Helen Brenna - Her Sure Thing

“Like I had a choice.”

Man, did he look like a younger version of his dad. “My name’s Grace.”

“Austin.”

“So, Austin, you’ve never mucked out a stall before, have you?”

“No.” He looked angry, frustrated and in need of a friend.

Funny, that’s exactly the way she felt these days.

Before thinking better of it, she opened the stall door. “Well, first off you need to change shoes.” She pointed to a pair of rubber boots by the barn door. “Wear a pair of those and then you don’t need to worry about stepping in anything.”

He glanced toward the door. “Whose are those?”

“Probably Arlo’s, but he won’t mind.”

Grudgingly, Austin pulled on the barn boots.

“While you’re over there grab those gloves.” She indicated the pair on the shelf above the boots. “So you don’t get blisters.”

He came toward her, looking at least a little bit better prepared.

“Now you’re ready to get to work.”

She showed him a better way to hold the shovel and before she knew what she was getting herself into she’d changed out of her riding boots and into her Wellingtons and was helping him take another load out to the spreader. In no time, they’d finished mucking out all the stalls in the livery stable and she’d shown him how to use the spreader in the back pasture.

On their way to the barn, she said, “So you really don’t know anything about horses?”

“Nope.”

“Bet your dad took that real well.”

“He’s not my dad.” Austin frowned. “Technically, I guess he is my dad, but I didn’t know it until a couple weeks ago. I thought my mom’s husband was my real dad. Turns out he’s not.”

Unbelievable. “So Griffin deserted you and your mom?”

“No. He never knew she was pregnant. She’s got all kinds of excuses for keeping that a secret. They were splitting, and he never wanted to have kids. I guess she thought she was doing them both a favor.”

“So Griffin just now found out you’re his son?”

“Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“What are you doing here now?”

He looked away. “My mom and…Glen are getting divorced. She’s got enough on her hands with my younger brother and sister.”

“She sent you here?” To get rid of him. That had to have hurt.

“Yeah. For the summer. Just for the summer.” He sounded as if he was making excuses for her. “So now Sean’s mad at me. Sent me in here to muck out the stalls.”

Some small part of her took perverse pleasure in this upset to Sean’s life. Why, she had no clue. The man simply drove her crazy. Then there was the fact that she felt a kind of affinity toward the kid, an outsider, like her. “How ’bout I teach you to ride?” Grace offered.

“Can you?”

“I can try. I grew up here on Mirabelle. Used to work for Arlo. I can teach you how to saddle a horse, how to feed them, brush them. You name it.”

“Why do you want to help me?”

“Because I have a feeling it’ll bug your dad,” she said, grinning. Any enemy of Sean’s was a friend of Grace’s. “Time to teach you everything you never wanted to know about horses.”

“THIS IS RIDICULOUS,” GRACE muttered to herself as she flipped off the bedcovers. First hot, then cold, then hot again. To the bathroom. To the kitchen for a drink of water. Night after night after night. She’d been on Mirabelle for more than a week and she wasn’t able to sleep any better here than in her Hollywood Hills home. And she’d used the last of her pain medication.

Rolling out of bed, she glanced out the window. Below, the lights of Mirabelle’s small village center twinkled, and the lake, black as the clear night sky, stretched as far as the eye could see. A full moon glittered on the surface of the abnormally still lake. On a night like this the view from Full Moon Bay would be amazing, but then the views from there were always amazing.

Her favorite spot on the entire island, Full Moon Bay, was north of Rock Pointe, the lodge and resort area her brother owned, Henderson’s apple orchard and even the lighthouse. A gem of sugar-soft sand accessible only from the main road by a narrow deer path, no one but the locals knew of the bay’s existence. When she was little, Grace had gone there to hunt for agates, and when she was older, for bonfire parties with friends. She’d skinny-dipped more than once in the shallow waters of Full Moon Bay, and, in fact, had lost her virginity there to some boy from Chicago who’d been there on vacation with his family. Funny, but she couldn’t even remember the boy’s name.

As much as she would’ve loved seeing the bay after all these years, the idea of hiking to the deserted northeast end of Mirabelle alone in the pitch-black stillness of the night sounded a bit bizarre. Instead, she walked into the bathroom, splashed water onto her face and patted her skin dry. Glancing through her window toward the barns behind her house made her think of Louie. Was he adjusting to Mirabelle any better?

The hell with it. She pulled on a sweatshirt and sweatpants, remembering that even after a hot day the nights on the island could get chilly, and slipped out the back door. She flashed on the possible complication of being discovered by Sean or one of his stable hands, but quickly dismissed that risk. She’d snuck into the Duffy’s barns on many occasions when she’d lived here. Besides, what was the worst thing that could happen if she did get caught?

IT WAS PAST MIDNIGHT.

Sean sat in front of his computer screen in his office off the kitchen working up a new shift schedule for the stable operations. He’d already taken care of the livery schedule, prepped the day’s bank deposit and gathered and emailed off the last two weeks of hours to his payroll accountant. All that after taking care of the carriages that had come rolling into his yard after the last of the shuttle runs around the island.

He finished the schedule and then stood and stretched. He was done for the night, and Austin still wasn’t home. Granted, it was Friday night and he’d said it was okay to stay out late, but he’d made it clear to Austin that curfew on this island for sixteen-year-olds was midnight on Friday and Saturday. Sean had checked with Garrett.

His hands stuffed deep into his front jeans pockets, he walked outside and onto the wide, wraparound front porch, staring out into the night and hoping he was going to see a tall, lanky teenager coming toward him any minute. More than likely, Austin had made some friends and simply lost track of time. But what if he’d been scrambling around on the boulders along the shore? What if he’d slipped and fallen into the water? Sean didn’t even know if the kid could swim.

The longer he stood there, the madder he got. The little shit. No wonder Denise wanted to get rid of him.

No, that wasn’t fair. The truth was he couldn’t blame the kid for acting out. Rebellion was probably in his genes, and Sean knew exactly from which side it’d come.

He paced the length of the porch and glanced out over the pastureland. Finally, he’d found a purpose for the money that had been put in a trust fund when his mother had passed away. Buying this old farmhouse and the one hundred plus acres of land along with the four barns, more than sixty horses and ten carriages would’ve made his mother happy.

Unlike the rest of the island with its Victorian gingerbread charm, the only quaint thing about this farmhouse was that it had been painted red with white trim to match the barns. Sean was okay with that. In fact, he rather liked this old house. With its wide-open rooms and simple design, it wasn’t far off the mark of something he’d build on his own, given the chance.

He especially liked the fact that his property was at the outskirts of town, although as such, it was dark here. For Austin’s sake, Sean had left every light on inside the house, as well as outside. He’d even left the floodlights on by the barns, hoping the kid would find his way.