Page 41 of The Players

Carmen looked flustered, even ashamed, as if she had been the cause of her scars.

Fuck this. Sy took out his phone and sent out a message.

“Get dressed. We’re leaving in ten.”

“Leaving where?”

“You’ll see when we get there. Put on some comfy clothes. You patched me up so I owe you.”

“I think you taking a bullet for me makes us even,” she said dryly.

She had no idea. The way he was raised, it wasn’t a given they were even. His whole life had been about him trying to get even with his mom. The woman seemed to think he owed her a lifetime of servitude just because she gave birth to him. Carmen giving him a helping hand and not asking anything in return was unusual. It didn’t fit the profile of the women in his life and made him feel uncomfortable. So, he figured he’d help her out.

She’d been cooped up in the apartment for days now, and he didn’t think the threat against her life was the only reason she stayed locked up inside. It was time for his little bird to spread her wings and he was just the man to make her fly. After all, the place he was going, they had hay. And who didn’t love an afternoon haystack rumble? That was the only reason he was taking her out.

He grabbed her hips, turned her around, and slapped her butt. “When I say I owe you, I do, okay? Now, you have six minutes left. Don’t make me come up to your room. Now move that pretty ass.”

She gave him a glare over her shoulder but did as he asked. Exactly six minutes later, she emerged from her room wearing white sneakers and jeans that molded perfectly around her curves.

“A punctual woman. And here I thought your species was extinct.”

This earned him an eye roll, but he could see a smile form on her lips. Much better. He hated seeing her sad, her eyes filled with grief over memories from days long gone. Refusing to think why he gave a damn, he all but hauled her into the car before he drove out of town.

She didn’t make small talk, or try to talk his ears off, like most women did when he met them outside the bedroom. No, Carmen was different, in more ways than he’d anticipated. She shut her eyes and turned her face to the sun. Had he not known about her past, he’d say she looked perfectly content. Except, she wasn’t. A woman like her, seeing, experiencing what she had, wouldn’t be perfectly fine, no matter how desperately she pretended to be.

His hands gripped the steering wheel harder as he remembered her scars. They had been worse than the rope burn he’d felt the other night. Yet, here she was; still standing tall, making something out of her life, instead of losing herself in booze or drugs, like some people he knew.

About an hour into their drive, he turned off onto a dirt road. He typically took the road once a month when he needed to clear his head.

Carmen’s eyes opened and she perked up from her seat. Her mouth formed into an “O” when she saw the sign they just passed.

“A farm?”

“An animal rescue shelter.”

He liked the excitement that formed on her face. It was all there for him to see, like an open book—joy, curiosity, anticipation.

He parked his car in the lot across from the supervisor’s booth and stepped out. He took in the scent of fresh cut grass, horses, and large bales of hay to his left.

“I never took you for a country boy,” Carmen said, as he led her through the stables to the patch of green behind it. On his way out, he grabbed some sugar cubes from a bucket.

“Not a country boy,” he clarified. “A few years ago, I came here to drop something off.”

The something was waiting on him grazing in the pasture.

Carmen gasped. “He’s beautiful.”

“That’s Thor,” he said, as he took her hand and led her to the horse he’d saved years ago. “His owner owed us and I took him as collateral.” Along with every last one of the owner’s car collection, which ranged from expensive Ferraris to even more expensive Aston Martins. The one thing the man couldn’t ride was this beautiful horse. So, he took the whip to him, almost blinding him in one eye. A favor Sy had returned with pleasure.

It was as if Thor could sense his presence. The full-blood walked up to him and nudged him until he gave him some sugar.

Sy patted him on the back as he fed him. “Thor was in bad shape when I found him. He was abused and then cast aside, so I took him here. He healed, but I couldn’t get a penny for him when I tried to sell him as a racehorse. They said he was too ugly for the tracks, can you believe that? So, when he was patched up, I hired a jock and put Thor to race myself. And you know what happened?”

“I bet he won,” Carmen whispered, as her hands slid through Thor’s mane.

“That he did.” He couldn’t help but feel proud. “’Cause strength is a state of mind and attitude. My boy carried his welts and scars with pride when he went into the race, and left the other horses behind eating dust.”

They spent another hour taking care of the horses. He even tricked her into a make out session in the hay on the barn loft.

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