All the King's Horses by Lauren Gallagher Read Free Book Online Page B

within the last five years. It probably even had its oil changed on a regular basis.
    Whether she’d bought it herself or Daddy had, that truck wasn’t cheap, and farmhands who drove onto the property in something like that didn’t stay long. Most people didn’t unless they had to.
    I looked out at the pastures where Amy was going to bring horses in for the evening.
    Her interactions with horses aside, Amy seemed nice enough. A little quiet, maybe a bit shy. And pretty, I’d give her that. Good God, I’d give her that and then some. But as with Blue, good looks didn’t change whatever was underneath. Blue’s gorgeous color and conformation didn’t make him rideable any more than Amy’s pretty face made her a person who should be working around horses. Or someone I could be around without grinding my teeth with frustration. She was friendly and polite toward my parents and me, as well as the clients who came and went throughout the day.
    The way she interacted with the horses, though, that still bothered me. Or rather, the way she didn’t interact with them. They greeted her in the barn? No reaction. They nuzzled her in search of treats? No response. One of the babies did anything at all? Nothing.
    Completely cold. It wasn’t right. Why the hell did she even want to be around the horses? She reminded me of those show-sour horses we got once in a while. The ones who’d won every title within a five-hundred-mile radius, but did it with their ears pinned and eyes completely cold. One too many trips around the show ring took all the life right out of them, and there was nothing for it but a few months of pasture living and trail riding.
    Just as well I’d only hired her as a farmhand. I never would have hired a trainer sight unseen anyhow, but she wouldn’t have lasted five minutes if she was trying to convince me to let her handle my horses beyond taking them to and from their pastures.
    Especially not Star and Blue, I thought. It would take a careful hand and a world of patience to bring that pair back to any semblance of sanity. Star wasn’t broke to ride yet, so at least she hadn’t been traumatized under saddle. Once I made it past whatever ghosts she had on the ground, riding her wouldn’t be as difficult as it was with some rescues.
    Like, say, Blue.
    And after everything that horse had been through, he needed cold, casual indifference like he needed a hole in the head.
    Which led me to wonder again what the hell someone who wasn’t remotely interested in horses was doing here.
    Amy was good-looking. She didn’t complain about her work.
    But I didn’t like her.
    Or at least, I didn’t want to like her. On one hand, her apathy toward the horses was seriously off-putting. On the other, though, something drew me toward her. And it wasn’t just her good looks.
    “So, what do you think?” Dad’s voice turned my head.
    “Of?”
    “The new hire.” He nodded toward the pasture.
    I watched Amy walking between the fences toward the gate. A yearling walked beside her, nudging her playfully, as curious about her as she apparently wasn’t about him.
    “She’s an interesting girl,” I said.
    “Yep, she is.”
    “Why did we hire her, again?”
    “Because Larry quit.”
    I scowled at Dad. “I mean why her?”
    “Dustin, she answered the ad.” Dad put up his hands. “She could start right away and didn’t argue about the price.”
    I looked out at the pasture again.
    “You want to keep her on the payroll?” Dad asked. “You don’t think she’s what we need, fire her and hire another one.”
    “No, she can still do her job.” I turned back toward him. “But leave the ad up. I doubt it’ll be long before she quits anyhow.”
    Dad laughed and gestured past me. “You seen her truck too, then?”
    “Yep.”
    “All right, I’ll leave it up. Hopefully we’ll get another response before this one gets tired of getting her hands dirty.”
    Or before I get tired of her.
     
     
    Later that