Bright, Broken Things, page 10
No, she wouldn’t be illustrating any anatomy texts, but the parts were where they were supposed to be, at least, even if the shapes weren’t quite right. She picked another species on which to focus, comparative anatomy from first year undergrad Biology the starting point on which to expand everything she needed to store in her memory. Medical students didn’t know how easy they had it, with only one species to worry about. Though having to deal with human patients might even things out.
A warm breeze fluttered the edge of the notebook pages, and she planted a hand on top of them to settle them, glancing up at the sky. Still clear, blue and cloudless above her, but the wind was picking up. It was almost time to pack up anyway, Geai emerging from the barn with a stud shank in his hands. She could study more tonight.
Just Lucky paced back and forth. The young stallion always had to be first. He pushed his head over the gate and Geai poked him in the muzzle every time he tried to nip. Liv didn’t know how Geai kept up with it, because it was a constant natter, natter, natter. It made her laugh, because Geai said she let horses get away with stuff. Just Lucky was like a grandchild to the old farm manager, though, as much as Liv and Emilie were.
Lucky finally stopped his pestering and allowed the manager to loop the long chain part of the lead shank over the horse’s nose, wrapping it around the leather of the noseband, then back under his jaw. From there, Lucky was relatively civilized, prancing lightly on the way to the barn. He hadn’t covered a mare since the end of June, but he was still hopeful.
Just Lucky’s first foal was due the third week of January, carried by Sotisse, her father’s favourite mare. It was hard not to be excited about that one. The mating combined the genes of the farm’s two most successful runners; a cross that would hopefully keep alive the Buckpasser blood Sotisse carried, a line that seemed to be dying out. Just Lucky’s pedigree boasted the more popular Northern Dancer influence. Liv loved the combination.
The foal could be nothing, of course. You could plan all you wanted, breed the best to the best, and end up with a lot of disappointment. Lucky’s success as a racehorse still seemed like a crazy, amazing dream. Claude Lachance’s first-generation homebred. He’d purchased Sotisse because of her fashionable bloodlines with the expectation she would be an asset to his fledgling broodmare band — agamble he’d thrown a lot of money at. A gamble that had worked out when she’d turned out to be a runner as well. Lucky was more a rags to riches story.
By rights, they should have bred Sotisse to a fancy, established, Kentucky stallion after her success at the track. She was worthy of such a match. The decision to keep her home, to breed to their own stallion in his first year standing stud, was not one that followed the rules. It wasn’t about wise investment or common sense. It was about one thing and one thing only. A gut feeling. A dream. And while Liv was usually sensible to a fault, prefering to stick to the rules, on this one, she sided with her father. Her gut felt it too. This foal would be special.
Geai and Lucky disappeared into the barn, Starway meandering over to the gate, content to wait while Geai attended to his demanding stablemate. Movement to the right pulled Liv’s gaze away from the stallion. Nate, emerging from the woods.
He didn’t look in her direction immediately, and she let herself watch him. She knew human anatomy too; once again allowed herself to observe his rather correct conformation. He wasn’t a bad mover, either. She suppressed a smile, even though there was no one around to see it. Then blushed when he looked over, even though he was probably too far away to notice.
He stuttered a step, like seeing her had knocked him off stride. Then he lifted a hand, but kept running, his eyes returning to his chosen course. The two of them were merely ships that passed, but hiring him had been the right call. It seemed to be working out. No one had anything negative to say about him. He kept to himself, much to the chagrin of the female staff, she was sure. Emilie seemed to have befriended him.
The real test would be what he did when the yearlings finished with their sixty days. Would he stay? Or would he make his way to the track, hoping to find a winter job somewhere warmer? Especially if their trainer at Woodbine signed his application for an exercise rider’s license. She wouldn’t stay up here in the cold if she had the choice, so she could hardly blame him.
He waved and nodded at Geai too as the manager came out of the stallion barn, but didn’t stop for Geai, either. As Geai brought in Starway, Liv extracted herself from the picnic table, threw her bag over her shoulder, and walked into the stable.
She could hear Lucky’s feed tub rattling as he devoured his afternoon meal. Clatter, clatter, thump. Starway’s hooves clomped on the brushed concrete aisle. Liv could just catch the wisp of his long, full tail sweeping behind him, swinging with the rolling of his massive hindquarters.
When Geai came out of the stall, Starway’s tub now rattling in concert with Just Lucky’s, Liv was watching the smaller stallion. He’d been popular this season with breeders, the new kid on the block in Ontario. There hadn’t been a Canadian Triple Crown winner standing at stud in twenty years. She wouldn’t mention that stallion hadn’t rocked the breeding world the way everyone might have hoped. That was the fun of this game. Lucky could just as easily turn out to be another mediocre stallion who might be better off removed from the gene pool.
Geai re-buckled the heavy leather halter he’d removed from Starway and hung it on a hook on the door.
“Isn’t it your day off?” she chastised.
He ignored her like he always did. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust anyone else to handle the stallions, he just didn’t trust anyone else to handle the stallions. Except maybe her. She suspected Nate would be capable of it too, though Geai would have to accept the idea first.
“Hungry?” he said instead.
“I ate something.”
“Fruit? Bird seed?”
She ignored his teasing. He always complained she didn’t eat enough. Maybe that’s why I’d be able to make weight without much effort and you outgrew your riding career in your early twenties, she thought wryly. Such a shame he hadn’t been blessed with that envious combination of structure and metabolism. Such a shame while she had, she might never have the chance to make use of it.
“I brought you vegetables,” she said.
“I need a sandwich.”
“You can put vegetables on a sandwich.”
Geai rolled his eyes.
Napoleon greeted them at the door of Geai’s cottage, his stocky black body swaying as his tail wagged. Liv had to wait her turn to greet the old Labrador, but took her time to lavish some love on him once Geai went on to the kitchen.
She didn’t have to see what he was making to know what it was — Montreal smoked meat on rye. She reached into the sack of veggies she’d brought and pulled out a baggie of sliced carrots, pausing with her fingers on the fridge door handle.
“Would it kill you to put a piece of lettuce on that? It would balance the mutagens a little, at least.”
“Lettuce doesn’t go with smoked meat,” he grumbled.
She sighed and tossed Napoleon a carrot stick, which he snapped from the air. The old dog might have slowed down in other ways, but not when it came to food. At least he’d share the veggies. It might feel like she was joking with Geai, these exchanges about his diet, but she worried about him. Had, since he’d lost his wife four years ago. She pulled out a textbook and nibbled on the carrots, sharing them with Napoleon while Geai ate.
Liv tucked her book back into her bag when he took his empty plate to the sink and cleaned it. He turned to face her.
“Ready to go?”
She nodded, pushing up from the table. Napoleon rose from where he’d stationed himself at her feet.
“Sorry, Napoleon. Dog-proofing isn’t part of the yearling’s training.”
She felt like an outsider on her own farm, relegated to the sidelines. Nate Miller, doing the job she’d had to let go of. Geai held the bay filly — Gemma, a full sister to Just Lucky — and Nate went about checking the girth to make sure it was snug, popping down the stirrup irons with a slap of the leathers, running fingers over buckles on the bridle and adjusting keepers, checking the fit of the bit so it rested properly in the filly’s mouth. Liv had no doubt he’d put it all on himself, so all this was just a formality, but she appreciated his thoroughness.
He gathered the reins, already knotted to shorten them to a safe working length, and with no words passing between him and Geai, bounced from Geai’s leg up and lowered himself into the saddle. His care and effortless athleticism stirred something in her she couldn’t suppress, and it irked her. Good-looking guys made her nervous, sure. They didn’t do that.
So she focused on the emotions instead. Jealousy that Nate and Geai seemed to have the same ease of working together that she’d thought was special between her and the farm manager. Resentment, that she was stuck watching. Maybe it would all fall apart from here and those first impressions would fall by the wayside to reveal, well... flaws in Nate Miller. It wasn’t fair that he was both good-looking and competent.
Geai walked the filly forward, taking yearling and rider for an incomplete figure-eight in the small sand ring so that when Nate nodded and Geai turned them loose, they were travelling to the left. Before Gemma had a chance to think for herself, Nate gave a trill of chirps with his tongue and quick bumps with the inside of his heels and Gemma popped into an unsure trot.
From there, the way Nate kept her going seemed invisible, but his hands remained forward, giving her head complete freedom while his legs hugged her barrel, that pressure enough so Gemma didn’t consider slowing. After the first few strides he posted, tidy as any equitation rider, his body so controlled he didn’t interfere with the yearling’s precarious balance. Gemma’s ears flickered like the antennae of an insect, gleaning information from his body, his constant presence commanding her attention so that her surroundings were inconsequential.
He continued with the pattern Geai had first led them through, changing direction across the diagonal, his weight and an open rein giving her direction. It was teaching Gemma to steer, and the filly didn’t seem any worse for not having spent a few days ground driving. Liv almost smacked her forehead with her palm. Such an intuitive way to do it. She glanced at Geai, who was watching her, and pursed her lips. Had the old man learned something too?
She’d been so engrossed she hadn’t noticed anyone approaching until he was resting his arms on the top rail of the fence next to her.
“Hey, kiddo.” Dean nudged her with his elbow as she glanced over. “Oops.”
Liv’s smile was interrupted as she returned her gaze to the ring, but she saw nothing awry. “What?”
“Baby had a little spook. All good now.”
From Liv’s perspective it appeared as if nothing had happened, Nate carrying on at a now-lively jog, Gemma’s focus all on him.
“He’s good, eh?” Dean said. “He’s got panache.”
“Panache?” Liv smothered a laugh.
“Sure. What word would you use?”
“Not that one.”
Nate was confident on a horse, definitely. More so on than off of one, but who was she to talk? He was somehow both still and animated up there, his subtle signals to his mount as clear as telepathy. She hated him a little more.
“I don’t recognize him,” Dean said. “Who does he gallop for in the morning?”
How have you not heard? Liv almost responded. But Faye wasn’t likely to pass on the news of Triple Stripe’s live-in help to her brother, when the main point of interest for Faye was Emilie’s report on the new guy’s hotness factor.
“No one.”
“So I can steal him away, then?”
“Absolutely not.” It reminded Liv again of Geai’s comment about getting Nate licensed. If he was as good on a racehorse as he was with the babies, someone at Woodbine would snap him up so quick they’d be back to square one here on the farm, trying to find another staff member. Maybe he sucked at galloping. It was possible.
It was only a short session; just a few minutes of walk-trot both ways before he let Gemma walk. The bay filly was tired, though it was likely more from the brain work than the physical effort. Thinking was hard when you were a baby horse who had, to this point, existed with few expectations other than leading in and out from the pasture to the barn and back and picking up her feet politely for the farrier. Nate pointed Gemma toward the audience at the rail. He swung off and ran up his stirrups.
“She’s a good girl,” he said, scrubbing her withers with his fingernails before loosening the girth a hole. He eyed Dean, waiting.
Liv straightened. “Sorry. Nate, this is Dean Taylor, our neighbour.”
The two men exchanged handshakes and polite smiles through the fence before Geai opened the gate, offering Nate the rope shank.
“I’ll get your homebred next then, Dean,” Nate said. All the charisma Liv had felt when he’d been riding seemed to seep away now that he was back on the ground. Her earlier feelings of resentment were replaced with ones of kinship. Maybe they were a little alike, she and this guy.
She followed off to the side, absently listening to Nate and Dean talk. She wanted to hop on one of the yearlings herself and see if she could replicate what he’d done. If she wasn’t feeling so out of sorts, she’d have suggested it — even though she had studying to get back to. It would be rude to leave now that Dean had arrived, so she had an excuse to stay and watch some more.
“How’s the other colt coming along?” Dean asked.
“Arthur?” Nate said.
Dean looked at him blankly.
“That’s what Nate’s calling him,” Liv interjected. “Though there’s some debate whether he’s supposed to be a knight or a displaced human on a very strange intergalactic voyage.”
Nate slid a glance her way and grinned. “He’s coming along. I might do a bit of long-lining with him, though. The whole ‘get on and go’ thing probably wouldn’t go over so well with him. The driving lines will get him used to something moving on his sides so he maybe doesn’t drop me on my head when I’m finally on him.”
She arched an eyebrow, though he wasn’t looking at her, his eyes focused somewhere on the ground about six feet in front of him, from what she could tell. So, he wasn’t rigid in his methods. Whatever was best for the horse. Couldn’t she find some objective reason not to like this guy?
She stayed long enough to help turn the yearlings back out. Dean had wanted to watch Nate work with Arthur, and Liv couldn’t resist the temptation to do the same. Today’s baby step with the colt was the introduction to a surcingle and pad, which Liv thought the colt accepted surprisingly well. Dean continued to be impressed.
Dean went home. Nate went back to his apartment. Geai lingered.
“Why do you think he’d leave?” Geai asked.
“Because I probably would, in the same position. If I had the freedom to do so.”
“You do, if that’s really what you want.”
“No. I don’t,” she insisted.
“So you would abandon me?” He didn’t hide his broad grin.
“It’s not as if you listen to me when I nag about your health, so… “ She smiled back. “I’d better get back to studying.”
She returned to the house, glancing up at the apartment as she passed it. She’d let the dust settle — in her mind — before getting on Claire.
17
He reached Woodbine at quarter to eight, wishing he could skip this step — trudging into the trailer by the security entrance and announcing himself to the guard behind the counter.
The guard nodded and broadcast through the public address system, “Roger Cloutier, party waiting at the East Gate.”
He squirmed. Not Nate’s idea of a party, but then again, parties weren’t really his thing. He should have texted when he’d arrived, but that would have meant Liv, because he didn’t have the trainer’s number. He’d never texted her before; they only communicated when they randomly ran into each other on the farm and then words were sparse. The guard could have called Roger directly, couldn’t he? They must have the trainers’ numbers on file. Maybe he was making a point of embarrassing Nate, or maybe he was just lazy.
A phone rang in short order, and the guard picked up a landline. Nate watched as he nodded.
“Okay. Thanks, Jo.” He gathered a couple of forms and pushed them to Nate on top of the counter. “Fill these out and I’ll get you a guest pass.”
Nate accepted the pen he was offered and scanned the documents before filling them out and sliding them back over the counter. Then the guard took his picture, sent him to an adjacent small office where a woman behind a desk smiled, took the access form and did her thing. The guard handed Nate a small piece of thermal print paper with a bar code and his photo on it when he returned. They took security seriously around here.
“You’re good to go.”
“Thanks,” Nate said, stepping towards the door. “Oh — what barn are they in again?”
“Five. It’s the second one facing the main track. But you’ll have to park either at the kitchen or across from Barn Two. Six of one, half a dozen of the other which is closer.”
He left the trailer, tramping down the steps to the small lot beside it where he’d left the Mustang. He climbed behind the wheel and drove up to the shack, then handed his slip of paper to the guard. The guard scanned it, nodded, and opened the barrier.
Google Maps was his friend — he’d checked the layout of the Woodbine backstretch so he could make a good guess where the kitchen was, and followed the network of paved roads between the barns, cutting behind the first row of them — the row that contained Barn Five, because the direct route was blocked off during training hours. The dusty old car with its Alberta plates would stick out around here, left behind in the parking lot by the cafeteria building, known as “the kitchen” in track speak.
