Page 38 of Double Bucked

“Ça va?”

“Sar-var.”

“Ça va.”

“Sah…what?”

Claire lets out a low wail of frustration. “It means how are you in French. We’re one week away, and you can’t even get that right!”

I can see Claire’s boots pacing back and forth on the other side of Chaucer as I brush the dust off the big horse. Chaucer, who is used to Claire’s temper tantrums, doesn’t even bat an ear at her complaining.

I grip the brush, band around the back of my hand. “How about you do the talking, and I’ll just grunt and point?”

Wrong thing to say. Even with Chaucer between us, I can feel her energy shift. Claire walks around Chaucer to look me square in the face. She looks particularly intimidating in her dressage outfit, all navy blue suit, crisp pants, and round helmet. As I brush him, I can feel her quizzical stare.

“Why aren’t you taking this seriously?” she asks.

“Who says I ain’t?”

“Things are going to change when we get to Paris.”

“How’s that?”

She clutches her little translation book to her chest. She looks off, and even though she’s staring at nothing but the stable walls, I can tell she’s seeing the Eiffel Tower in her eyes.

“Can’t you picture it? Croissants and coffee in bed. Sharing a bottle of wine as we watch the sun set on the Seine. Eating macarons by the handful.”

“What’s a macaron?”

She swats me with her little book. “It’s a cookie.”

She can’t escape me. I hook my finger under the chin strap of her helmet and tug her in. “You’re a cookie.”

She gives my chest a push. I lose my balance, sitting back on a block, and pull her down with me. She fits in my lap perfectly, straddling me.

Whenever I’ve got Claire to myself, it’s hard to keep my hands off her.

“Screw the horse,” I say. “Ride me.”

She nuzzles that button nose against mine. Her helmet bumps my forehead. “Say it,” she says.

“Ça va.”

“Good boy.” That’s pleased her, at least. Her breath patters on my cheek and makes my heart race.

“We get to reinvent ourselves,” she says. “I’ll go to school, and you can be…I don’t know. A cop.”

“A cop?”

“A firefighter. A doctor. The first cowboy to put his spurs on the moon.”

“I like that the last one.”

“What do you want to be?” She looks down at me, genuinely curious now. “You can be whatever you put your mind to.”

And it feels like someone tossed a lasso around my neck. Most of my life, no one’s ever asked me what I wanted to do. They all just figured I’d pick up whatever low-hanging fruit my dumb, greedy hands could grasp.

When this woman looks at me, she sees the potential for something good. No—something great.

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