Page 95 of Spencer and the Younger Girl
* * *
How wasSpencer just supposed to go back to work after a mid-day family meeting where he was told he couldn’t date the girl constantly on his mind? After Damien realized his parents already knew his biggest secret?
As kids, they hadn’t been able to get away with anything. They’d joked their parents were everywhere at all times.
It wasn’t too far off from the truth.
He walked down the stalls passing out apples to the boarded horses owned before getting to Toby. Holding the apple in his palm, he reached out and rubbed the side of Toby’s nose. “Hey there, ya big oaf.” He tried to offer the horse a smile as he snatched the apple, but Spencer’s lips just twisted to the side.
He waved to Gabe through the office door, feeling sorry for the kid. Heck, he felt sorry for just about everyone at the moment. Damien. Gabe. Hadley… but mostly himself.
His parents said he couldn’t see Hadley, and it couldn’t have just been because she worked at the ranch. Come next week, she wouldn’t be an employee anymore.
She was eighteen now. Despite being in high school, the age wasn’t the issue either.
He stopped outside Harbinger’s stall and scowled at the horse. “You couldn’t have stayed clean for like an hour?” Shaking his head, he reached into the bag of apples and tossed one Harbinger’s way.
Harbinger tried to catch it but it hit his nose and bounced to the ground. He bent his head to reach it.
Spencer’s stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. He’d skipped lunch, not wanting to be in the house any longer than he had to.
He lowered himself to a hay bale along the wall across from Harbinger’s stall and pulled out an apple for himself. Sinking his teeth into it, he sighed. “They think I’m going to leave, Harbi.”
And he was. That was the plan, right?
He came home because Damien needed him, but the cat was out of the bag on that one. He couldn’t be happier about the support his parents showed his brother. Would they support him as much once they knew the truth?
Would they ask him to stay?
No matter how things stood between them, he wanted that more than anything. This ranch needed him, but not as much as he needed it.
His gaze connected to Harbinger’s deep brown eyes that once held an anger matching Spencer’s. But over the last few days, he’d seen that fade away.
“You always were a pisser.” He took another bite of his apple, remembering the day he’d first seen Harbinger as a tiny little thing. Even then, he’d had a fire Spencer wanted to tame. He’d worked with him day and night until his dad would force him to come inside and go to bed.
In those hours after the sun sank on the horizon, Spencer fell in love with horses.
But was that enough reason to stay?
Tossing the rest of his apple into Harbinger’s stall, he leaned his head back against the wall. “You like her, don’t you?”
Harbinger ignored him as he finished the second apple.
“Yeah, buddy. I like her too.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “I think they’re protecting her from me.” It was no secret his mom loved Hadley, even after she’d said some harsh words to her. But he couldn’t blame her. Hadley was sweet and kind—when she wasn’t sarcastic and sassy. The two sides of her fit together so seamlessly he couldn’t decide which he liked more.
The girl who’d ride out on a four-wheeler in the middle of a storm to look for a lost goat-friend?
Or the one breaking rules and pranking her school?
I’m listening, she’d said. And she was. She gave everyone she talked to her full attention, letting them know she cared about whatever they said.
“But my own parents think I’m going to break her heart.” When he left. Again. “I wonder if they know all they have to do is ask me to stay?”
Harbinger nudged his stall door, rattling the latch.
“Sorry, buddy. I have to get back to work.” He pushed himself off the hay bale and straightened the hat on his head.
As he walked out of the barn, he stopped at the edge of the goat pen, finding Stammer staring at him.
“Don’t look at me like that, Stammer.” It was as if the goat knew the dilemma stumbling through Spencer’s mind.
If he listened to his parents, he’d lose Hadley. Maybe it would hurt for a while, but he’d get over it.
If he ignored their rules… that would do more damage to an already broken family.
His heart sank into his stomach because he knew what he had to do.
