Page 52 of Wild and Unruly
Rage boiled in my gut at the words. How dare he. How dare he put these girls in this situation where they think he’s going to mentor them, teach them something they’ve all been dying to know, and then use the façade to hit on them.
A silver car pulls onto the gravel, and Aesha stands. “Thanks for your help, Bonnie.”
“No problem,” I say, then as she turns, I call out again. “Look up Three Rivers Ranch. They really are a great place.”
She smiles, and for the first time, I see a sweet sixteen-year-old girl staring back at me. “I will. Thanks.” Running to her mom’s car, she hops in, and they take off.
In the dust of their car, I stand, gathering my things again, when I hear yelling. It’s coming from the propped door of the barn, and I take tentative steps toward it, hoping the crunch of gravel under my shoes isn’t obvious.
“—proper dosages are okay, but?—”
“I don’t give a shit what the bottle says, Eugene. I tell you what dosages to give and if you go around telling the interns what you’re doing, fired will be the least of your worries.”
A huff from someone, I’m assuming Eugene, then, “Tommy, I’ve worked for your father for fifteen years. You were just a kid when I met you.”
“Yeah? Well, my father doesn’t run this barn anymore. I do.” There’s a pause, then Tommy’s hard voice again. “You heard me. Don’t go behind my back again.”
Clinking spurs indicate someone walking away, and I hear a heavy breath exhaled nearby. I slink against the wall of the barn, inching away slowly just in case someone comes out. My breath is uneven. I keep holding it and letting it go, not very stealthily.
Eventually, I realize whoever Eugene was is gone too, and I’m in the clear.
I rest against the barn, its warm metal hot against my skin, but I don’t care.
So, he was still using performance-enhancing drugs on his horses, still breaking the rules at the expense of those around him.
And someone was trying to tell him to cool it.
I heard what Tommy said to Eugene, someone who has been in his life for a long time. I don’t remember everyone who worked with the Smiths back then, but I can only assume that I knew him at some point.
But his threat…
Worse than fired? Tommy couldn’t be that crazy.
Could he?
19
stetson
Years ago,when I was a boy, I’d followed Logan and Dani to horse shows where they would be competing for weeks during the summer months. It wasn’t really my thing, but my mom let me tag along, and so did my aunt and uncle, Sandra and Earl West.
They always treated us four boys like we were their own, and I knew my mom appreciated that. Because my mom worked during the summer, and summer camps were few and far between, not to mention expensive. We would be with our extended family all the time.
It was how I found out I had a love for horses, and it was how all of us boys got started in the business. I saw the stress and anxiety that Dani dealt with showing, so that wasn’t the path I wanted to follow, but when I realized how many other things I could do in the horse world, I knew I could find something that suited me.
Being back in that world again is nostalgic, to say the least. Ifigured coming to this show, I wouldn’t recognize that many faces or names, but I do.
Bonnie was here this week to watch Dani and CT in their other element to get more content for her article. I was getting anxious about when she’d be leaving us for good, knowing that she’d already been with us awhile and her leave would be coming swiftly.
So, I tagged along for this one.
Yeah, I knew it was obvious what I was doing, but I really just didn’t give a shit.
Logan gave me a ton of shit, nagging about how he was going to have to pick up my slack, but I know he was kidding because he was grinning like a fool when he said it.
Dani and CT didn’t say a word, and Bonnie smiled broadly at me, probably because she could read my mind, which tended to come in handy between the two of us.
We rode together in my truck down to the show, the three-hour drive giving us time to talk and get to know each other even better. She sat in the middle and played DJ, showing me that her interests varied from old-school country to one of those boy bands that Dani loved so much when she was in high school.
