Page 10 of My Queendom for a Horse

Forrest Smithers’ baritone carries over the chaos of the men scrambling toward me. “You wouldn’t be interested in buying a horse, would you, Miss Liepa?”

I raise one eyebrow. “I’m not in the market for one, no.” I have a loan payment due, which Rickets knows, because his family owns the bank my dad used for the loan. I think about Obsidian, the most stunning horse I’ve ever seen, drugged at double the allowable amount every time he travels. Whipped and prodded as a matter of course. Our family farm means a lot, but some things are more important.

And poor Obsidian Devil is as much a victim of Rickets as we are—he won him in a hand of cards. Unlike me, he can’t do anything about his bad luck. But I could.

“That’s a pity,” Forrest says. “He seems to like you.”

“He does have bad taste,” Rickets says.

If it was anyone else, I could probably walk away. But the idea of Rickets gloating while he abuses this horse? In spite of knowing how idiotic this is, I ask, “How much are you asking for him?”

“Why don’t you make an opening offer?” Forrest says.

Obsidian bumps my hand almost as if he understands what’s going on.

The corner of my mouth goes up. My dad will lose his mind, but I can’t let Rickets keep him. We have a little bit saved toward the payment. I can probably use the winnings and still scrape together enough to pay the loan. “I could pay €125,000.”

“The winnings you robbed me of today? That’s what you’re offering?” Rickets scoffs. “I wouldn’t even consider a farthing less than a quarter of a million pounds.”

The exact amount we owe on the first installment for the farm.

“Be reasonable, Mr. Rickets.” I scratch Obsidian under his forelock, and he bumps me again. “I don’t have anywhere near that. My offer’s a good one.”

“He’ll win that in his next chase, and you know it.”

“And you know that you won’t win any chases with him. You don’t have a jockey.”

“Why do you even want him?” Forrest Smithers asks. His eyes are clear and bright, and he looks genuinely curious.

“It doesn’t matter why she wants him,” Alfred Rickets says. “What matters is that her pathetically impoverished family can’t afford him. They won’t even be able to afford a pot to piss in come next week, from what I hear.”

I’m usually pretty even-keeled, but I can see why my dad hates this man. I’d like to scratch his eyes out. “You’ve heard wrong. My dad and I are just fine.”

I’m being an idiot. I need to walk away. I have no idea what will happen to this poor horse, but we need every cent I just won and then some.

Besides, I know that rash decisions never work out well for me. They just don’t. I wish fairy tales could come true, but in the real world the glass slipper always breaks, and poking the top of a spinning wheel doesn’t save me. My finger gets infected, I wind up with sepsis, and then I die.

Walk away, Kristiana. Walk away and keep your money and the farm.

“My mistake, then. My price is a quarter million because my trainer dislikes him and not a pound less. No matter how well you are or aren’t doing, you can’t afford that.” He gestures to the man with the tranquilizer. “Do what it takes to load him, Freddy.”

He thinks my family’s trash? He thinks we can’t afford him? He’s wrong. I have the money right now. I never thought I’d have a chance at winning the Grand National, with its one million pound purse, but I just might be holding the lead line on a horse that could take me there. “Fine. Two fifty.”

I glance up at Obsidian Devil’s perfectly beautiful face and wonder. Am I happy right now because I’ve just bought the most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen? Or am I secretly delighted because it only leaves me one solution to my problem?

If I don’t want to lose the farm, I’m going to have to call Sean McDermott.

I can’t decide whether that wrecks me or secretly thrills me.

Maybe a little bit of both.

3

Some things in life are easy, like handing over a huge wad of cash for a horse I’ve wanted to own since the second I set eyes on him.

He walks alongside me toward our trailer calmly. The horse I watched Rickets’ men struggle with is gone. But somehow, that makes this harder. Without a horse to wrangle, I’m stuck thinking of what I just did.

“What will I even say?” I ask myself.

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