The Prize by Stacy Gregg Read Free Book Online Page A

eventers waiting to get onboard. Kennedy shot the girls a filthy look.
    â€œTell your sidekick to watch her mouth or she’ll end up on Fatigues with you,” Kennedy told Georgie.
    â€œYou can’t give Fatigues. You’re not a prefect, Kennedy,” Georgie glared at her.
    â€œHer boyfriend is!” Arden, ever the lapdog, leapt to Kennedy’s defence.
    Kennedy stepped past Georgie to take up position at the front of the queue. “Just because Tara has stuck us together doesn’t mean I have to be nice to you,” she sniped.
    â€œTrust me,” Georgie said, “that never occurred to me.”
    Kennedy and Arden took their seats at the back and Georgie stopped by the driver’s seat to talk to Kenny.
    â€œI hear my nephew’s got that little chestnut lined up for the Firecracker,” Kenny said. Or at least that was what Georgie thought he said. Kenny had a mouthful of chewing tobacco and it was hard to understand him at the best of times.
    â€œUh-huh. I went along to Keeneland Park to watch Riley breeze him yesterday,” Georgie said, “He’s pretty confident that Marco can win it.”
    â€œHere’s hopin’,” Kenny said. “Clemency Farm sure could do with some good fortune right now.”
    Georgie was going to ask Kenny what he meant by that, but there was a queue of riders behind her waiting to get onboard so she moved on.
    Kenny set off down the driveway, steering the minibus along the broad tree-lined driveway of the Academy out the front gates and back towards the main road heading for Versailles. The distinctive dark-stained post and rail fences of the Academy gave way to the white post and rail fences of the surrounding bluegrass horse farms. This district was the best breeding pasture in the world for young Thoroughbreds. Over five hundred horse farms jigsawed in side-by-side into this tiny district.
    Although the stables were state-of-the-art, from the outside these bluegrass farms had an honest, old-fashioned look about them with clusters of white wooden barns and red rooftops dominating the fields.
    With so many top flight farms so close together it didn’t take long for Kenny to do the rounds, dropping off the students at their appointed employers. He had dropped off half of his passengers by the time he reached the farm gates of the Blackwell Estate.
    Two white Doric pillars topped with the giant golden initials D and B marked out the front gates, and instead of a limestone driveway like most farms in the district, the path to the stables and the house was tarmac. As the minibus eased up the drive Georgie saw black and silver stable blocks, a tennis court and a swimming pool, and a house that looked like a giant iced wedding cake, with more massive white columns running along the front.
    â€œGeorgie and Kennedy?” Kenny drawled, “This one’s your stop.”
    Georgie grabbed her bag and followed Kennedy off the bus.
    The doors eased shut the minute that they got off and Kenny was gone, leaving the two girls alone in front of the wedding cake’s front door.
    â€œNice house,” Georgie said.
    Kennedy gave a hollow laugh. “You’re kidding me! A tarmac driveway? That’s so tacky! Totally nouveau riche. I mean, who decorated this place? Simon Cowell?”
    Georgie had never thought about the social implications of tarmac before, and she was still boggling over this when Dominic Blackwell appeared from the stables.
    â€œMy new grooms have arrived!” he said, extending a hand to shake. “Julie and Kelly, yes?”
    â€œGeorgie and Kennedy,” Georgie smiled.
    â€œClose enough,” Dominic Blackwell said, clearly not too pleased about being corrected. “Follow me, girls. You’re about to enter the best stables in the Northern Hemisphere!”
    From the outside, the stables looked like a modern art gallery – or maybe a top secret aircraft hangar – all jet-black