Page 21 of His Wilde Little
Wishing us luck didn’t seem promising, this should’ve been easy, it should’ve been one horse and a manageable schedule. It should’ve been a lot of things that it now wasn’t.
9. JACE
I took a step away from all the action as the horses were slowly taken from the horsebox into the stable and their new homes. They didn’t need to be overcrowded anyway, and I liked to keep my safe distance right by my dad and Daisy who was on her best behavior around the new horses.
“I’m nervous,” I told him.
“Don’t be,” he said. “They’re so frail, look at them. They’ll trust you once they start seeing you as their food source and comfort. That’s how my grandpa did it.”
“He also whipped them though,” I grumbled. I wasn’t forgetting that story.
“But he also loved the horses he had on the farm.”
“Until he had to sell them for gambling debts,” I added.
“Jeez, are you and Olivia conspiring for me to have a bad day?” he asked.
I could only laugh, it happened often where both me and Olivia would snipe at our father, especially when he was telling us how to do the jobs he used to do. But in his respect, he did used to manage it all. Sometimes I wondered if the sore back was just a ruse so he could finally get all those lie-ins he used to tell us to appreciate as kids.
Once the vet and wildlife officer left the ranch, I finally got a better look at the sedated horses in their stalls. Lorenzo had a pencil and notepad in hand, scribbling away on it as I tried overcoming my fear of horses. In their slow-moving sedations, they almost didn’t seem too bad, plus, I felt sorry for them. Seeing the patches of missing fur along the back and flanks, the scratches slicing through them, leaving grooves in their fur. I also hadn’t seen so many bones so visible in a horse before, the ribcages nearly fully exposed behind thin skin.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Lorenzo said. “Coal, Bramble, and Ashwind. I don’t know if that’s what they were already called or if they gave them those names, but I guess we’ll see. I’m not sure how they’re going to react once they all come to.”
I puffed my cheeks out and sighed. “I hope I’m not going to have to deal with them alone,” I was supposed to be a thought, but it came right out.
He shook his head. “Not at all, not yet anyway. Where’s your dad?” he asked. “I want to know if the vet left the prescription with him.”
I shrugged. “I think so, he was handed something before they left. It’s impossible to say what though because he definitely keeps secrets.”
“Like three horses kind of a secret.”
“Pretty much. I wonder if he already knew because he didn’t seem too surprised by any of it, and kinda just threw it on your plate, and Olivia’s. I thought she was going to be hospitalized from the way she had to get her spreadsheets to work out the costs of two additional horses.”
“Good thing the vet bills was comped by the state then, and the grant they gave,” he said. “I’m gonna be on watch here all day, I’m not sure if you need to do anything else, but I want to be here when they wake and ease them into their new lives.”
I nodded. “We didn’t take the goat milk down to the factory, so I’ve still got to do that, and then I need to find that thermos as I’m sure you’ll need more coffee to be out here.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“We’re working together, I’m doing this because you need to be awake, andnotfor any other reason,” I said.
Lorenzo tilted his head, almost hiding the smile behind his hat. “In that case, if you’ve any more of those cupcakes, I’ll take them off your hands,” he said. “And don’t tell anyone whatI did with that goat. I’m still living in horror that I tried to milk him.”
I snort-giggled remembering him chasing it around the barn. “I think he’s scarred for life, and don’t worry, if he was into it, he might’ve let you, but you wouldn’t have gotten milk.”
He swotted my arm with the side of his notepad. “You think you’re a funny ‘un huh,” he chuckled. “I’ll also take a thermos of soup if you’re offering. I’ve got tins of tomato stuff at my place, just warm one of them up for me.”
I gave him a two-finger salute. “Yes, Sir.”
“And don’t go rummaging around my things either,” he said. “And only do it if you want to, I’m not trying to order you around.”
Honestly, I wouldn’t have even minded if he was trying to boss me around. If he’d pulled this the first day we met, I would’ve tried to make his life hell, but now that we’d kissed and I’d discovered he wasn’t here for the women, it was a secret we shared, and I wasn’t going to miss up an opportunity to do a little snooping either. He was still an enigma, one that was nice to kiss, but nothing more apparently.
After finishing up what we hadn’t managed to get done this morning, like transport the goat milk to the factory, I went back to the house where Olivia and mom were stood around the island counter in the kitchen and several of my cupcakes had already been devoured.
“I didn’t think you’d be back until lunch,” my mom said, glancing at her wristwatch. “How are the horses? Your dad said you were harping on at him like Olivia.”
Olivia let out a squeak of laughter, raising a hand to high five me. “Good, we all should. I want to follow him around with a bell like they did inGame of Thronesand shoutshame, shameat him for all the stress he’s putting on us.”
