Chapter 10
Avery
Three weeks later…
Bryce Slater had been extremely quiet for the past few weeks. Unusually quiet–almost withdrawn, but he hadn’t slacked one bit in his duties, so I had no reason to inquire about his attitude.
He didn’t have one. He was quiet, but not rude. He showed up on time; did his work, and if I tossed some additional duties his way, he did them without complaint.
Oh, I knew about the showdown between Hannah and him on the 4th, but in all honesty, she was out of line in calling him out on something that Marvin had done. In fact, I pointed that out to her. She hadn’t liked it one bit.
“Since when do you defend Slater the Slacker?” she asked, arching her brow.
“Stop,” I said, laughing. “And he’s not a slacker anymore and you know it. I just believe in calling it like I see it. Yeah, it’s out of character for Marvin to do what he did, and I’m not gonna say that he wasn’t influenced by Slater in doing it. But come on, Hannah, Marvin is twenty years old. If he doesn’t have a mind of his own by now, he never will.”
“Still,” Hannah continued, “Even you’ve commented on what a…well, a manwhore Bryce is, right? How can you condone that type of behavior?”
“His behavior is not for me to condone or reject. As long as it doesn’t affect his work here, or endanger the rest of the staff or visitors, I’m not taking issue with it. From my perspective, Bryce has been doing a good job in which case it would be wrong for me to hate on him so I'm not.”
She hadn’t been pleased that I didn’t jump on the Bashing Bryce bandwagon, but that was on her. I knew my cousin well. Despite her change of attitude about Bryce, I suspected she was more pissed about his indifference towards her.
Hannah and Sarah were identical twins, and on the outside, people not close to them couldn’t tell them apart. But that truly was where the identical ended. They were polar opposites personality-wise.
Sarah was quiet and reserved. She enjoyed poetry, ballet, classical music, and the arts. She was a lot like Uncle Tristan in that respect.
On the other hand, Hannah was outgoing, gregarious, and full of raw, unbridled spirit. She often spoke before she thought, and that reminded me a lot of Aunt Gina. I loved them both, but Hannah enjoyed working at the Belle, and had a passion for horses same as me, so I spent a lot more time around her than Sarah. It was natural for us to have a tighter bond I guess.
But I totally understood Hannah’s fascination with Bryce. There was just something about him that had me fascinated as well. And for me to say that? Well, it was quite extraordinary.
“I finished mowing the back field,” a voice behind me said, causing me to jump. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Bryce said, studying me with those ice blue eyes of his.
“Oh…it’s my own fault. I was lost in thought…distracted I guess.”
“Daydreaming, Avery? I do that sometimes, too.”
“Just a little,” I admitted smiling sheepishly. “Hey, how are you and Hannah getting along these days?”
He pulled off his work gloves, and ran a hand through his dark tousled hair. He looked sexy even after mowing and shoveling shit all day. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t natural. “She’s speaking to me again. I think I’m forgiven. All’s good again with Marvin and Heather, so that helped I guess. Of course, he’s forbidden from socializing with me outside of work, but hey, I can live with that, too.”
I shook my head, trying to hold back a grin but I lost.
“What?” he asked. “What are you grinning about, Little Bit?”
“It’s just that you seem to stir stuff up wherever you go, Slater. But I’ve got to say the past several weeks, all’s been quiet. You do your work, and do it well, but I guess I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“Well enjoy the wait. I’ve resigned myself to the boring existence this place has reduced me too. I guess my old man knew what the hell he was doing when he shipped me off.”
“It’s not as bad as all that,” I retorted, tossing him a smile.
He cocked a brow as he gazed over at me, his eyes taking me in from head to toe, which of course, caused my face to warm. Why was that? Why did his every gaze seem as if he knew what I looked like naked?
“Tell me, Avery. I’ve been here for two months. What is it that you do for fun?”
That was an easy question. I didn’t pause before answering. “My work here is my fun. I love what I do. I love horses, I love riding, teaching, and being around them.”
“The horses or the people?”
“Both.”
“Let me rephrase my question: What do you do for entertainment?”
That question threw me a bit. If I answered honestly, he’d really think I was seriously boring. If I didn’t answer, he’d think I was hiding some depravity knowing him. I shrugged. “You know, normal stuff. Hang with family, read, watch Netflix. Nothing too exciting I guess.”
“How about we catch a flick sometime then? Is that against management policy?”
I hated the fact that my heart was now pounding so loudly I was sure he could hear it from where he was standing. I shifted my weight and looked away briefly. He'd totally caught me off guard with that. I was in panic mode. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Bryce. There’s no policy per se, but I just don’t think it's a good idea, you know? I mean what do we really have in common?”
I could tell by the expression on his face; the way his eyes went cold and his gaze grew hard that he’d taken my answer the wrong way. Hell, I hadn’t meant it to sound like I was an uppity snob, but that's the way he'd taken it for sure. Maybe I should've worded it better, but I just hadn’t seen it coming.
“Well excuse me, ma’am. I guess I forgot my place for a moment. My apologies.” He turned on his heel and left the barn before I could gather my wits enough to respond; to explain to him I just made it my own personal rule not to socialize with the staff. Well, except for Hannah, but she was a relative.
“Way to go, Avery,” I mumbled to myself in the empty barn. And I felt duly put into place with his parting words. The truth was, 75% of me had wanted to agree to a movie date with him. It was the other 25% that had won out. I knew I wouldn’t see him again once he’d had enough of this place. As hard as he worked, I knew he could do better–that he would want better for himself once he’d paid off his debt to whomever.
Plus, I had other things to worry about at the moment besides Bryce Slater’s ego.
One of our prized Lipizzaner’s was due to foal and had been acting restless the past couple of days. So much, that I’d taken the empty cottage closest to the horse barn so I could keep a closer watch over her.
The one thing I’d learned over the years was that foaling difficulties occurred in only 1 or 2% of births, but if a problem did arise, it was 100% a problem. For all their strength and agility, horses were, in some respects, very delicate creatures.
I’d explain things to Bryce next chance I got, but at the moment, I needed to see to Tula. I got busy wrapping things up at the track. An hour and a half later, I was back at the stables, checking on the mare.
“Hey, Tula, how ya doing?” I asked, opening the gate to her large stall that was kept separate from the area where the rest of the horses stayed. It was built especially as a “birthing” room as we liked to call it. The staff had prepped it for the upcoming arrival of the foal.
The mare was restless. Prancing around the stall, her tail half raised. “Oh you are getting ready, aren’t you girl?” I cooed to her, bringing her to a halt so I could check out her underside. “Yep, won’t be long now, Tula girl.”
The sun was going down, so I knew she’d deliver during the night. That was how it was with horses; they liked darkness and solitude during the birthing process. Horses were animals of flight, and that instinct had survived evolution.
I checked her feed and water, and distributed another bale of clean straw to the pile in the corner, and then pulled the first aid kit from the tack room and placed it outside her stall. I left the barn and went to my cottage to give her the solitude I knew she needed, and phoned the veterinarian to put him on call with her current condition.
I got the answering service. “This always happens when the full moon comes up,” Debbie, the operator said with a chuckle, “Doc Cooper is out at the McKnight stables. Their mare is delivering twins. High risk, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it. Just let him know when he checks in, okay?”
“I sure will, honey. I’ll send a message to his phone right now. No worries.”
I checked my watch and decided to grab a quick bite and then a shower before heading back down to the barn. Just as I was drying myself off from the shower, the blast of classic rock music from somebody’s stereo invaded the quiet of the evening.
“Crap,” I muttered, pulling a clean tee shirt over my damp hair, and grabbing undies and a pair of shorts from the dresser, “What now?”
I slipped on some flip flops and headed outside into the starlit night. Of course it would be Slater’s cottage that was the source of the party music. From my porch, I could see his windows opened and a couple of girls sitting on the rails of his front porch, downing beers and smoking cigarettes.
“Just what I need. Thank you so very much, Bryce,” I grumbled, heading over to his cottage, my fingers furiously combing through my damp tangles. It hadn’t taken him long to depart his boring life and return to his normal bad boy self.
“Hey, Slater,” I called out as I hit the steps of his porch, ignoring the lounging bimbos, “Turn it down or turn it off,” I finished, flinging the screen door open, and walking inside.
He had a beer in his hand, and another one of his bimbos was trying to wrap herself around him like a boa constrictor. He was wearing jeans, no shirt, and his muscles bulged nicely. His skin was tanned from all the outside work he did, and for a moment, my breath hitched in my throat. The chick let out a low, guttural growl when I closed in on them, as if protecting her turf.
“Down Anaconda,” I commented, not bothering to hide my irritation. “I’m not in the mood for this crap, Bryce. I’ve got a mare about to foal, no vet on the way, and a long night ahead. I can’t deal with your shit at the moment.”
My voice must’ve sounded kind of pathetic or maybe pleading because, to my surprise, he immediately peeled the girl off of him, stepped over to the stereo, and shut it off. “Tula?” he asked. “She’s ready to foal now?”
I nodded, feeling like I might be tearing up and not understanding why. I’d grown up around horses, around foaling, but this was different. I was in charge. I was responsible for the safe delivery of this new addition to our stable family. And I was scared.
“Everybody split!” he hollered, and I jumped at the booming authority in his voice. “Now!”
I heard grumblings and curse words, but my gaze never left his. He sensed my fear; he recognized my uncertainty with the whole situation.
The people departed and there we were. Still gazing at one another. “Are you worried?” he asked.
I nodded again. Still choked up. “Yes,” I murmured. “I am.”
“How can I help?”
And as quickly as I’d been pissed at him, he was, in that moment, forgiven.