Page 9 of Wild and Unruly
“The only thing I’ll be warming up to is battery-operated,” she snaps quickly, and then, her eyes widen—as do mine—when she realizes what she’s said. “I mean…I…no, that’s?—”
I laugh quietly at her comment, enjoying more than I should that she’s fumbling all over herself in front of me, and well, the mental picture she just put in my head has me curious.
Bonnie glances over to my cousin and sees her and CT talking quietly with one of their clients who just showed up.
“They didn’t hear you,” I say, trying to give her peace of mind.
She purses her lips together and takes a step away from the horse, who leans her head out further, trying to regain the pets. Bonnie laughs and gives in.
I find myself staring at her for a few seconds longer than I should and clear my throat. “So, are the interviews done?”
Bonnie frowns slightly and shakes her head. “Not even close. I’m doing a spread, so I need to be here a few days, maybe even a couple weeks, to get a good feel for the story.”
“You’ll be here for weeks?”
“Well,”—she shrugs a shoulder—“I may have to head home for a few days in between to check in at the office, but yeah, I’ll be here.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what it is about this new information that piques my interest and has my heart rate ticking up a little more, but I find myself imagining scenarios. And when I start to imagine scenarios, there’s no telling what I can come up with.
“Anyway, I’ve gotta get out of their hair for a while.”
“You’ll be back, though?” Her eyes meet mine at my question, and I’m momentarily blown away at how green they are.
For a minute, maybe longer, we both stare at each other before a small, hesitant smile crosses her lips. “Yeah, I’ll be back.”
“Good.” I duck under the crossties as she starts to walk, andwe come up on Dani and CT talking with Celina, a client they’ve had for a while that came from a bad trainer.
“What does he want, though? I mean, why bother you after all this time?”
“Tommy Smith does what he wants,” their client says, almost resigned, and I grit my teeth at the name. Briefly, I feel Bonnie tense next to me before my attention goes back to Celina. “He’s still showing, even after everything that happened!”
Her accent runs together a bit at her words, clearly showing how flustered she is, and Dani rubs a comforting hand on her arm. “It’s okay. Just make sure you don’t go near his place, and when we’re at the show next week, you stick with us or someone from our barn, okay?”
Celina nods her head, and I frown. That’s not fucking fair that she has to be babysat because of that prick making her feel unsafe. Makes me wish I’d been around the barn more when shit went down, but I had only been working here part-time for a couple of months when everything was happening then.
Tommy Smith was a shithead horse trainer that thought his shit didn’t stink.
When Dani and CT were apart, she had to find another trainer to help her out with her horse, and Tommy was the one she went to. What she didn’t know was the number of drugs the dude uses on his horses or the shitty way he was in general.
When she left and inevitably ended up back at Three Rivers, he started to threaten Dani until CT had to take it into his own hands.
Now, it seems the dickhead wants to start more drama.
Dani looks over and puts a smile on her face. “Heading out for now, Bonnie?”
Bonnie startles and says, “Yeah, I’ll be back tomorrow. Noon, you said?”
“Yup, Logan will definitely be here, and I have a couple of clients in the afternoon.”
“Fantastic.” Bonnie says her goodbyes, and I watch her leave, my lips curving at seeing the effortless way she smiles at a horse who whinnies from their window at her. She slips her sunglasses over her eyes before disappearing from view.
“You okay, bro?” CT asks, watching Dani take Celina into the office.
I break my gaze off from where Bonnie left and give him a nod and smile, “Yeah, I’m good.”
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