Page 79 of My Dark Horse Prince

“Hello?”

“I have bad news.” I can barely hear the voice on the other end of her phone over the hum of the truck engine, even though her speaker’s clearly set to max. It’s John, her trainer. Bad news about horses is always really bad. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t be calling.

“Did someone colic? Was it Five? Or did Dad gamble again?” Kris doesn’t sound nearly as nervous as she would have before, and I can’t tell whether it’s because she owns the land and the barn now, or whether it’s because Aleks is rich, or perhaps if she’s just started to care less about the father who’s always caused her so much grief.

Are we ever really able to care less about the ones we love so much that they can hurt us? Probably some people can. I’m not sure Kris is one of them.

I know I’m not.

“Nothing like that,” John says. “In fact, it’s not really your bad news at all.”

My heart sinks. If it’s not hers. . .

“What’s wrong?” Kris asks.

“I went by to get Mirdza’s horses, but Brigita insists they’re all hers now. She waved a contract in my face and told me off.” He sighs. “She wouldn’t let me take any of them, not even Blanka.”

15

The last time I walked into this barn, I was using crutches and a leg brace, and still, I could barely move. I begged for a loan and was fired instead. Brigita, for whom I had worked for months, and whom I had known for more than a decade and a half, told me I had a month to find a new place for my horses. It’s been less than two weeks, and she wouldn’t surrender my horses when John went to collect them.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” There are wrinkles at the corners of Kris’s eyes, and her brow’s locked into a furrowed position.

“I need to face her alone,” I say.

“But she won’t be alone,” Aleks says.

The window on the back of the truck is open, and I can see Charlemagne, hanging his head out. He tosses it. Clearly he thinks I should take the backup they’re offering.

“I want to give her a chance to do the right thing,” I say. “Taking you in with me will only put her back up.”

Kris compresses her lips, but she doesn’t argue. “Go, then.”

“If you’re not out in five minutes,” Aleks says, “we’re coming in after you.”

He’s been watching too many American films in an effort to catch up with modern culture. It’s making half of what he says unbearably cliché. Not that Kris seems to have noticed.

Love really does make you blind.

“I’ll know in less than five minutes, I imagine,” I say.

“I’m ready to barge in and yell,” Kris says. “More than ready.”

I appreciate her support so much that it hurts. It was her idea to stop here on the way home. “We have the trailer hooked up already, and I know you’re worried. Let’s get those babies and bring them home.”

The word home makes my heart expand.

It hasn’t felt like I had one since Kris had to sell Liepašeta.

But now I do again. I think about her face as I march inside. It’s a miracle that I’m able to walk in, frankly. I should be more grateful. Isn’t it funny how quickly miracles stop mattering once the limitation they repaired is a thing of the past? Humans don’t retain our gratitude for very long.

We’re all quite greedy.

“Where’s Brigita?” I ask one of the grooms.

He points at the main arena.

I figured that’s where I’d find her, but I must’ve been harboring hope that we could have this face-off without an audience. No luck. I square my shoulders and push past the wheelbarrow and toward the arena.

---