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“I, uh …” I paused and then groaned. “To be honest, I never really competed. I just enjoyed reading horse books when I was growing up,” I admitted, feeling like a huge liar.
“Oh.” He was silent for a moment then started laughing. “I was wondering how a city girl entered so many horse shows.”
“Do you hate me?” Was he going to send me packing to New York City?
“Of course not,” he shook his head, his smile genuine. “I couldn’t hate you for that.”
“You must find this entire situation so weird, huh?” I looked at him, searching his eyes.
“Honestly, not as weird as you’d think,” he chuckled as we made our way into the stables. “You forget my mom has been my mom my entire life and I’ve always lived in Montana. A lot of crazy things that go on here.”
“As crazy as your mom sending for a mail order bride for you?”
“Well, I don’t consider you a mail order bride as much as this seems like some sort of arranged marriage.” He made a face.
“Mail order bride is a weird term, isn’t it?” I looked at the different horses in the stable and spied one horse in the far left that was taking a keen interest in me. “I always thought that it seemed kind of sketchy to be a mail order bride.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I don’t know that that’s the best term. But my parents are old,” he laughed. He noticed that I was staring at the horse in one of the stalls. “That’s Sally, by the way. She’s an American Quarter Horse.”
“She’s beautiful.” I made my way to her stall. “Can I pet her?”
“Of course.” Beau walked next to me and reached into his pocket and pulled out some carrots. “Here, feed her these. She’ll love you.” I took the piece of carrot and held it in the palm of my hand and looked into her big brown eyes. Sally was a tan brown with blondish-brown mane and white features along her forehead going down to her nose. She took the carrots from my palm eagerly and chewed on them. “She’s a show horse,” Beau patted her on the head. “She loves going out on the trail as well if you want to ride her.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I felt slightly nervous. She looked like a beautiful horse, but I was pretty sure even a beautiful horse could throw me off.
“Oh, don’t worry. She’s great with beginners.” He smiled warmly. “She’s pretty new to the family, actually. Austin bought her about six months ago.”
“Cool.” I looked around the stalls and studied the other horses and then said casually, “Will Austin be joining us?” I hoped there wasn’t too much hope in my voice.
“Unlikely,” he shook his head. “I think he was heading into town for a lunch date today or something,” he shrugged.
“Oh.” A surge of disappointment filled me and I couldn’t stop myself from asking the next question. “So he has a girlfriend?”
“A girlfriend?” Beau laughed uproariously. “Austin doesn’t do girlfriends. He’s the consummate bachelor of the family. And that’s saying a lot seeing as we’re all single.”
“Oh. Okay.” I wanted to ask more questions, but I didn’t want Beau wondering why I cared so much about his brother.
My phone started ringing and I looked down to see that Olivia was calling me. “Oh, sorry. It’s my best friend.”
“Feel free to answer. I’ll go and grab some saddles.”
“Okay, thanks.” I answered the phone. “Hey, Olivia. How’s it going?”
“Hey, Lucy. I want to know what’s going on. How’s Beau? How’s Austin? How’s everything?
“Oh, well, I’m in the stables right now with Beau and we’re about to go riding.”
“Put me on FaceTime, girl. I want to see what he looks like.”
“I can’t video chat,” I whispered just as Beau came back.
“You can video chat if you want,” he said, acknowledging that he’d heard what I said.
“Oh, well, I mean, I know we were about to go riding. I can always call her back.”
“No,” she whined in my ear loudly. “Put me on video chat.”
“You can put her on video chat,” he chuckled. “It seems like she really wants to see where you are and make sure you’re safe. Sounds like she’s a good friend.”
