Page 10 of One Wild Chance

“Not yet,” Miriam said. “But she’ll learn. You’re going to teach her.”

He rolled his eyes, like I wasn’t right there, close enough to grab a pitchfork and use it on him.

Miriam arched a brow. “What’s wrong with hiring a girl?”

“Nothing,” he said, backing down from her pointed stare. “I just don’t want to help her with grunt work.”

“Don’t worry,” I clapped back. “I won’t ask you for help.”

He shot me a look.

“Be nice to her, Jaxon.” Miriam looked between us like she was trying to figure out if this would work. “Start with showing her how to clean a stall properly.”

“Can’t you do it?” Jaxon asked. “Or ask my brothers?”

“Wyatt’s at football practice. The twins are in the back pasture with Dad, and I have to check on the new foal,” Miriam said, leaving us to work it out. “Summer can help you finish your chores before you head to hockey practice.”

He sighed and turned back to his stall, ignoring me.

Jaxon and I went to the same high school, but he’d never spoken to me. He was a year older, running with the popular jocks while I tried to fit in with the farm kids. Even then, I was kind of a loner, teaching myself to harvest seeds from pods so I could grow my own flowers.

It didn’t help that it was just Mom and me by then. Dad left for Nashville to become a music producer when I was five. I used to sit on the porch steps in my fanciest dress, an old hand-me-down from a neighbor, waiting for a visit that kept getting pushed back. First a week, then a month, then two, until I stopped hearing from my dad at all.

No wonder I liked horses so much. They didn’t leave. Horses never went looking for something better. And I never stopped being enough for them.

Mom worked most evenings at Minnie’s Diner to keep the lights on. We survived mostly on handouts and donations, none of which made me a cool girl in school. She doesn’t remember any of it now.

Judging by Jaxon’s reaction today, he didn’t think a girl like me belonged on his farm.

I stood there awkwardly, wondering what I was supposed to do since I didn’t know the first thing about horses. If Jaxon refused to teach me and I couldn’t figure it out on my own, Miriam wouldn’t have any reason to keep me around.

“I can work as hard as you,” I said. “Tell me what to do.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “You probably can’t even lift a bale of hay.”

“I can. Need me to lift one for you?”

Another eye roll. Guess he didn’t catch my attempt at a joke.

“You’ll probably go home crying the first time you fall off a horse,” he muttered.

“No I won’t.”

He turned to me. “If there’s one thing we don’t allow around here, it’s somebody who needs a lot of help.”

I lifted my chin. “I’m not delicate.”

“Then prove it,” he challenged. He didn’t want to babysit some kid his mom felt sorry for.

From then on, everything was a test I had to pass. He assigned me the worst barn chores, then asked with a grin, “Gonna quit yet?”

“Not yet.” I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much my calloused hands hurt or how badly the blisters on my heel stung. It only seemed to spur him on to make this a game between us, so I started doing my chores faster than he did. Better, too.

“Those stalls look fantastic,” John Chance said to me, stopping to notice the stall I’d just cleaned. Then he looked at his son’s work in the next stall over. “Jaxon, why don’t you take a tip from her?”

Jaxon’s jaw clenched as he grabbed his bedding fork and walked to the next stall.

I went home that night stinking of horses and covered in dust, but I was happy. I knew that money could buy me freedom. It would help with groceries, allow me to save up for a pair of riding boots, and maybe even a horse someday.