind of like Nate, I think, the thought popping into my head without warning.
“It’s so tall up here!” Helena exclaims.
Focus, Rory.
I check that her stirrups are the right length. “You’re doing great. Now, hold the reins and tell him to walk.”
“Walk,” she says, her tiny voice surprisingly forceful.
At the command, Wally starts to walk, with my hand holding his lead as we move around the circle.
“I’m doing it!” Helena squeals.
I laugh. “You are. Not too loud, though. You don’t want to scare Wally.”
It would take a lot to scare Wally. But most horses are more skittish than he is, so learning to keep calm while riding is an important skill.
“Okay,” she whispers.
We walk around the ring two more times. Halfway through the third lap, Helena seems to be feeling more confident.
“Do you want to ride by yourself for a little?” Halting the horse, I look up at Helena.
Her little brow has the faintest worry line, but she nods firmly, showing no hesitation. “Yep.”
I smile, admiring her confidence. She’s nervous, maybe even a little scared, but she’s willing to try. Sometimes that’s the most important part.
I used to have that kind of confidence.
I remove the lead and wind the rope around my hand as Helena tentatively nudges Wally to walk.
He saunters around the edge of the ring in his usual style, which is that of a turtle walking through peanut butter: slower than slow, and with frequent stops.
My mind wanders while I keep an eye on Helena and Wally. She’s doing a good job of trying to direct him with the reins, even though Wally’s biggest selling point as a lesson horse is that he’s excellent at ignoring his rider when it’s a small child.
He just plods along in a circle, keeping kids safe.
Kind of like Mom, now that I think about it. She didn’t always do what I asked—almost never did what I asked, to be honest—and yet she’s steadfast, always there, keeping things on the right path.
Tears prick at my eyes. How am I going to manage without her?
What cuts even deeper is knowing that I’ve missed so much time with her while I’ve been away for so long, those years after high school when I refused to come up to HiLo.
I swallow hard and tuck those thoughts away for later. When kids are on horses, anything can happen, and I need to focus.
“You’re doing great,” I call.
Helena beams. “Yeah?”
“Yep. Eyes forward. Keep on going.”
The sound of a car engine approaching catches my attention.
I don’t think there’s another lesson after Helena’s, but you never know. Mandy is known to squeeze kids in whenever she can, if they really want to ride.
It could also be someone who owns one of the horses and pays Mandy to use the stall–boarders, we call them, and they come and go and ride their horses as they please.
Either way, I don’t pay it much mind, keeping my gaze fixed on Wally and his tiny rider.
I don’t turn around to see who it is until I realize Helena is no longer focused on the ground in front of her, but looking behind me.
Wally, at least, is too good a lesson horse to follow where she’s looking and just keeps plodding in a circle, ignoring the way Helena’s left knee pressed to his side as she leans to her right.
“Who’s that?” Helena finally asks, letting go of one of the reins to point.
“Hold on to the reins, Helena. And focus in front of you.”
I turn, just for a second, to see what she’s looking at.
When I take it in, emotions wash through me. My heart clenches with need, my stomach twists with nerves, and my core pulses?—
Jesus, Rory. You’re teaching a seven-year-old. Don’t think about your core. Or any other euphemism, for that matter.
Even if Nate is walking toward you, and every cell of your body is craving the feel of him inside you.
I tighten my jaw. No craving or pulsing or anything like that here.
Just my ex-boyfriend, showing up with…
I squint as he comes closer, the sheepish smile on his face becoming clearer. He has a bouquet that he’s gripping in both hands, holding it in front of him.
My heart squeezes again when I realize the flowers are tiger lilies.
Lilies are, far and away, my favorite flower. Stargazer lilies are at the top of the list, but they’re toxic to horses. Most related flowers are.
But not tiger lilies. They’re not easy to find in flower shops, either, so the choice must have been intentional. He did his homework.
I’m almost ready to throw my arms around him just for that, but his betrayal still cuts deep.
“What do you want, Nate?”
He pauses a few feet away, holding out the bouquet. “I’m not asking you to forgive me. Not yet. I know I broke your trust, and it’ll take a while to earn it back.”
I just nod at the truth of his words, my arms over my chest, as though they can shield me from any more hurt.
“I’m asking for a date. Three, if you’re willing to commit to that.” He holds his breath, his arm still extended, the bouquet in hand.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, breaking the tension between us.
Nate gestures with his chin. “Go ahead and get that.”
What did he set up now?
Narrowing my eyes in suspicion, I pull the phone out and swipe open my messages.
There are two.
Allie
I talked to Nate. Give him a chance.
Dylan
Hear him out, Rory.
And as I read Dylan’s text, yet another one comes in.
Mom
The only thing I want is for you kids to be happy. You being happy makes me happy, sweetheart. Go out with Nate. Give him a chance. For me.
Tears well in my eyes. I should be angry that he went behind my back—again—to talk to people in my life, to try to get them on his side.
But they’re part of his life, too, some in larger ways than others.
The text from my mom nearly breaks me as I read it again. I want to spend every minute I can with her, knowing she doesn’t have very long.
But if I have a chance to make her happy, I’ll do anything.
So I look up at Nate and take the bouquet from his outstretched hand. I bring it to my nose and inhale deeply, loving the scent of the flowers.
“I—”
“Hey, look at that!” Helena calls, cutting me off.
Crap. I got completely distracted.
I whirl around to see what she’s looking at.
She’s pointing upward, toward the sky. I follow her finger to find a cloud that I’m guessing, to her, looks like some kind of animal or something.
And then I look back down to see her sliding in slow motion, her gaze still fixed on the cloud as her body tilts sideways and then tumbles to the ground.
I bring my hand to my forehead. Of all the ways to fall off a horse, that’s a new one.
Helena sits up, having landed on her butt, and no worse for the wear.
A huge smile stretches across her face. “I fell off a horse!”
I hold back my laughter, relieved that she’s not hurt. “Now you get back on. Need a hand?”
Wally, for his part, stands like a statue, looking down at his tiny rider as if to ask what she’s doing down there and not on his back.
I hand the bouquet to Nate. He waits while I help Helena climb back onto the horse.
She doesn’t even seem fazed. Little kids rarely are, almost literally bouncing right back from most falls.
It would be nice if we kept bouncing back like that as we got older. Not just from actual falls, but from emotional wrecks as well.
I keep a close eye on her shoulders and hands as she gets Wally walking again, looking for any tells that she’s more scared than she’s letting on: tightly clenched fingers, shoulders tensed.
But despite her tumble, she seems at ease.
When I’m sure she’s comfortable, I walk back to the fence that marks the outline of the arena.
Nate’s grin stretches wide as he watches me.
“You’re really good at that, you know,” he says.
“Thanks.”
The praise shouldn’t do anything to me. Nate’s my ex, after all. I don’t care what he thinks.
But no matter how many times I remind myself, it doesn’t seem to have sunk in.
Nate shifts the bouquet to the crook of his arm and uses his other hand to reach into his back pocket. “I brought something for the horses, too.”
He pulls out a bunch of carrots tied together at the leaves. He holds the two orange bunches out to me: carrots in one hand and flowers in the other, and my heart starts to melt just a little.
“So. What do you say? Three dates?”