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The woman holding him back had her hair done up with fancy curls pinned on her head, her face caked with makeup to cover the wrinkles brought on by old age.
“Mom, please. She’s mine. That was Dad’s gift to me, please!” The kid turned his gaze on me. “Sir, don’t take her. Please.”
“Perry, that horse is sold already. The paperwork is done. Forget about it. You’re going off to school. You can’t take care of her.”
“I can! I just—Please!” He looked to me again.
“Best be on your way,” the lawyer said to me. “Perry will get over it. Divorce is never good on the children, but he’s old enough now that he’ll bounce back.”
I didn’t quite get his logic, but it wasn’t my place to argue.
The woman pulled Perry’s arm, her manicured nails digging into the skin. The young man’s eyes bore into mine.
The woman was right, the sale was done. The paperwork I had received proving that the horse did belong to her was legit. I always checked that sort of thing. If this kid was under age when the horse was gifted to him, it was possible that he just didn’t have the right paperwork.
“You aren’t going to be able to afford to care for a horse once I kick your ass out of this house anyway, Perry. You have no business with it.”
His shoulders slumped, and the fight left him.
His gaze turned toward her and the icy glare he sent her could freeze the dessert. He didn’t say a word as he pulled his arm from her grip and walked back inside.
Chapter 1
Reese
I was pulled from my dream, reluctantly. Not that I enjoyed reliving the day that I picked up Blossom, but the memory was never too far away in my mind. It was the day that shifted my world in ways that I hadn’t ever analyzed. Even though it had been five years since that day, I still thought about it nearly daily.
My phone rang incessantly, pulling me out of my dream and into the waking world. I didn’t need to answer it in order to know what I was being woken up by. My brother wouldn’t call me on this day because he knew how late I had stayed up dealing with a difficult birth of one of our brood mares, unless…
That damn horse.
I guarantee she had gotten out again. I swear no matter how high the fence or how hot the wire or where we put her on the property, she found a way to navigate out at least once a month. She never wandered far, but she made a menace of herself.
If I thought a rider could actually take her through a course, I’d turn her into an event jumper. Blossom would excel there. If she was willing to accept a rider. So far I hadn’t found one, though she had been sold to me as broke to ride.
I threw my blankets off me and realized that I had crashed in my bed still wearing my barn clothes. Great. Momma would be just finishing breakfast right now, and I’d have to ask nicely that she clean my bedding today. Though she had long ago retired from her work as a professional rider, and since my father passed away she had no need to work, she still came to the ranch and provided the hands and myself with breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner each and every day. We paid her for her work, of course, not that she enjoyed taking the money. And since she was here throughout the day, she took it upon herself to continue to take care of the house and me.
I was blessed, I knew it.
I pulled off my shirt, realizing that it stank just a bit from the night before. The only reason I was still asleep was because I had been awake until the early hours of the morning helping a mare deliver twins. Both survived, but just barely. They weren’t out of the woods yet, and I would be making a call to the vet as soon as I had time.
Out the window gave me a beautiful view of the ranch. My room faced the drive, and I could see the barn and several of the paddocks as well as the outdoor riding arena. I couldn’t quite see the back paddocks or inside the barns, but that was what I had cameras for.
My brother, Rory, was walking across the drive, and he looked up at the window just then, as if he could sense me there. “Get your ass down here and catch that horse before I kill it, Reese. I swear to all things fucking holy, I will ship this horse out of here today.” Dust kicked up around him, almost looking like there was smoke coming from his ears.
I chuckled to myself. Rory didn’t like Blossom. Not many did. Most days I wasn’t sure if I did. This was her home though, and no matter the trouble she caused, I wasn’t going to send her away.
A car pulled into the drive. An old beater I didn’t recognize. Dammit. Had that horse been in the road and caused an accident? She never had so far, but that was the last thing I needed. If she was going to get in the road, then we would have to get rid of her. Though my heart hurt at the thought of it. Not that it really mattered. I was holding on to that horse for Perry. Perry didn’t even know who I was. Hell, I didn’t know where he was, and why his face stuck out in my memory so much. The boy had been barely eighteen when I first met him. I’d never even exchanged words with him. Yet I kept his horse as if he was just going to arrive one day.
Of course now when I pictured him, the image was that of a grown man, aged five years, but still with quite the young baby face I had seen that day.
I took the stairs two at a time, pulled on my boots, and walked outside. I didn’t pay any mind to the car that was there. I wasn’t fit for dealing with people right then.
“Where is she?” I shouted at Rory.
“Fuck if I know. She’s just not in her paddock. She’s probably running amok, terrorizing the stalls and getting into the fucking grain like she did last time.”
She was a mischief maker. The name Blossom didn’t quite fit her. She was anything but a delicate flower. She was more fitting to She-Demon or something along those lines Maybe Medusa. Her snort could stop a person in their tracks.
