“We don’t know his breeding, but we’re pretty sure he’s full blooded, yes. This is Niko. He’s a good boy. In case you want to go for a ride, he’s definitely good for it.” She handed me some treats from her pocket, and I reached through the fence to give some to the gelding.
“He looks so much like Ukki’s mare, Tähti,” I murmured, reverting to Finnish a little bit. When I realized, I glanced at Wyn. “Sorry, ‘ukki’ means grandpa, and ‘tähti’ means star. She had this big star on her forehead.”
“If you have time, he could do with a brushing and if you want to ride, you have time before I assume you need to be at the house for dinner.”
I had fixated on Niko again, and looked at her, nodding rapidly. “Yeah, I… yeah. I’d like that.”
“Let me grab his halter and a rope for you.”
I didn’t go for a ride. Instead, I spent some quality time with Niko, pampering him a little. He was as solid as they came, and had that little spark of mischief my grandpa had always said most Finnhorses possessed.
Actually, he’d once told me quite a few Finnhorses were “stubborn assholes, but lovable ones.” Then grandma had snickered and said that it wasn’t far from Finnish people.
Mal came in with a big mare in tow as I was finishing up with Niko.
He smiled. “Hey, you made a friend?”
I chuckled. “Yeah. Us Finns got to stick together.”
“Right, I’d forgotten about that.”
“How’s she doing?” I asked as the mare followed him, then went past him into her stall. It took me a moment to realize there was no lead rope in sight, she just followed him like a dog.
“She’s good. We’ll adjust her feeding for a few days and keep treats to a minimum, but as far as I can tell, it was just one of those things, you know?” He closed the stall door and came to give Niko a few scratches.
“Oh I know. My grandpa had horses and he used to tell me all sorts of things about how fickle their health can be.”
“In Finland?” At my nod, he asked, “Finnhorses? Okay, can I be nosy for a while? I’ve been fascinated by the Finnhorse since I was young.”
Well that was surprising, as was the way he almost ducked his head and his body language turned similar to his son’s when he’d gotten really into explaining to me about the corvids yesterday.
“Of course. Ask away.” I dug my memory for anecdotes, and for the next half an hour, Niko practically snoozed between us as we talked about the breed and I told Mal stories from my childhood.
Eventually, the hands started to arrive, so I took Niko to his stall on Mal’s advice, and we walked to the cabins to get cleaned up for dinner.
I felt a frisson of excitement at the thought of telling Wren about my day when we called next. If the thought also brought forth the fact that I rarely felt excited like this nowadays, I pushed that to the side and concentrated on making myself presentable, because homemade fries were nothing to sneeze at.
Chapter 8
Emery
Thursdays were my days off. Every other day of the week I worked at least a partial shift at the clinic or urgent care, and I was happy to do it. But unless I was covering for someone else, Thursdays were my day to sleep in, laze around, or maybe take a ride. I’d never been as big a horse person as the rest of my family, but it was still in my blood and I still enjoyed riding.
I wandered downstairs somewhere around ten o’clock, which meant everyone else had been up for four or five hours. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a whole lot of breakfast left and Mom was starting on lunch prep. Whatwassurprising was that she was sitting down, fanning herself with a dishtowel.
I froze halfway to the warming plate, where Mom kept a plate of breakfast for me. “You good?”
Instantly, she smiled. “Yep. The oven’s been on all morning and I’m not turning on the air conditioning yet. I refuse!”
The tone was playful and sounded normal, so even though I gave her a critical eye, I took her word for it.
“Whatcha making?
She shot me a glare. “Lasagna.”
“Oooh. That’s right! Isley is coming home today,” I teased.
“Watch your tone, bucko.” The glare turned into the Mom look that said I was getting close to the line. She still pulled it out on occasion, though she was generally good about treating us all like adults. We were grown now, with our own lives, for all that most of us still lived at the ranch. But every once in a while, she was still the mom and we were still the kids.
