CHAPTER 30
Once April began, Victor’s schedule quickly filled up.
Now that he was starting to show Cyclone, most of his weekends involved traveling for shows.
Victor was at a local show with Taylor, Jade, and three other students when someone uninvited and, frankly, unwanted showed up at his trailer after he just finished up a class with Cyclone.
“Well hi there,” Daisy greeted, holding the reins of a well-muscled palomino in matching hot pink tack and boots that coordinated well with her magenta rhinestone-encrusted shirt. “I heard them say your name over the loudspeakers and came lookin’ for ya. Turns out we’re only a few trailers down.”
“Hello, Daisy,” Victor greeted with his best shot at amicability. “I didn’t realize they were running games today.”
“In the other arena,” she replied. “I’ve still got an hour or so, so right now I’m just hangin’ out and makin’ rounds.
” She took a long sip from the water bottle in her hands.
The palomino finally noticed Cyclone and twisted around to look at him, ears perked.
“Nice lil guy you got. What’s his name?”
“This is Cyclone. This is his first year showing.”
“Well, he sure is well-behaved for a baby.” Daisy walked her horse over and extended a hand to Cyclone, who gave it a half-hearted sniff before turning his attention back to the palomino. “You score well?”
“Fourth place.”
“Ain’t bad for your first year.”
“He’s doing great.” Victor gave him a hearty pat on the neck. “How about you?”
“Oh, Smokey’s been doin’ it for a few years. He’s pretty good, but I don’t think he’s gonna take me to nationals. I might sell him. You know anyone who might be interested?”
“Maybe. Not a lot of gamers at my barn.”
Before Daisy could respond, Taylor emerged from the trailer’s living quarters in her western shirt and chaps, fiddling with her helmet strap. Victor watched her fumble with it for a few seconds before waving her over and bending down to help her buckle it.
“Well, if it ain’t little Miss Stearns,” Daisy said with a toothy smile. “You look more like your uncle every day.” When Taylor had no immediate reply, Daisy continued. “You recognize me, right?”
“Yeah.”
Victor pinched his lips together to keep from smiling. Normally he’d chide her for being rude, but he had no fond feelings toward Daisy, so he’d allow it.
“You get taller every time I see you. How old are you now, eight?”
“Ten.”
“Damn, first time I met you, you barely knew your ABC’s. In no time at all you’ll be all grown up and datin’ boys, and then you’ll be a real hell raiser, just like Johnny.”
“I’m not going to date any boys,” Taylor said with a wrinkled nose.
Daisy laughed. “Get back to me in six years, kiddo.”
Taylor turned to Victor. “Can I start warming Midnight up now?”
“Sure, but don’t push too much this early before your class. Walk and trot only.”
“Okay.” Taylor turned on her heel and marched over to Midnight, who was currently enjoying nibbles of hay from her hay net under the shade of the trailer’s retractable canvas cover.
“I should probably get Cyclone untacked and brushed down,” Victor said.
“Hang on now, I got a question for ya.” Daisy reached out and grasped his arm with long pink claws, smelling strongly of floral perfume.
Victor wondered if she was standing too close or if he was just reading more into it than he should.
She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Maybe I’m being too forward, but you know as well as I do that in the sticks, our options are limited.
You know the girlfriend I tried setting you up with at Fort Worth? ”
“Daisy, I really don’t—”
“Well she’s off the market now, God bless her, but she has a newly single cousin who I think would be great for you.
She’s in Claremore, which I know is a bit of a drive, but she’s a riding instructor like you and sweet as an angel.
Her last boyfriend was a real bastard, so I’ve been tryin’ to help her out by findin’ her a solid man she can depend on.
Now it seems like you ain’t the type to want this kinda meddlin’, but I want the world for this girl and you’re the only single man I know of right now who could treat her right. ”
“I—that’s very kind of you, Daisy, but I really am not in the market for a girlfriend right now.”
Daisy’s hand dove into her back pocket. “You ain’t even seen a picture of her yet. Lemme get out my phone—”
“It’s not that, seriously. I’m sure she’s lovely, I just—”
Daisy paused with her finger hovering over her phone’s dark screen.
After a moment of consideration, she leaned in even closer, her perfume cloying at his nostrils.
“Listen, Victor, I’m gonna be straight with you.
We live in a small town. People talk, yeah?
The circle’s even smaller in the horse world.
And I’m tryin’ to do you a favor. A handsome man like you stays single long enough, people are gonna notice. ”
Victor stiffened, molars crunching together. “I don’t know what you’re implying.”
Daisy’s spider-leg eyelashes loomed large as she stared at him, as if expecting him to get something he didn’t. Finally she sighed and pulled back. “People ain’t got nothing else to do but gossip. I just don’t want them gosspin’ about you, sugar.”
“If you want to call me gay, just do it.”
He expected her to have a reaction to the word “gay”, but she didn’t.
Despite all the times they’d spoken and everything Johnny had told him about, Victor still didn’t know her that well.
“I don’t know what you are, and it ain’t my business.
But with the way Johnny talks about ya and all the things I know about him, I can’t help but wonder. ”
“All the things you know about him?”
“I may have snooped around on his phone from time to time. I know what porn he’s seen and what apps he’s got. I decided to love him through it, cuz I believe only God can judge a man. He meant the world to me—and he still does.”
Victor couldn’t hold back, not this time. “And yet you still cheated on him.”
Again Daisy’s only reaction was to look at him like he was a child who didn’t quite get it.
She finally sighed and reached out to grip her horse’s reins just under her chin in preparation to lead her away.
“Good luck with the rest of your show, Vic. Let me know if you change your mind about that date.”
* * *
The drive home was mostly silent. Jade was driving separately, which meant it was just Victor and Taylor together in his truck.
Taylor amused herself with her mother’s iPad so Victor could focus on the road and tap his fingers along to the Brad Paisley song on the radio.
He wasn’t aware Taylor had put the iPad down until she spoke.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Hmm?” Victor reached out to turn the radio down and glanced in the rearview mirror at Taylor. “What?”
“Uncle Johnny told me that, um…” She twisted her shirt between her hands, biting her lip.
“What’d he tell you?”
“That you two are boyfriends.”
To his credit, Victor’s only immediate reaction was to swallow and tighten his grip on the steering wheel. He wished Johnny had told him he was going to do that. “Oh?” he forced out, voice breaking.
“Yeah. Like, he didn’t really say much about it. He told me he wanted me to know but that I shouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Oh. Well. Ah.” Single syllables remained the extent of what Victor could say. “That’s—hmm.”
“Does this mean I can come live with you?”
“Taylor.” Victor finally regained control of his voice. “That’s—that’s not going to happen.”
“Why not? Can’t you talk to my mom?”
“That’s not how things work.”
“Well, they should! Mike and my mom don’t even like me. They’d be happy if I lived somewhere else.”
“That’s not true and you know that.”
“You don’t live with them.” Taylor scowled and hugged a leg to her chest, glaring out the window. “All they do is yell at me.”
Victor didn’t know what to say, because he didn’t know enough about her home life to confirm or deny her experience.
In a way, it didn’t matter what the actual facts were, because most children did not want to leave their parents to go live with a stranger.
Victor had hoped that after the spanking incident something might have improved, but corporal punishment wasn’t the only way to make a child feel unloved and unwanted.
“Do you like me?” Taylor suddenly asked, a question so out of the blue that Victor struggled to respond.
“Of course I like you,” were the words he threw together in a panic.
“But you don’t want to live with me.”
“Christ, Taylor, this isn’t about me. I have a choice in none of this. I can’t kidnap a child from her family.”
“It’s not kidnapping if you’re married to my uncle.”
“We are not married.”
“But you will be, probably. Right?”
Victor bit back a humorless laugh. “Kid, your uncle and I have been dating a month. Marriage is not even a consideration right now.”
“But if you did get married, you’d be my uncle, right? I can live with an uncle. Then it’s not kidnapping.”
To have a child’s understanding of the world… “It’s still up to your mother.”
Taylor frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, my mom hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.” When Taylor’s frown deepened, Victor sighed. “Why don’t you talk to Johnny about this? I barely know your mother. If anyone can talk to her, it’s going to be her brother.”
“Johnny’ll get mad,” Taylor grumbled. “Then he’ll get in a fight with Mike and I’ll be in even bigger trouble.”
“I can talk to him, if you want.”
“Yeah.” Taylor’s scowl lasted a few more seconds before her face contorted and tears filled her eyes.
The road was empty, so Victor found a nice stretch of open shoulder to pull over on. Once stopped, he put the truck in park and twisted around to face her fully. Taylor wiped aggressively at her face, hiccupping around a sob.
“Hey, come on. It’s okay.” Victor would have offered her a hug, but there was a seat between them. “What’s wrong?”