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I tried to smile. “I just need a few more months.”
He sighed. “Dunno if I’ve got months.” He looked me right in the eye. “No way you could, um, ask your dad?”
I rued the day I’d ever blabbed and blurted about my stupid pissing father.
The thought turned my stomach. “I’ll get the money,” I said. “Just not from him. I’d rather eat my own shit.”
He pulled a face. “I know, lass. Sorry I asked. You know what it’s like, times must.”
“I know.”
And I did know. I knew how tough times were around here for Jack. His wife had run off last year, taking the yard’s head foreman along with her, and Jack was left to pick up the pieces, running a woodland maintenance business virtually single-handed through the tough winter months while prices rose all around him and profit margins got squeezed. There were just a couple of stables on his land, and a run-down excuse for a dressage ring, but I’d been here years now, and I loved it. It wasourplace, Samson’s and mine, we belonged here. I just wanted to make it official.
Jack was willing to rent me the land, but he needed the cash and he needed it upfront. Otherwise he was going to have to sell. Sell and turf me off.
The thought was horrible.
We were right by the woods here, acres and acres of perfect riding. I’d been dreaming of running a stable here since I first set eyes on the place, and it had been cemented in concrete the second Samson had arrived on the horse lorry, and I’d led him into his stall. It felt right here.
“I could give you a bit now, if you need it…”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t, Kate, just when you can, you know? I don’t want to have to sell.”
I pulled out my mobile. “Five hundred do for now?”
He looked so sad. So awkward. “Fuel bill’s in. Gonna set me back six-fifty.”
Ouch.
I ignored the seedy twist of pain as I transferred seven hundred. So long, bank balance. It was a nice few hours.
“Done,” I said. “And a little extra. For any little extras Samson might need.”
He never did, and Jack would never use the extra money for Samson, but we danced the little dance anyway.
He smiled. “Better get old donkey ears out. He’s been giving me some shit this morning.”
Jack said that every morning, and every morning it was just something to say. I smiled anyway.
I rounded the corner to the stable block and my heart did its little jump it does every single time I set eyes on my beautiful boy. He already knew I was coming, ears pricked up and eyes fixed in my direction. On sight of me he gave a little whinny and tossed his head, and I smiled. His eyes were big and brown, and so kind, and his ears were long — a little like a donkey’s, as Jack would say — and his nose was velvet soft.
“Hey,” I said, and he butted me, tickling my cheek with his forelock. I scratched his ears and rubbed the white flash of his blaze, and my big baby looked so bloody big today, shuffling around his stall all eager to come out and play. I grabbed a head collar from the hook and slipped it on, sliding the bolt on the stable door and leading him out. His step was bright and bouncy, eyes excited as I hitched him to the post and headed for the tack stall.
He whickered as I set his saddle down on the railing, snuffling my pockets for mints as I brushed him down.
Samson was a big brute of an Irish Draught cross. An ex-hunter, certainly owned by someone who was more about the excitement than the skill. I’d picked him up from auction, my heart in my throat as I’d bid against some dealer from the Forest of Dean. Fuck knows what would have happened to Samson if I’d have been outbid, but I’d known he was for me from the moment our eyes met across the sale yard. I hadn’t even had a chance to ride him, let alone to get him vetted before I bid, but it didn’t matter. I took a chance, and it had paid big, even though he was waytoo inexperienced for his age, jumping way too big and way too awkwardly, and shying at everything on earthwhen we rode out alone. I’d persisted, through it all. All the teething problems, all the schooling, all the knocks and bumps and falls. We’d learned together, him and me, and it was the best feeling.
He was almost black, his coat the very darkest bay, and his mane was thick and full, his tail long. He breathed against my shoulder as I teased the pugs from his forelock, holding still as I planted a kiss on his nose.
“Let’s go.”
I saddled him up in a flash, and grabbed my helmet, swinging myself up onto his back before I’d even fastened my chin strap. He strode out with his head high, ears pricked as we made our way out past the other horsey faces in the stalls and further out past Jack. He waved as we cleared the barn, and I squeezed Samson to a trot as we headed up the drive and onto the lane.
The saddle felt harder than usual against tender flesh, every pace a reminder of the fact I’d been fucked the night before. I’d really been fucked the night before. Potentially harder than I’d ever been fucked, and definitely deeper. Rick fucked like a porn star. The thought made me grin. One in the pussy, one in the hand. Maybe I could be a little porno minx myself.
The nerves came flooding back, the memory of the adrenaline and the endorphins and the fear, and it put me back in my place.
Hardly a porno minx, but I’d done alright. I think.
