Page 2 of Saddles & Suits

Anyway, the place is his now, and I want it to be perfect. Jack will have no reason to be concerned about my management of the house, the grounds, or the business. Not that thereisanything to be concerned about, but first impressions are what stick, and Jack’s first impression of his property under my management is going to be a good one if it kills me.

It’s weird that I’ve been working for Jack for nearly a year, but we’ve never been face-to-face or even spoken over the phone. I tried a few times to connect with him, but in the end, it was just easier to resort to texts and emails. And if anyone ever wants proof that Jack is a workaholic, all they have to do is visit his barely lived-in apartment.

We did meet once, though it was when we were both teenagers and only for a minute. It started when I was thirteen and had saved my allowance for months, working any odd jobs I could get in my neighborhood, to pay for a course of ten lessons at Warwick’s riding school. I’ve always liked horses—in theory, never having actually encountered one before then—but it was after I was home sick one day and found an old movie,The Man from Snowy River, that the urge to learn to ride hit me. Coincidentally, Tom Burlinson in that movie caused the realization that I was probably gay. Is there anything hotter than a man who can ride a horse? (No. The answer to that is no. Riding skills are transferrable. I’ve done a lot of research into this.)

It took me only minutes to know I’d be happy to spend every free second of my life at the stables. I took to riding like a duck to water, and for the ten weeks of riding lessons, I divided my time between hanging around the stables helping out as needed and learning through observation, and working my butt off for my neighbors in an effort to save money for more lessons. I didn’t quite have enough when I finished the tenth lesson, and I was resigned to having to wait a few weeks, but then Warwick had called me aside.

In his wisdom, he offered an exchange: I’d help around the stables in exchange for lessons. He couldn’t legally offer me a job until I was fifteen, he said, but if things continued as he thought they would, by the time I was too experienced a rider for the classes offered at the school, I’d be old enough to take a paying job in the stables.

I accepted so fast, the words came out garbled, and Warwick laughed before taking me to the office so we could call my parents for official permission.

That first year and a half was filled with all the jobs nobody really wanted to do—cleaning tack and mucking out stalls topped the list. For insurance reasons, I wasn’t allowed to work with the horses, or even really near them, just in case. That didn’t matter—just being in the stables and knowing I was working toward a real job here was enough. Plus, when Warwick said I’d be working in exchange for lessons, he didn’t mean the once-per-week kind I saved so hard for. I was allowed to join any class on any day, as many per week as I liked. In retrospect, the work I did wasn’t equal to the retail cost of those lessons, but Warwick and everyone else in the stables didn’t seem to care. In fact, it was my own pride that spurred me to work as much as I could. Often I’d arrive after school, ready to tackle some chores, only for the stable manager at the time or one of the hands to send me off to join a class. Even if it was an intermediate or advanced class, I was encouraged to join, with the instructor advising what I should attempt and what I should just observe in the early days.

I loved it all. At Bliss Vale, I found another family.

Warwick’s prediction was right, and by the time my fifteenth birthday rolled around, I was joining in on the advanced classes only and helping the instructors with the others. I was added to the payroll with great fanfare, and although I still had to take shifts with the crappy chores, I was also allowed to groom and exercise the horses.

The summer I turned seventeen, Warwick’s nephews came down from Melbourne to spend a week at the Vale. They actually came several times each year, sometimes to stay, sometimes just to visit, but somehow, I’d only met Malcolm before. I’d heard about Jack, but the stables are big, and by pure coincidence, our paths only ever crossed once. I’d just finished exercising one of the boarded horses and was putting away the tack when a tall, dark-haired guy a couple of years older than me walked in.

“Hey,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Jack.” He stuck out a hand. I shook it, noting the guy just assumed I would know who he was.

“Seb” was all I said. “Can I help you with something?”

Jack grinned. “My brother’s a dick and he’s hidden my bridle. Any chance you’ve seen it?”

I looked around. The tack for the horses owned by the stable was kept in a different room, so the bridle for Jack’s horse definitely shouldn’t be there, but where better to hide tack than amongst other tack?

It took us only a few moments to check the room and find the bridle hung with another. It was obviously meant to be found, but not without annoying its owner.

“Thanks!” Jack tossed over his shoulder as he strolled back out, leaving me glad the worst thing my sisters did was hog the bathroom.

And that was the one and only time we met.

The next year, I finished school and went to Melbourne for uni. I originally didn’t intend to go to uni at all, or maybe go somewhere local, but when Warwick heard that, he had a pink fit. Two nights later, he turned up at my house and sat down with me and my parents to discuss the options available.

Neither of my parents went to uni, but they both thought it could open more doors for me. “You don’t have to use your degree if you don’t want to, but at least you’ll have it,” Mum said. I argued at first, because I knew I just wanted to work with horses, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of owning my own stables and riding school. And for that, I’d need a decent understanding of how to run a business. I could probably have gotten that working for Warwick or at TAFE, instead of doing a business degree, but… a stable of my own would need a cash investment. Banks don’t like to lend money for risky ventures like riding schools, and they especially don’t like lending money to young people with no capital and no full-time work experience.

I explained to Warwick what I wanted, and Warwick grinned and helped me lay out a plan. I’d go to the University of Melbourne for a business degree, Warwick decreed, and when I argued that I could go somewhere more local, Warwick stared me down and declared that the prestige of a Melbourne Uni degree would weigh in my favor—plus, most of the people who get riding lessons these days have money, and Melbourne Uni is the go-to school for rich kids in this state. I’d have the chance to form connections there that I might not elsewhere.

So I buckled down at school, dragging my grades from below-average to sufficient to get into Melbourne Uni, and the following year, I moved to Melbourne. I got a part-time job at a stable in the ’burbs owned by a friend of Warwick’s who agreed to train me in the business side of things as well, and I learned that I actually have a knack for management. The plan was to finish my degree and get a job that would let me save money and show any bank I approached later that I’m a dependable person and a good risk—bonus points if that job was at a stable, but that turned out not to be possible at first.

I finished uni with a degree and solid part-time work experience that was relevant to my degree and plans, and I got a decent job as a team leader for a company that provided concierge services. Aside from managing a team of twenty, my duties included keeping financial records of all client transactions and managing a profit and loss. One of the company’s selling points to clients was that no matter the number of tasks required, the client paid a fixed annual retainer. I had to analyze the number of billable hours required by each client and then calculate their retainer for the following year. It’s shocking what jobs people will pay to have performed for them, but I enjoyed the challenge of getting things just right—and keeping them profitable. Within eighteen months, I went from managing one team to being an area manager, and then a year later to being the state manager, all while riding every chance I got, either at the Vale or the stable I worked at while at uni, and socking money away to fulfill my dream.

And then, two months before my twenty-fifth birthday, the company owner died of a sudden, massive heart attack. His daughter, who inherited, had no interest in the company at all. She tried to sell it as a going concern, and when she didn’t receive offers at the level she wanted, she sold the IP and assets and just closed it down.

Out of a job for the first time since I’d begun working, I went to stay with my parents for a week. I wanted time to regroup and assess whether it was time to approach a bank or if I should look for a new job. I went to visit Warwick, of course, who greeted me with the kind of fervor usually reserved for knights returned from battling dragons. Turned out, he needed a stable manager and a housekeeper—his, a husband-and-wife team, had both retired just a few months earlier, coincidentally only a month after Warwick retired from running the foundation. Could I help him find someone?

It all just snowballed from there, and the following five years were the most amazing of my life.

Losing Warwick last year was devastating. I’ve never experienced a loss like it before, and suddenly there was this huge, gaping hole where before I had Warwick. I didn’t realize until after Warwick died how often I consulted him—sometimes about small, stupid things, details of my life that I now have to work out on my own. Losing a mentor—a close friend—is horrendous.

And now I work for Jack.

Jack, who’ll be here soon. I check my watch. The drive down from the city takes nearly an hour and a half with zero traffic, but even if he left work a little early, the Friday night traffic will slow him down by at least an hour.

I’m not nervous. There’s no need to be nervous.

I’m good at my job. The stable is highly profitable. The rest of the property is meticulously maintained. Jack’s personal life runs like a well-oiled machine.

---