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When I finally entered the horse barn, Cricket was plastered to Ethan’s side listening to Jonah. I jogged over to them.
“...her,” was the only thing I caught of whatever Jonah was saying. The group went silent. Bridge. Bridge was their topic of conversation. Damn.
“Hey, guys,” I said.
Ethan nodded but seemed civil. Cricket didn’t tattle as she’d threatened. I couldn’t have cared less, but I found that interesting. I discreetly winked at her and her eyes shot wide before narrowing in promises of lethal force.
Jonah said, “Hey, Spencer! You’re with me right now. We’ll take this half of the stalls, and Ethan and Cricket will take the other side.”
Damn. “Cool.”
“So what’s on the docket today?” I asked him, taking in my surroundings.
The barn was about fifteen-feet high, and had approximately ten horse stalls running half the back length of the barn on either sides, creating twenty stalls in all. The front half was a giant open space, though I wasn’t sure what it was for. I could see from the road the day before that the horse barn was the biggest building on the property, and it was obvious once I was inside that was the case. I took in all the rustic wood surrounding us and couldn’t imagine how many man-hours it must have taken to forge each log and plank.
The horse stalls themselves were made of wood as well. Their doors easily slid away on tracks from the opening. Each stall had swinging doors leading to the outside as well, but I could tell those were hardly used, at least not in the winter.
“We’re going to be mucking out the horse stalls,” Jonah explained. “We do this about once a day, unless the horses have been kept inside for some reason, then we’ll hit them twice.” He walked toward a wall, picked up two pitchforks and handed one to me. I followed him into the nearest stall. “Okay, so you’ll want to wedge the fork underneath the pile of manure. With the fork low to the ground, tightly shimmy it back and forth, freeing any loose pine pellet bedding. We do this so the manure doesn’t break up and we save clean bedding.”
Together we cleaned the stall in around five minutes, moving to the next with the wheelbarrow, tying up or “racking up” the horse outside the stall, then returning the horse, dropping a new bale of hay, and filling its three-pound feed bucket with grains. We went from one stall to the next and the next until all ten stalls on our side were done. We didn’t talk much but fell into an easy rhythm. In about forty-five minutes, our stalls were clean and our horses fed. I’d never worked like that with someone, and it felt like I’d actually accomplished something.
er Fifteen
“Forget all about little old me?” Piper pouted.
“What?” I asked.
She ignored me. “You flirt with that girl but you don’t really want her. You want me.”
“Get the fuck out of here, Piper!” I demanded, descending the villa stairs.
She smiled at me, but it wasn’t a beautiful smile, it was chilling. “Lost all your winnings,” she giggled, digging in the blade.
My blood ran cold in my veins and I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Yes, you bitch, thanks to you, it’s all gone.”
She laughed, throwing her head back. “How are you going to leave him now?”
“Joke’s on you. I already did.”
She shook her head. “My darling, you only think you did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have to share what you have with your sister. You don’t have enough now. You’ll go back to him because you know he’ll take you back even after what you did, and he’ll take you back because he can’t trust anyone else. You need him. You need what he has to get you what you need.”
“Shut up.”
“He’s your dealer!” she squealed.
“No, we’ll be okay,” I desperately denied. “I don’t need him anymore,” I cooed, an attempt to appease myself.
“Liar,” she sang, bobbing her head back and forth as if she was insane before tossing herself onto the sofa.
I walked past her and into the kitchen. She popped up off the couch, ran over to me and lifted herself up onto the counter beside where I stood.
I studied her. “Why are you even here?”
“I’m Piper,” she said, as if that explained everything.
