Tell Me the Mystery of the Universe (Chimerical, Kismet)
Tell Me the Mystery of the Universe
Chimerical
by Syrinx
Rating: PG
Kismet: Fate, destiny.
Summary: The virus never found Edgardale, but Ashleigh's fate was always with Townsend Acres.
A/N: I'm cherry picking from canon with this one (which somehow achieved epic short story status...how did that happen?!). I don't believe Edgardale is in Lexington, as Ashleigh's Hope suggests, so I'm putting it in Paris. But I am going to say that Ashleigh's parents bought it when she was eight, as Ashleigh's Hope does suggest. I never really read any Edgardale-centric book anyway. So...
The mare was nothing special. She started ten times when she was younger, managed a couple of allowance wins before dropping down a class and getting claimed. She had five foals, four starters, two winners, one of them stakes-placed. All together they'd earned five figures, so far. They'd sold at auction for slightly more. Her parents were optimistic. Ashleigh wasn't quite so sure.
It was a combination of that stakes race and the mare's pedigree that kept her on the roster at Edgardale, and got her into almost any stallion's book. Her parents kept saying it was a matter of finding the right stallion for her, some animal that would improve the mare and create a foal that lived up to its bloodlines.
Again, Ashleigh wasn't so sure. Sometimes she thought her parents had an unlimited ability to hope, and she figured they would need it. Edgardale had been in the family for fifteen years and since graduating college and getting into the family business full time she'd learned they only barely broke even. She'd seen the strain her own paltry salary placed on the tiny operation, she saw how much her parents wanted this to all go well, and she knew exactly how costly this breeding would be for all of them.
You didn't just stroll into Townsend Acres and ask for a discount on their best stallion. Townsend Victor came with a price tag of fifty grand, reduced from seventy-five from the year before when her parents decided to pounce. He was the optimal stud, her parents had reasoned. Think about it. If the farm had kept the mare as a weanling, put her to stud, she would have wound up bred to this stallion. It was logical.
It was crazy. That was what Ashleigh had said, but there were stars in her parents' eyes. They were already thinking of a foal that would make up the price of the stud fee and more in the auction ring. Meanwhile, Ashleigh was given the task, as assistant broodmare manager, to drive the mare down to the farm for her date in the shed.
She so wants this to go well.
*
Townsend Acres is perfection. Manicured beyond reason. A well-oiled machine. The horses in the paddocks look like they get two baths a day for the way their coats shine, and the personnel all wear green windbreakers to cut the chill of early March. It takes more than a few minutes for Ashleigh to dismiss it all as a presentation she's seen before. Townsend Acres isn't any better than any other huge stud farm in Kentucky, and Edgardale would never be in direct competition. Aesthetics and landscaping aren't the name of the game underneath.
She's met by a girl a few years younger than herself, college age, with brilliant red hair pulled back in a ponytail. The girl waves the truck down and Ashleigh parks it by a few other trailers outside the broodmare barn, hopping out of the truck while the girl walks around the grill to present her hand. They shake.
“Samantha McLean.”
“Ashleigh Griffen.”
“Edgardale and Guayusa?”
It's common to mispronounce the name of the mare, and it's second nature for Ashleigh to correct her. “Why-You-Suh.”
“Huh?”
“That's her name.”
“Oh,” Samantha tips her head at the trailer, like she can see the mare inside. “That's pretty.”
“It's impossible,” Ashleigh laughs. “We had to look it up when we bought her.”
Samantha walks around to the back of the trailer, “Well, let's get her settled. Her date is at one, but we're a little backed up today. You got a cell phone on you?”
“Sure,” Ashleigh says, unlocking the doors and lowering the ramp. The mare turns her head to roll one big brown eye at them warily, peering over her rump as far as the restraints will allow.
“Good,” Samantha watches Ashleigh back the mare down the ramp. “We'll call you when they're ready in the shed.”
“Do you know how long we'll have to wait?” Ashleigh asks, leading the mare into the barn as Samantha leads the way to one of the stalls. They pass four stalls with masking tape name plates, temporary housing for mares waiting for live cover. Samantha opens up the fifth stall in and Ashleigh leads the mare inside.
She unclips the lead, pulls off the shipping boots, while Samantha shrugs and says, “I wouldn't want to guess. If you have something you need to do, I'd go ahead and do it. If you want to stick around, you can. Either way, I'll call you when it's time.”
That is about as vague as it can get, so Ashleigh accepts it for the non-answer it is and leaves the mare to her hay.
“There's a lounge in the admin building,” Samantha adds, “if you're interested.”
“I think I'll wander around for a while,” Ashleigh says, walking back out to the trailer to put away the mare's things.
“Suit yourself,” Samantha says, just as another trailer arrives, larger and newer than Edgardale's rig. Samantha hurries off, leaving Ashleigh with the green expanse of Townsend Acres.
*
She shoves her phone in her pocket, locks the doors to the truck and the trailer, and takes a walk. A long walk.
The farm is a rambling tract of land, and there's almost too much to see. From the broodmare barns and the huge paddocks surrounding it, she can see the breeding shed nearby, the stallion barn further beyond. More paddocks, more gravel roads, more horses dotting the world around her.
She heads out of the breeding complex and finds herself on the racing end, walking along the training oval and the two massive barns that supply it with runners. There's a chestnut on the track, a lone horse working out down the inside rail. She stops for a moment to watch, one hand shading her eyes as the horse goes thundering past. A young woman, a few years older than herself, is crouched over the animal's withers.
They gallop into the turn, leaving Ashleigh behind.
*
After about an hour she gets bored, and she heads back to the broodmare barn to check on the mare. There is no way she'd submit herself to sitting in a glorified waiting room, so if she has the whole of the afternoon just to get this mare bred she'd rather wait it out in front of the Guayusa's stall with her nose in a book.
It's good that she brought one. She decides to check in on the mare first, and finds someone standing outside the stall instead. She's irritated for a minute and checks her phone, wondering if they'd forgotten to call her, but then she gets a better look at the guy in front of her and knows she's still on the waiting list.
There's no way this man is your average farm hand.
“Can I help you?” she asks. She doesn't startle him, she notices. He just looks over at her and smiles slightly, keeps his arms crossed across his chest. She can see how she would have made the mistake at first. He's in nothing more than jeans and a t-shirt. His boots are worn and muddy, like they've seen every day of early spring. But then he's not wearing the required polo shirts everyone else has on with their emblazoned windbreakers, so he's either a visitor like her or something else.
“I should probably be asking you that,” he says to her.
He's something else.
*
They shake hands.
“Brad Townsend.”
She slips her hand out of his. “Ashleigh Griffen.”
*
“How long have you had her?”
Ashleigh shrugs. “My parents claimed her six years ago. She's ten now.”
He looks at the mare in a way she can't place. “She's from Pride's first crop. That was a nice group of foals.”
“Townsend Prince,” Ashleigh nods, because that's common knowledge. “Nice is probably an understatement.”
“You remember him?” he asks her, now a little surprised. “You were probably like eight then.”
“I was fifteen,” she says.
He laughs. “I stand corrected.”
“I remember desperately wanting him to win the Triple Crown,” she says, shakes her head. “That Belmont nearly broke me.”
He rubs a hand over the mare's white blaze. “You and me both. Who is,” he checks the mare's name tag, “Guayusa visiting today?”
“Why-You-Suh,” she corrects, and he gives her a look. “That's her name.”
“Why-You-Suh,” he repeats. “Okay. Question still stands.”
“Townsend Victor,” she tells him. He whistles, low and soft.
“That will be a nice foal.”
“So my parents keep telling me.”
“Don't have any faith in my boy?”
She laughs. “I think faith is the wrong word. I've got proof he's an exceptional stallion. I'm less sure on whether or not it's a good decision.”
“Financially or genetically?”
“Both?”
“Want to see him beforehand?” he asks. “Maybe it will ease your mind.”
She pauses and halfway smiles before admitting, “I doubt it.”
He drops his hand from the mare's nose and motions for the barn door. “Okay,” he says. “Give me five minutes of your time.”
*
“I think it took five minutes to get here,” she says, full aware that she is either complaining or flirting, and both options really disturb her. Maybe it's just impulse. She hasn't really dated since whatever it is you do in high school. She's not sure making out in cars and giggling at stupid movies counts as a quality relationship, and that's all she's had.
She follows this man into the stallion barn, watching the space between his shoulders when he moves, and tells herself that maybe it's time she give in to Mona's impulses to set her up with the next decent, available male. Just thinking this makes her want to stab herself with forks.
“Right over here,” he says, stopping next to one of the stalls in the immaculate aisle, taking the lead rope and walking in with the horse.
“I heard he was fairly violent,” she says, watching Brad casually approach the stallion and clip the lead shank to the leather halter. Victor pricks his ears and does an excited little sidestep, arching his neck into Brad's hold in anticipation.
“He was a terror on the track,” Brad says, leading the stallion out of the stall. Ashleigh watches them from across the aisle, following behind slowly as Brad takes the stud out into the sun. She sucks in a breath at the sight of the animal in the light, the way the chestnut pops and shimmers.
Victor is something else, just like his owner. Brad jiggles the rope and Victor tosses his head, pawing at the ground. He laughs, and the stallion flicks his ears at the sound.
“I don't know what it is, but I guess this life just agrees with him,” Brad says, running his hand down Victor's shoulder and patting the stallion on the chest. “He hasn't taken off anyone's finger since he started stud duty.”
Ashleigh makes a face. “Well, I'm glad he's over that phase in his life.”
“He's much better adjusted,” Brad agrees. “Still gets exercise every day, too. Sometimes I'll take him on the track and let him relive his glory days.”
“Seriously?”
“Sort of,” Brad says, grinning. “We're not spitting out twelve second furlongs anymore.”
“Well, he's gorgeous,” Ashleigh says. Brad pats the stallion's neck again, as if congratulating him. “Do you think it would be asking too much to go get my mare and do the deed here?”
He laughs and leads the stallion back up to the barn. “If I didn't think that would be violating a hell of a lot of policies, sure. Unfortunately...”
“Yeah,” Ashleigh sighs. “Too much to hope, I guess.”
“I'll tell you what,” Brad says, letting the stallion loose in his stall and turning back to her. “I'll see what I can do to speed things up down there. Sound good?”
If Ashleigh felt a little thrill at the special attention, she would have denied it. She would have called it relief at finally finding some end to the wait. She's not quite sure how convincing she would have been.
Despite that, she takes it.
*
The breeding goes off without a hitch. Victor does his job, Guayusa does hers. Ashleigh flinches a little when she watches the stallion viciously sink his teeth into the leather protecting the mare's withers and neck. There are jerks and spasms, and the mare pins her ears, but they're both professional. They have, of course, done this many times before.
“Hopefully we don't have to do this again,” Brad says, turning from the scene as the crew cleans up the stallion and leads the mare away. The stallion lets out a tired little grunt and flicks his tail.
“Hopefully,” Ashleigh says, and then catches herself. “Not that this wasn't fun.”
“Yeah, live covers are a boatload of joy,” he says so wryly she finds herself smiling.
“Thanks,” she says. “For bumping us up the line.”
“Don't mention it.”
When she leads the mare back to the trailer, he catches up to her. He asks her for her number. She almost chokes on air before she manages to recite it while he punches it into his phone.
“There might be some developments soon,” he says cryptically. “Can I call you?”
“Sure?” she says, like it's a hesitant question.
He doesn't seem to notice, just gives her a winning smile and turns back to the farm. She spins around and loads the mare into the trailer, telling herself not to think about it. Don't even think.
*
He calls her sixteen days later, right after they've confirmed the mare in foal. It's about the last thing she expects.
*
“Look,” he says to her after the interview with the rest of the board, while she's busy trying not to hyperventilate. “I'll level with you.”
“That's good,” she says breathlessly, trying to attain some breath at all because she's feeling a little lightheaded. “I could use that, because I'm pretty sure I just blew it.”
“Actually,” he says, pushing his hands into the pockets of his suit, “you're the favorite.”
She stops short, fairly sure he's stolen all her breath. Now she can't breathe. That's just great.
“You're kidding,” she says, taking a big breath of warm spring air when it feels impossible. Her lungs ache.
“I'm not,” he says. “Look, we had a couple with a family doing this job when I was a kid. After them we had a guy who went through a divorce, and needless to say he didn't take it well. Neither worked here long, which is a shame because this is a good place. Great reputation. You'd be working with world class stock. It's challenging and we'll expect a hell of a lot from you, but you're the favorite because you grew up doing this, and I can envision you sticking around for a while. You'll like it here.”
“You seem remarkably confident about all of that,” she says, feeling her whole body quiver.
“I've looked into you,” he says simply. “I know what I'm getting.”
She takes a few deep breaths, and he pulls a hand out of his pocket to pat her on the back. It's a little awkward. She wants to shrink away and lean in, which is all very wrong because if she says yes this man will be her boss. The world is not fair. Ever.
“You want to take a look at the house?” he finally asks. She spins to look at him.
“You're giving me a house?”
*
She doesn't have enough to fit in the house. It's the first thing her mother says when they walk into the old three-bedroom farmhouse, because Ashleigh's only lived out of a bedroom before now.
“We'll have to get you some furniture,” Elaine says, looking at all the space and walking through the empty rooms. “Maybe I have a few things you can have second hand.”
“It doesn't have to all pull together today, Mom,” Ashleigh says, standing in the middle of what she thinks is the traditional dining room, holding a box of kitchen items and looking out the window. Broodmare paddocks stretch out as far as the eye can see.
“I know,” Elaine says from the kitchen. “I just hate the idea of you living in an empty house.”
Ashleigh pushes from the window and walks into the kitchen. It's all old, what a more optimistic person would call well-lived in. Ashleigh likes it, though. It's old-fashioned and romantic. She can do something with this.
“It won't be empty for too long,” Ashleigh assures her, and Elaine gives her a look. Ashleigh wrinkles her nose. “No, I do not mean I will be filling this place up with fat grandkids.”
“My hopes lie with your sister on that task,” Elaine says, and then kisses her daughter on the forehead. “We'll settle on some furniture for you.”
Ashleigh laughs. “Thanks. I think.”
Then Rory comes bounding through the door, dragging the front of Ashleigh's mattress with him.
*
First things first. Ashleigh memorizes the people, the horses, the routine. Horses love routine. People find it stagnant, so she changes what doesn't work and what isn't efficient. She realizes just what kind of a screw up the last broodmare manager was, and endeavors not to become a raving alcoholic bent on self-destruction.
At least, that's how Samantha describes him.
“He was awful,” she shudders. “He'd drink on the job, make everyone's lives a living hell. When he lost control of Three Foot, nearly got her hurt or worse right in the courtyard, Brad kicked him off the farm. Took him long enough.”
Ashleigh nods slowly, surveys her little domain. It's as clean and bright as the rest of the farm.
Samantha smiles. “You're doing great.”
*
She moves Stardust into an unused stall in the broodmare barn, right near her office. The sixteen-year-old mare settles right in, and as a way to unwind in the evenings Ashleigh always takes her out for a ride.
One day she runs into Brad on a honey chestnut she recognizes instantly.
“Prince,” she says, and he looks mildly offended.
“Hey, I'm also here.”
“Yeah,” Ashleigh says. “I'm told you're around occasionally.”
He winces, caught. “Sorry about that. I've been meaning to see how you're settling in, but...”
“Derby preps,” Ashleigh says. “I know.”
“I'll tell you what,” he says, moving the stallion so close to Stardust that the mare flings her head up and pins her ears, shifting to send a kick their way. He nudges the stallion a little further away while Ashleigh laughs.
“She's not having any of that.”
“I can see,” he says. “Kind of puts a damper on my proposition.”
“Tell me anyway,” Ashleigh says. “Maybe I can convince Stardust to be nice.”
“If I'm at the farm,” he tells her, “I'm always riding one of the stallions before it gets dark. Want to make it a daily social hour?”
“Sure,” she says without thinking. “You'll have to stay over there,” she adds, motioning to where he is on the other side of the trail. “Stardust is a little protective.”
“I think she just hates men.”
Ashleigh laughs and laughs.
*
The house slowly fills up. A sofa here, a piece of art there. Ashleigh is as meticulous about it as she is about the cleanliness of her barn. When it's close to finished, she invites her college friends over, and they throw a housewarming party. There is a copious amount of wine and Kentucky bourbon.
She's not a little shocked when Leslie, a tumbler of amber liquid in one hand, motions her over and hisses drunkenly, “Why didn't you invite your boss?”
“He's in Baltimore,” Ashleigh slurs, a little tipsy on the wine. “We have a horse running.”
Leslie rolls her eyes. “You know,” she declares. “I can't decide if you're lucky or not.”
“Yeah,” Ashleigh says into her wine. “I guess I get that a lot, huh?”
Leslie smiles maniacally and says, “When they're available, I call first dibs on details.”
Ashleigh groans and buries her face in her hands.
*
The summer flies by. Ashleigh gets the new foals weaned, watches them scream and call and run themselves ragged along the fence line outside her house. She sits on the porch and sips her wine, the music blaring from the speakers inside a far shot from drowning the cries of the babies.
“So are you torturing yourself or what?” he asks her, because occasionally he appears in her backyard. The backyard is the farm, so she supposes that's fair.
“I like to keep an eye on them,” she explains, making herself drag her eyes from his approaching figure to the frantic bodies of the weanlings. “You never know what they'll wind up doing when they're in a panic.”
“A few of them are getting over it,” he says, sitting down in the chair opposite her.
“More mature,” Ashleigh says. “The January babies. The younger ones will catch up in a few days.”
“It's like the kindergarten room all over again,” he mutters while a particularly persistent gray keeps testing the fence, trying to find the weak points. “That one is going to be trouble.”
Ashleigh takes a sip of her wine and puts the glass on the table. “You'd better keep him then,” she says. “Do you want a glass?”
He looks up at her, a little surprised that she asked.
“Yeah,” he says after a beat. “Sure.”
*
She loathes winter. Brad sends her a cord of wood, which winds up on her front porch. It sheds splinters and pieces of bark from the steps through the door, but she doesn't mind it. She teaches herself how to get the fireplace to work and basks in the warmth.
*
The babies start coming in January. Ashleigh hardly sleeps, napping at weird times, usually on the sofa at home or on the one in her office. She wakes up in the barn one night at eleven o'clock, Brad Townsend leaning in her doorway.
“Hey there,” he says quietly, like he doesn't want to disturb whatever sleep the horses are getting at such an anxious time. “You missed Three Foot.”
Her chest tightens miserably and she rubs a hand over her forehead to smooth her hair out of her face.
“Shit,” she sighs. “I'm sorry, I...”
“I wanted you to sleep,” he says, shaking his head. “As much as I like how dedicated you are, there's really a line to be drawn somewhere, Ash.”
She groans and curls up on her side. “Tell someone to wake me up if another one goes into labor,” she says against the cushion, her voice muffled and gravelly from sleep.
“Nope,” he says, obstinately. She gives him a look from her spot on the couch.
“What do you mean?” she asks, refusing to sit up and meet this disagreement head on. She's too tired to contemplate straightening her spine right now.
“You're going home,” he says, lifting himself off the doorjamb and walking over to the sofa. “I'll carry you if I need to.”
It's a threat, and a stupid one, because she thinks it would be sort of heavenly to be transported magically from one place to another without having to lift a finger. That is so far from what her normal opinion would be that it sort of bothers her, enough to make her grunt and shake her head.
“I don't think so,” she grumbles. “I'm fine here. Wake me when you need me.”
She shuts her eyes, so she doesn't see him roll his. “Okay,” he says. “This is cute and all, but you're going home.”
“No,” she mumbles, not really concerned that he's touching her arm. There's a tugging sensation and when she suddenly rushes back to herself she's in the air. And he's holding her. And she shrieks. He just keeps walking and ignores her protests.
Finally she groans and lets her head hang down, watching her hair wave back and forth and the ground slip by until it all dims and she's gone again.
She wakes up well past dawn, and she's in her bed. Under the covers. At least she's still dressed, save for her shoes.
She could kill him. Instead she just smiles a little and falls back to sleep.
*
Guayusa gives birth in April. It's a big, chestnut colt. White star, four white feet, with muscles and bone to spare. Ashleigh visits them on a slow day and watches them run and run and run in the grass.
*
This is the year they win one of the classics. Townsend Prince's son, a big bay colt by the name of Townsend Cat, wins the Belmont Stakes like he was simply born to do it. Ashleigh doesn't go, hasn't been to Belmont in her life, but she watches on her parents' television set.
Her eyes catch on Brad standing with the horse by his right hand, a willowy blond by his left. She feels her stomach drop, and she knows exactly why.
*
The year passes. She watches Townsend Cat win the Haskell and come so close in the Breeders' Cup Classic, watches Lavinia Hotchkins-Ross tip-toe her way through the barns.
*
It becomes tremendously apparent to her that she needs a life, so she asks Mona to find someone for her. Anyone.
It doesn't go well. There are horrible dates and then there are catastrophic dates. She's telling Mona as soon as possible that her services are no longer required. She'll take her life as is.
Then she meets his smirk the next day, his inquiry into how that whole thing went last night like he just knows without needing to ask that it was an unparalleled horror. She wants to know how he does that. How he just knows.
*
He twists her arm and gets her to come to the Keeneland Yearling Sale. She has no idea why he wants her to come with him, but she folds herself into the passenger seat of his low-slung Ferrari and lets the wind whip in her hair all the way to the track.
When they get there he puts a program in her hands and makes a bee line to barn twelve, so she's starting to think this is premeditated. She trails behind him, not really sure where he's headed, but she thumbs through the thick booklet, curious to find Edgardale's entries scattered among the listings. She finds Guayusa's unnamed colt, hip number 351, and nearly runs into Brad when she belatedly notices he's stopped.
“Look,” he says, pointing into the stall. It's Guayusa's foal, standing there in all his awkward puberty. She'd know him anywhere. “That's my next Derby winner.”
She snorts. “You've got to be kidding.”
“I'm definitely not kidding,” he says, giving her this serious stare that is simmering with unrestrained glee. She has no idea how he pulls that off.
“Brad,” she says, “Can I just point out two things?”
“Sure,” he says, leaning against the solid stall door. “Shoot.”
“First, that little guy is a yearling. Townsend Acres has won precisely two Derbies, so that's a huge stretch.”
“Noted,” he nods. “You're also a huge downer, which is also noted. What's your other point?”
“That's Guayusa's foal!” she practically whisper-yells. “He's got five half-siblings who have collectively managed to earn less than what a starter home might be worth.”
He raises an eyebrow at that.
“Look,” she continues. “I love my parents. I love that they're trying with this mare, but it's the biggest long shot in Townsend Acres history if you buy him and expect to see him turn into something greater than allowance quality on a second rate track.”
“That's remarkably honest of you,” he says after a second. “I appreciate that.”
She lets out a breath. “Yeah, so can we look at actual prospects now?”
“Sure,” he shrugs, “but I'm pretty sure I'm adding him to my list.”
“Are you being bullheaded just to piss me off or are you really that inclined to piss away a lot of money today?”
“Maybe both?”
She rolls her eyes and follows him.
*
Guayusa's colt sells for $135,000. Her parents will be thrilled. Brad leans back in his seat and smiles, all self-satisfied while he taps his program against his knee.
“I hope you're happy,” Ashleigh says, and he just nods.
*
He names the colt Heraldry. She has no idea why.
*
“He really gets into this sometimes,” Samantha tells her. “When he finds a horse he really likes, I swear he can make them champions by will alone.”
“Seriously?” Ashleigh asks, more than a little dubious. They're both watching Brad stand with the colt, Herald, they call him, because that's a logical name for a horse. Ashleigh rolls her eyes.
“Sure,” Samantha says. “Look at Prince. Victor, Panther, Cat...now Herald.”
Ashleigh groans and tips her head back to the sky. “That is such a stupid name.”
Samantha shrugs and gets back to work.
*
“Herald is a piece of work,” he says. Ashleigh stands next to him at the paddock and watches the colt strut around on his little piece of land. He's grown into himself through the winter, all lithe grace and lean muscle. Everything is a challenge and a puzzle to be solved with him. Ashleigh knows the exercise riders have their hands full in the mornings, and that Brad rides him in the afternoons. They've all been thrown more than a few times.
Ashleigh looks up at the start of a black eye Brad's sporting because the colt decided it would be fantastic to throw his head back as hard as he could. She winces a little and says, “Haven't you put something on that yet?”
“It will be fine,” Brad shrugs, and Ashleigh is inclined to disagree.
“That's not what you're going to say tomorrow,” she says, and pushes his hip with hers. “Come on, I'll get you some ice.”
He follows her to the farmhouse, and watches from his spot against the counter while she piles ice into a towel. She hands it to him and he says, “Don't have any steak around, or something?”
“Does it really sound like a good idea to put raw red meat on a bruise?” she asks. “I mean, really?”
He presses the ice against his eye. “Good point.”
“Yeah, I have lots of those,” she says. “Maybe one of these days you'll say, 'Maybe I should have listened to Ashleigh' when Herald is dragging you or someone else around the training track.”
“I'm not great at hypotheticals, Ash,” he says, pulling the ice pack from his eye, studying it and then reapplying it to the bruise. “But I'm pretty sure it would be more panicked than that.”
“Right,” Ashleigh nods. “That thought would come later, while you're in traction in the hospital.”
“You really don't think this is a good idea, do you.”
It isn't a question, and she really doesn't know how to answer it. She presses her lower back against the counter and says, “No, I don't think that. I just really hope he's worth it. That's all.”
Brad smiles at her from underneath a portion of towel that's dropped in front of his face. She leans forward and moves it, tucks it under his fingers.
*
The colt's first race is surprising. Brad invites her up to Churchill Downs to see it, like he thinks that if she doesn't witness the brilliance of this animal she'll never believe him when he brings back good news.
Ashleigh finds herself standing next to Lavinia, who is busy between making small talk and watching her like a hawk. Ashleigh wants to tell her she has nothing to worry about. She's a broodmare manager who's chosen to wear a t-shirt and jeans to Herald's first race. There's no comparison, but if Lavinia wants to be wary, Ashleigh lets her.
Brad has Jilly Gordon ride, and Herald blazes around the track like he was born to tear it up and burn it to pieces. Ashleigh remembers her mouth dropping open as soon as Herald breaks out of the gate, because he just turns on some invisible jet pack and goes sprinting off to the lead. She thinks he's at least ten lengths in front of the next horse when he crosses the finish line.
Lavinia jumps up and down in her heels, covering her mouth with her hands. Brad moves Lavinia's fingers and kisses her, while Ashleigh tries her damnedest to keep her eyes on the colt.
*
“See,” he says later, during the celebration. “Who was wrong?”
She doesn't look him in the eyes. “Me,” she says. “That was totally me.”
*
Herald goes racing through New York, and Ashleigh stays at home to wean the foals. She goes back to Edgardale while Brad lives it up in Saratoga, visits Guayusa and her new filly foal. The baby is a light bay, mousy and soft, her fuzzy baby coat shedding off to reveal a darker color underneath.
A moment of impulse makes her take a photo of the two, and she sends it to his phone. She gets a text back a few minutes later.
I've already got a name for her.
She just bets he does.
*
Herald comes back from New York as one of the best two-year-old colts in the country. He'll be the morning line favorite for the Breeders' Cup Juvy, or so Brad excitedly tells her on the phone. But when he comes back home he's reserved. Herald's antics don't even seem to register, and there's nothing that brightens him up like Herald's mindless violence.
Jilly is the first person to tell her when Ashleigh has finally had enough of walking on eggshells.
“They broke up,” the jockey says, shrugging. “Why?”
“He's just been different,” Ashleigh says, not feeling much of anything. She's proud of that, really. Then she's annoyed that she'd feel pride. She should feel nothing and feel nothing about it.
“Yeah,” Jilly says, and then lowers her voice. “It's just rumor, but I heard he asked her to marry him.”
“Oh.”
Jilly nods. “I guess I'd be different, too.”
*
Ashleigh walks up to the main house. His parents are off in England, busy doing whatever they do with the oversees operation, and she just walks right in because the door is unlocked and the lights are on.
“Brad?” she asks the emptiness.
“Ashleigh,” she hears his remarkably calm voice from the next room. She walks in and sees him flopped on his back on the ridiculously ornate and therefore completely uncomfortable sofa. “If you're here to maybe talk to me about anything, the blanket answer to any question or comment is no.”
“I don't think that works,” she says.
“I don't really care.”
“What is that supposed to accomplish?” she asks. “Is that supposed to get me to shut up and leave you alone?”
“With anyone else,” he sighs as she shoves his legs off the sofa and sits down on it, making a face. It really is uncomfortable.
“I heard from Jilly.”
He grunts. “And what version does she have?”
“Nothing detailed,” Ashleigh says. “Just that you asked and she said no.”
“We'll leave it there,” he says, lifting his legs back up and placing them in her lap. She gives them a disgusted glare and shoves them off again.
“I'm not a foot stool,” she snaps at him. “And you can grow up at any time. You asked, she said no. Sometimes that's how it works.”
He doesn't say anything, just digs into his jeans pocket and pulls out the little jewelry case. He tosses it to her and she catches it, holding it in her hands. She doesn't really want to know.
“Go ahead,” he invites her, lifting his hand. “Take a look.”
She pops it open, but it's not what she expects. “It's my mother's,” he explains for her. “It's sort of a Townsend tradition. It passed down to me.”
Ashleigh can't help herself. She tugs the little heirloom out of its slit in the fabric, taking a closer look. She loathes herself a little for liking it, for feeling her heart thud a little too hard in her chest. This is just so many different shades of pathetic that she pushes the ring back into the box and puts it on his chest.
“It's beautiful,” she says, forcing the words out of her mouth and rising. He looks at her curiously, and she stalls for a second before saying, “Just make sure your head's on straight before you get on Herald. If I see you taking any of this shit out on that horse, I'll kick your ass.”
She leaves before he can say anything. It's the only thing that makes her feel a little better.
*
She thinks he might have gotten over it around the time Herald goes to the Breeders' Cup. Even when the colt winds up scratching before the race thanks to the equine equivalent of a cold, he comes back to the farm his old self.
From the door of the broodmare barn, she can see him back the colt off the trailer. When he looks up at the breeding complex, at her barn, she ducks into the doorway a little bit, out of sight.
*
They meet on the trail, like always. Stardust switches her tail like a pissed off cat, lays her ears back at Victor and lets out an angry little squeal. The stallion snorts, baffled as always, and stays on his side of the trail.
Brad grins and pats the stallion's shoulder. “It's okay, guy. She hates us all equally.”
“That's not it at all,” Ashleigh says, sticking up for her mare. “She's just choosy.”
“You've never bred her?” he asks, looking at the mare, or at her leg, she can't be too sure.
Ashleigh feels a heat rise around her neck, despite her coat and gloves and the start of winter's bitter chill. “No,” she says. “I never wanted to. Besides, foals would cut down on our riding time.”
“Good a reason as any,” he shrugs. “You going to Edgardale tomorrow?”
“My mom is making a Thanksgiving feast,” Ashleigh says. “I've been enlisted to help her take care of it, so yes. Are you staying here?”
“I suppose,” he says, shrugging as the stallion works his mouth on the bit and makes sideways glances at the mare, who is taking extra strides to ignore him. “My parents are in London, and I thought about flying out, but who the hell wants to deal with that, you know?”
“You should come to Edgardale,” she says, the words out of her mouth before she can call them back. He gives her a look out of the corner of his eye. The words are out now, so she has to bravely push on. “We make too much food, and I can't let you stay around a nearly empty farm and an empty mansion or do whatever it is you'll do.”
His answer is casual. “Sure, if you've got the room.”
*
He follows her up to Paris the next day, and she keeps glancing at the massive Townsend Acres truck in the rearview mirror. She's told her mother about this addition, and she's truly hoping this isn't going to be awkward.
Of course, it isn't. Her mother plows into the wine he brought, and Justin is more than happy to have someone who isn't a blood-relation to Caroline around. Rory is a little reserved at first, treating Brad as more of his sister's uninspected boyfriend than her rich and powerful, completely platonic boss. Ashleigh smacks him on the arm and tells him off, practically chasing him out of the kitchen so he can go watch football with the rest of the men like a normal Kentucky-raised boy.
Caroline smiles from her spot at the kitchen table, feeding Emma tiny spoonfuls of strained peas. “You know, he might be right.”
“Rory is never right about anything,” Ashleigh says, going back to basting the turkey and shoving the oven door closed. She takes a sip from the wine glass she's got stationed near the stove top.
“Hear me out,” Caroline says with a wicked little smile. “Brad Townsend follows you to little Edgardale because he's got nothing else better going on?”
“Maybe he didn't,” Ashleigh says.
“He didn't just hop on the private plane and jet off to London?” Caroline raises an eyebrow. “Mom, back me up here.”
Elaine shakes her head. “I'm not going to hazard a guess,” she says, topping off her wine glass and putting the empty bottle in the recycling. She pats Ashleigh's admittedly very tense back. “But I'm happy to have more company, sweetie.”
Ashleigh groans and pulls one of the pies out of the oven to cool. “Is this dinner going to be ready any time soon?”
Caroline smiles to herself and gives baby Emma another spoonful of peas.
*
After dinner, Ashleigh slips out of the house for a breather and heads down to the barn. She finds herself standing outside of Guayusa's stall. The mare gives her little acknowledgement, keeping her attention on her pile of hay. She's hugely in foal, due in January this time. Ashleigh doesn't even want to know how she feels.
“I think,” she hears him from the doorway, “that I've nearly got your dad to sell me her filly privately.”
She turns away from the mare and watches him walk up to her. He looks positively bright-eyed, maybe from the scotch they've all been drinking, or the prospect of having another of Guayusa's babies in his barn. The mare had no foal after Herald, leaving Brad a little rabid for another one.
“Don't believe him,” she advises. “That baby is going to auction next year, especially if Herald does what he thinks he'll do.”
She can't quite see the outline of his smile in the dim light, but she knows he is. “Yeah, it's probably too much to hope I can get her for a song.”
“Is that your plan?” Ashleigh asks jokingly. “Get her on the cheap?”
“Nah,” he sniffs. “I was going to start at half a million and work my way up.”
“Good luck with that,” Ashleigh chuckles as the mare finally leaves her hay to check out the people hanging around her stall. She pushes her head into Ashleigh's side and then gives Brad a once over, allowing him to run his hand over her blaze and across her nose.
They're quiet, and she doesn't know what to say to fill the void. She's tired of talking about the mare, about her babies, but there's nothing she can think to say except for, “I'm sorry I presumed you wouldn't have anything better to do than come here today.”
“Why would you say that?” He lets his hands fall when the mare goes back to her hay, ignoring them once more.
Ashleigh keeps her eyes on the mare and says, “Just to put it out there, I guess. I did sort of assume.”
“I'm glad you asked,” he says. He scrubs a hand in his hair and then looks at his fingers uncomfortably. “It's nice to be around a family that acts like, well, a family.”
“So that's why you didn't jet off for London?” she asks, looking over at him while he still looks at his hands. She stops just short of saying something unintentionally insulting. She barely knows his parents, never met his sister, and while the farm isn't his it may as well be. She doesn't think it's fair to him, but he doesn't say anything about it, and she keeps that thought to herself.
“No,” he says, looking up from his hands and catching her eye. “Not exactly.”
*
Her breath catches in her throat, and she's both immeasurably frustrated and happy beyond words when Rory comes jogging into the barn to yell that they're missing the last five minutes of the fourth quarter and the game is tied. What the hell are they thinking? It's damn cold outside.
They follow him back to the house, walking side by side.
*
His parents come back mid-December, and she gets an invitation to their holiday party in the mail, because the Townsends are not the kind to just drop invitations off casually. It's a black tie event, highly formal, and she'll need a new evening gown. She needs a new one each year.
She hates evening gowns. They're ridiculous and ugly, even if they're stupidly expensive and made out of silk. Each year she donates her gown to Goodwill and doesn't think twice about it. This year, she calls up Mona and Leslie and tells them she needs the most beautiful dress she can obtain. Price isn't an issue. They both go nuts.
At the end of a week of searching, they find a dress that looks like it has a life of its own.
“It's Carolina Herrera!” Leslie whispers, slipping the red silk through her fingers and keeping her voice low, like anything else would be irreverent.
“Where?” Ashleigh looks around, and Leslie rolls her eyes.
“The dress is Carolina Herrera,” Mona tells her. “Before you ask if that's the name of the dress, I'll tell you now that it's the designer.”
“Oh,” Ashleigh says, and then nearly gags at the price. This isn't going to be the sort of dress she throws at Goodwill later.
*
It's well worth the money. The dress fishtails and slithers behind her heels, does a slippery slide over her hips, catches at the edges of her shoulders, drapes and folds over the cut at the back. Mona pins her hair up behind her head while Leslie dusts her with make-up.
“I feel like a fairy godmother,” Leslie says. Ashleigh looks up at her, pushes her bangs aside.
Leslie finishes up and says, “Just be home by midnight.”
*
She thinks that for the first time since she started to work at Townsend Acres, Clay Townsend really looks at her. This disgusts her for a second before she's rescued by Brad, who has two flutes of champagne and gives her one.
“Really, Dad,” he admonishes while Clay keeps looking at her. “You haven't offered the lady something to drink yet?”
Clay smiles, keeps looking at her. “I confess it quite slipped my mind.”
“Well,” Brad says, takes a healthy swallow of the bubbly liquid, “excuse us, Dad. I need to talk to Ashleigh for a second.”
Clay doesn't move, so Brad puts a hand on the small of her back and they extricate themselves, winding through the mass of people and finding a relatively hidden spot near the tree. It towers above them, gold and green and red.
“I hate to say this,” she says, turning and finding him close by. Now he's looking at her. “Thanks,” she says, abbreviating what she would have said. Her treacherous heart completely overacts to his proximity.
“Well,” he says, taking a breath. “I really can't blame him.”
“Is that the Brad Townsend version of a complement?”
“Hardly,” he says, still looking at her. “I actually wanted to give you something. Can you,” he keeps looking at her, actually waves his hand at the dress like it's distracting or confusing, “walk outside in that?”
“It's in the guesthouse,” he says, and it takes her a second to remember that he lives there when he's not in the mansion. Or somewhere on the farm. Or at some racetrack or something. Her body is going haywire, and she's not thinking straight.
“I'm pretty sure I can get there and back,” she says. “I walked here, you know.”
“Did you,” he says, still looking.
“Yes,” she says, sipping her champagne. “I'm remarkably independent.”
He laughs and takes her free hand. “Okay, woman. Let's go.”
They slip out of the party and she stares at his back as they walk, watches the black material of his tux between his shoulders. She tells herself to get it together. First step in that direction is to probably let go of his hand, but she really doesn't want to. So she follows him into the guesthouse and pauses while he shuts the door and turns on the light.
She takes another shaky sip of champagne while he puts his on the kitchen counter and picks up an envelope.
“What's this?” she asks, taking it when he hands it to her.
“Your present,” he says. “I know I've kind of ignored this holiday before, because I've got too many employees to keep straight, but I'm not too closed off to the idea of starting a new tradition. Open it up.”
She puts down her glass and pulls out the little stack of papers, glancing over them quickly. She laughs.
“My dad sold you the filly,” she says, like she can't believe it. Then she pauses and looks at him suspiciously.
“She's yours,” he says, still looking at her. Her palms are beginning to sweat.
“What,” she starts and looks down at the papers. “Brad, this is too much. This is way too much. She's worth more than a song, and I know my dad made you pay it.”
“Of course he did,” Brad says. “But that's not the point, because I wanted her. And I wanted you to have her.”
She opens her mouth and closes it again, puts the papers on the counter. “You can do anything you want with her,” he continues. “Have me race her, breed her, use her as your riding horse when Stardust needs a day off. Whatever you want to do.”
“You're kidding,” she says, shaking her head. “No one pays that much for a pleasure horse.”
“So breed her,” he says, shrugging. “Race her. Ride her when you want.”
“Why are you giving her to me?”
She looks up at him, wanting some sort of answer other than he can do as he likes. He's standing so close, and he's given her a horse worth thousands, maybe millions, and he doesn't seem to have an answer for her so when she thinks she might just scream in frustration he closes the distance and kisses her.
She kisses him back, instinctively. Her hands go to his chest, his jaw, around his neck. Then she pulls back, sucks in a breath while he rests his forehead against hers, pressing her back against the counter.
“We should,” she starts, but he kisses her again, like he's afraid of whatever she might say. She lets him, wouldn't be able to deny him, and pulls back, licks her lips to try again. “We should do this slowly,” she says, feels his hands on her hips through the silk. “You know, that's sensible.”
“Definitely,” he kisses her, puts a hand on her neck and slides right inside of her. She arches back, moves her elbow to press her fingers against his side, her arm knocking her glass back and off the counter. It shatters into pieces on the tile. She jumps and rips away from his mouth to look down.
He moves to her neck as she makes a strangled noise and says, “The glass, Brad.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, and she feels his teeth. Her eyes fall closed. “It's broken.”
She laughs, but that's cut off when he pulls her away from the counter, picks her up just enough to move her over the glass and then puts her down safely away from the shards that crunch under his shoes.
“Slowly,” he says against her lips. “I can do slow.”
*
She wakes up in the morning, curling in the sheets. There's one remaining bobby pin that didn't make it out of her hair the night before, and she digs it out of the mass of wild curls at her neck. She lets it drop on the floor as he moves a hand in her hair, pulling it into his fist to kiss the skin behind her ear. She hides a smile behind the sheet she has twisted in her fingers.
“We should get out of bed,” he says, and she can feel the rumbling of it from his chest behind her. “We need to go get your filly.”
Laughing seems appropriate, so she does it as he turns her over. She tucks her head against his neck and laughs and laughs. He gathers her closer, her arms folded against his chest as she pulls herself together and breathes in a steady breath.
“Okay,” she says. “Let's go get her.”
Chimerical
by Syrinx
Rating: PG
Kismet: Fate, destiny.
Summary: The virus never found Edgardale, but Ashleigh's fate was always with Townsend Acres.
A/N: I'm cherry picking from canon with this one (which somehow achieved epic short story status...how did that happen?!). I don't believe Edgardale is in Lexington, as Ashleigh's Hope suggests, so I'm putting it in Paris. But I am going to say that Ashleigh's parents bought it when she was eight, as Ashleigh's Hope does suggest. I never really read any Edgardale-centric book anyway. So...
The mare was nothing special. She started ten times when she was younger, managed a couple of allowance wins before dropping down a class and getting claimed. She had five foals, four starters, two winners, one of them stakes-placed. All together they'd earned five figures, so far. They'd sold at auction for slightly more. Her parents were optimistic. Ashleigh wasn't quite so sure.
It was a combination of that stakes race and the mare's pedigree that kept her on the roster at Edgardale, and got her into almost any stallion's book. Her parents kept saying it was a matter of finding the right stallion for her, some animal that would improve the mare and create a foal that lived up to its bloodlines.
Again, Ashleigh wasn't so sure. Sometimes she thought her parents had an unlimited ability to hope, and she figured they would need it. Edgardale had been in the family for fifteen years and since graduating college and getting into the family business full time she'd learned they only barely broke even. She'd seen the strain her own paltry salary placed on the tiny operation, she saw how much her parents wanted this to all go well, and she knew exactly how costly this breeding would be for all of them.
You didn't just stroll into Townsend Acres and ask for a discount on their best stallion. Townsend Victor came with a price tag of fifty grand, reduced from seventy-five from the year before when her parents decided to pounce. He was the optimal stud, her parents had reasoned. Think about it. If the farm had kept the mare as a weanling, put her to stud, she would have wound up bred to this stallion. It was logical.
It was crazy. That was what Ashleigh had said, but there were stars in her parents' eyes. They were already thinking of a foal that would make up the price of the stud fee and more in the auction ring. Meanwhile, Ashleigh was given the task, as assistant broodmare manager, to drive the mare down to the farm for her date in the shed.
She so wants this to go well.
*
Townsend Acres is perfection. Manicured beyond reason. A well-oiled machine. The horses in the paddocks look like they get two baths a day for the way their coats shine, and the personnel all wear green windbreakers to cut the chill of early March. It takes more than a few minutes for Ashleigh to dismiss it all as a presentation she's seen before. Townsend Acres isn't any better than any other huge stud farm in Kentucky, and Edgardale would never be in direct competition. Aesthetics and landscaping aren't the name of the game underneath.
She's met by a girl a few years younger than herself, college age, with brilliant red hair pulled back in a ponytail. The girl waves the truck down and Ashleigh parks it by a few other trailers outside the broodmare barn, hopping out of the truck while the girl walks around the grill to present her hand. They shake.
“Samantha McLean.”
“Ashleigh Griffen.”
“Edgardale and Guayusa?”
It's common to mispronounce the name of the mare, and it's second nature for Ashleigh to correct her. “Why-You-Suh.”
“Huh?”
“That's her name.”
“Oh,” Samantha tips her head at the trailer, like she can see the mare inside. “That's pretty.”
“It's impossible,” Ashleigh laughs. “We had to look it up when we bought her.”
Samantha walks around to the back of the trailer, “Well, let's get her settled. Her date is at one, but we're a little backed up today. You got a cell phone on you?”
“Sure,” Ashleigh says, unlocking the doors and lowering the ramp. The mare turns her head to roll one big brown eye at them warily, peering over her rump as far as the restraints will allow.
“Good,” Samantha watches Ashleigh back the mare down the ramp. “We'll call you when they're ready in the shed.”
“Do you know how long we'll have to wait?” Ashleigh asks, leading the mare into the barn as Samantha leads the way to one of the stalls. They pass four stalls with masking tape name plates, temporary housing for mares waiting for live cover. Samantha opens up the fifth stall in and Ashleigh leads the mare inside.
She unclips the lead, pulls off the shipping boots, while Samantha shrugs and says, “I wouldn't want to guess. If you have something you need to do, I'd go ahead and do it. If you want to stick around, you can. Either way, I'll call you when it's time.”
That is about as vague as it can get, so Ashleigh accepts it for the non-answer it is and leaves the mare to her hay.
“There's a lounge in the admin building,” Samantha adds, “if you're interested.”
“I think I'll wander around for a while,” Ashleigh says, walking back out to the trailer to put away the mare's things.
“Suit yourself,” Samantha says, just as another trailer arrives, larger and newer than Edgardale's rig. Samantha hurries off, leaving Ashleigh with the green expanse of Townsend Acres.
*
She shoves her phone in her pocket, locks the doors to the truck and the trailer, and takes a walk. A long walk.
The farm is a rambling tract of land, and there's almost too much to see. From the broodmare barns and the huge paddocks surrounding it, she can see the breeding shed nearby, the stallion barn further beyond. More paddocks, more gravel roads, more horses dotting the world around her.
She heads out of the breeding complex and finds herself on the racing end, walking along the training oval and the two massive barns that supply it with runners. There's a chestnut on the track, a lone horse working out down the inside rail. She stops for a moment to watch, one hand shading her eyes as the horse goes thundering past. A young woman, a few years older than herself, is crouched over the animal's withers.
They gallop into the turn, leaving Ashleigh behind.
*
After about an hour she gets bored, and she heads back to the broodmare barn to check on the mare. There is no way she'd submit herself to sitting in a glorified waiting room, so if she has the whole of the afternoon just to get this mare bred she'd rather wait it out in front of the Guayusa's stall with her nose in a book.
It's good that she brought one. She decides to check in on the mare first, and finds someone standing outside the stall instead. She's irritated for a minute and checks her phone, wondering if they'd forgotten to call her, but then she gets a better look at the guy in front of her and knows she's still on the waiting list.
There's no way this man is your average farm hand.
“Can I help you?” she asks. She doesn't startle him, she notices. He just looks over at her and smiles slightly, keeps his arms crossed across his chest. She can see how she would have made the mistake at first. He's in nothing more than jeans and a t-shirt. His boots are worn and muddy, like they've seen every day of early spring. But then he's not wearing the required polo shirts everyone else has on with their emblazoned windbreakers, so he's either a visitor like her or something else.
“I should probably be asking you that,” he says to her.
He's something else.
*
They shake hands.
“Brad Townsend.”
She slips her hand out of his. “Ashleigh Griffen.”
*
“How long have you had her?”
Ashleigh shrugs. “My parents claimed her six years ago. She's ten now.”
He looks at the mare in a way she can't place. “She's from Pride's first crop. That was a nice group of foals.”
“Townsend Prince,” Ashleigh nods, because that's common knowledge. “Nice is probably an understatement.”
“You remember him?” he asks her, now a little surprised. “You were probably like eight then.”
“I was fifteen,” she says.
He laughs. “I stand corrected.”
“I remember desperately wanting him to win the Triple Crown,” she says, shakes her head. “That Belmont nearly broke me.”
He rubs a hand over the mare's white blaze. “You and me both. Who is,” he checks the mare's name tag, “Guayusa visiting today?”
“Why-You-Suh,” she corrects, and he gives her a look. “That's her name.”
“Why-You-Suh,” he repeats. “Okay. Question still stands.”
“Townsend Victor,” she tells him. He whistles, low and soft.
“That will be a nice foal.”
“So my parents keep telling me.”
“Don't have any faith in my boy?”
She laughs. “I think faith is the wrong word. I've got proof he's an exceptional stallion. I'm less sure on whether or not it's a good decision.”
“Financially or genetically?”
“Both?”
“Want to see him beforehand?” he asks. “Maybe it will ease your mind.”
She pauses and halfway smiles before admitting, “I doubt it.”
He drops his hand from the mare's nose and motions for the barn door. “Okay,” he says. “Give me five minutes of your time.”
*
“I think it took five minutes to get here,” she says, full aware that she is either complaining or flirting, and both options really disturb her. Maybe it's just impulse. She hasn't really dated since whatever it is you do in high school. She's not sure making out in cars and giggling at stupid movies counts as a quality relationship, and that's all she's had.
She follows this man into the stallion barn, watching the space between his shoulders when he moves, and tells herself that maybe it's time she give in to Mona's impulses to set her up with the next decent, available male. Just thinking this makes her want to stab herself with forks.
“Right over here,” he says, stopping next to one of the stalls in the immaculate aisle, taking the lead rope and walking in with the horse.
“I heard he was fairly violent,” she says, watching Brad casually approach the stallion and clip the lead shank to the leather halter. Victor pricks his ears and does an excited little sidestep, arching his neck into Brad's hold in anticipation.
“He was a terror on the track,” Brad says, leading the stallion out of the stall. Ashleigh watches them from across the aisle, following behind slowly as Brad takes the stud out into the sun. She sucks in a breath at the sight of the animal in the light, the way the chestnut pops and shimmers.
Victor is something else, just like his owner. Brad jiggles the rope and Victor tosses his head, pawing at the ground. He laughs, and the stallion flicks his ears at the sound.
“I don't know what it is, but I guess this life just agrees with him,” Brad says, running his hand down Victor's shoulder and patting the stallion on the chest. “He hasn't taken off anyone's finger since he started stud duty.”
Ashleigh makes a face. “Well, I'm glad he's over that phase in his life.”
“He's much better adjusted,” Brad agrees. “Still gets exercise every day, too. Sometimes I'll take him on the track and let him relive his glory days.”
“Seriously?”
“Sort of,” Brad says, grinning. “We're not spitting out twelve second furlongs anymore.”
“Well, he's gorgeous,” Ashleigh says. Brad pats the stallion's neck again, as if congratulating him. “Do you think it would be asking too much to go get my mare and do the deed here?”
He laughs and leads the stallion back up to the barn. “If I didn't think that would be violating a hell of a lot of policies, sure. Unfortunately...”
“Yeah,” Ashleigh sighs. “Too much to hope, I guess.”
“I'll tell you what,” Brad says, letting the stallion loose in his stall and turning back to her. “I'll see what I can do to speed things up down there. Sound good?”
If Ashleigh felt a little thrill at the special attention, she would have denied it. She would have called it relief at finally finding some end to the wait. She's not quite sure how convincing she would have been.
Despite that, she takes it.
*
The breeding goes off without a hitch. Victor does his job, Guayusa does hers. Ashleigh flinches a little when she watches the stallion viciously sink his teeth into the leather protecting the mare's withers and neck. There are jerks and spasms, and the mare pins her ears, but they're both professional. They have, of course, done this many times before.
“Hopefully we don't have to do this again,” Brad says, turning from the scene as the crew cleans up the stallion and leads the mare away. The stallion lets out a tired little grunt and flicks his tail.
“Hopefully,” Ashleigh says, and then catches herself. “Not that this wasn't fun.”
“Yeah, live covers are a boatload of joy,” he says so wryly she finds herself smiling.
“Thanks,” she says. “For bumping us up the line.”
“Don't mention it.”
When she leads the mare back to the trailer, he catches up to her. He asks her for her number. She almost chokes on air before she manages to recite it while he punches it into his phone.
“There might be some developments soon,” he says cryptically. “Can I call you?”
“Sure?” she says, like it's a hesitant question.
He doesn't seem to notice, just gives her a winning smile and turns back to the farm. She spins around and loads the mare into the trailer, telling herself not to think about it. Don't even think.
*
He calls her sixteen days later, right after they've confirmed the mare in foal. It's about the last thing she expects.
*
“Look,” he says to her after the interview with the rest of the board, while she's busy trying not to hyperventilate. “I'll level with you.”
“That's good,” she says breathlessly, trying to attain some breath at all because she's feeling a little lightheaded. “I could use that, because I'm pretty sure I just blew it.”
“Actually,” he says, pushing his hands into the pockets of his suit, “you're the favorite.”
She stops short, fairly sure he's stolen all her breath. Now she can't breathe. That's just great.
“You're kidding,” she says, taking a big breath of warm spring air when it feels impossible. Her lungs ache.
“I'm not,” he says. “Look, we had a couple with a family doing this job when I was a kid. After them we had a guy who went through a divorce, and needless to say he didn't take it well. Neither worked here long, which is a shame because this is a good place. Great reputation. You'd be working with world class stock. It's challenging and we'll expect a hell of a lot from you, but you're the favorite because you grew up doing this, and I can envision you sticking around for a while. You'll like it here.”
“You seem remarkably confident about all of that,” she says, feeling her whole body quiver.
“I've looked into you,” he says simply. “I know what I'm getting.”
She takes a few deep breaths, and he pulls a hand out of his pocket to pat her on the back. It's a little awkward. She wants to shrink away and lean in, which is all very wrong because if she says yes this man will be her boss. The world is not fair. Ever.
“You want to take a look at the house?” he finally asks. She spins to look at him.
“You're giving me a house?”
*
She doesn't have enough to fit in the house. It's the first thing her mother says when they walk into the old three-bedroom farmhouse, because Ashleigh's only lived out of a bedroom before now.
“We'll have to get you some furniture,” Elaine says, looking at all the space and walking through the empty rooms. “Maybe I have a few things you can have second hand.”
“It doesn't have to all pull together today, Mom,” Ashleigh says, standing in the middle of what she thinks is the traditional dining room, holding a box of kitchen items and looking out the window. Broodmare paddocks stretch out as far as the eye can see.
“I know,” Elaine says from the kitchen. “I just hate the idea of you living in an empty house.”
Ashleigh pushes from the window and walks into the kitchen. It's all old, what a more optimistic person would call well-lived in. Ashleigh likes it, though. It's old-fashioned and romantic. She can do something with this.
“It won't be empty for too long,” Ashleigh assures her, and Elaine gives her a look. Ashleigh wrinkles her nose. “No, I do not mean I will be filling this place up with fat grandkids.”
“My hopes lie with your sister on that task,” Elaine says, and then kisses her daughter on the forehead. “We'll settle on some furniture for you.”
Ashleigh laughs. “Thanks. I think.”
Then Rory comes bounding through the door, dragging the front of Ashleigh's mattress with him.
*
First things first. Ashleigh memorizes the people, the horses, the routine. Horses love routine. People find it stagnant, so she changes what doesn't work and what isn't efficient. She realizes just what kind of a screw up the last broodmare manager was, and endeavors not to become a raving alcoholic bent on self-destruction.
At least, that's how Samantha describes him.
“He was awful,” she shudders. “He'd drink on the job, make everyone's lives a living hell. When he lost control of Three Foot, nearly got her hurt or worse right in the courtyard, Brad kicked him off the farm. Took him long enough.”
Ashleigh nods slowly, surveys her little domain. It's as clean and bright as the rest of the farm.
Samantha smiles. “You're doing great.”
*
She moves Stardust into an unused stall in the broodmare barn, right near her office. The sixteen-year-old mare settles right in, and as a way to unwind in the evenings Ashleigh always takes her out for a ride.
One day she runs into Brad on a honey chestnut she recognizes instantly.
“Prince,” she says, and he looks mildly offended.
“Hey, I'm also here.”
“Yeah,” Ashleigh says. “I'm told you're around occasionally.”
He winces, caught. “Sorry about that. I've been meaning to see how you're settling in, but...”
“Derby preps,” Ashleigh says. “I know.”
“I'll tell you what,” he says, moving the stallion so close to Stardust that the mare flings her head up and pins her ears, shifting to send a kick their way. He nudges the stallion a little further away while Ashleigh laughs.
“She's not having any of that.”
“I can see,” he says. “Kind of puts a damper on my proposition.”
“Tell me anyway,” Ashleigh says. “Maybe I can convince Stardust to be nice.”
“If I'm at the farm,” he tells her, “I'm always riding one of the stallions before it gets dark. Want to make it a daily social hour?”
“Sure,” she says without thinking. “You'll have to stay over there,” she adds, motioning to where he is on the other side of the trail. “Stardust is a little protective.”
“I think she just hates men.”
Ashleigh laughs and laughs.
*
The house slowly fills up. A sofa here, a piece of art there. Ashleigh is as meticulous about it as she is about the cleanliness of her barn. When it's close to finished, she invites her college friends over, and they throw a housewarming party. There is a copious amount of wine and Kentucky bourbon.
She's not a little shocked when Leslie, a tumbler of amber liquid in one hand, motions her over and hisses drunkenly, “Why didn't you invite your boss?”
“He's in Baltimore,” Ashleigh slurs, a little tipsy on the wine. “We have a horse running.”
Leslie rolls her eyes. “You know,” she declares. “I can't decide if you're lucky or not.”
“Yeah,” Ashleigh says into her wine. “I guess I get that a lot, huh?”
Leslie smiles maniacally and says, “When they're available, I call first dibs on details.”
Ashleigh groans and buries her face in her hands.
*
The summer flies by. Ashleigh gets the new foals weaned, watches them scream and call and run themselves ragged along the fence line outside her house. She sits on the porch and sips her wine, the music blaring from the speakers inside a far shot from drowning the cries of the babies.
“So are you torturing yourself or what?” he asks her, because occasionally he appears in her backyard. The backyard is the farm, so she supposes that's fair.
“I like to keep an eye on them,” she explains, making herself drag her eyes from his approaching figure to the frantic bodies of the weanlings. “You never know what they'll wind up doing when they're in a panic.”
“A few of them are getting over it,” he says, sitting down in the chair opposite her.
“More mature,” Ashleigh says. “The January babies. The younger ones will catch up in a few days.”
“It's like the kindergarten room all over again,” he mutters while a particularly persistent gray keeps testing the fence, trying to find the weak points. “That one is going to be trouble.”
Ashleigh takes a sip of her wine and puts the glass on the table. “You'd better keep him then,” she says. “Do you want a glass?”
He looks up at her, a little surprised that she asked.
“Yeah,” he says after a beat. “Sure.”
*
She loathes winter. Brad sends her a cord of wood, which winds up on her front porch. It sheds splinters and pieces of bark from the steps through the door, but she doesn't mind it. She teaches herself how to get the fireplace to work and basks in the warmth.
*
The babies start coming in January. Ashleigh hardly sleeps, napping at weird times, usually on the sofa at home or on the one in her office. She wakes up in the barn one night at eleven o'clock, Brad Townsend leaning in her doorway.
“Hey there,” he says quietly, like he doesn't want to disturb whatever sleep the horses are getting at such an anxious time. “You missed Three Foot.”
Her chest tightens miserably and she rubs a hand over her forehead to smooth her hair out of her face.
“Shit,” she sighs. “I'm sorry, I...”
“I wanted you to sleep,” he says, shaking his head. “As much as I like how dedicated you are, there's really a line to be drawn somewhere, Ash.”
She groans and curls up on her side. “Tell someone to wake me up if another one goes into labor,” she says against the cushion, her voice muffled and gravelly from sleep.
“Nope,” he says, obstinately. She gives him a look from her spot on the couch.
“What do you mean?” she asks, refusing to sit up and meet this disagreement head on. She's too tired to contemplate straightening her spine right now.
“You're going home,” he says, lifting himself off the doorjamb and walking over to the sofa. “I'll carry you if I need to.”
It's a threat, and a stupid one, because she thinks it would be sort of heavenly to be transported magically from one place to another without having to lift a finger. That is so far from what her normal opinion would be that it sort of bothers her, enough to make her grunt and shake her head.
“I don't think so,” she grumbles. “I'm fine here. Wake me when you need me.”
She shuts her eyes, so she doesn't see him roll his. “Okay,” he says. “This is cute and all, but you're going home.”
“No,” she mumbles, not really concerned that he's touching her arm. There's a tugging sensation and when she suddenly rushes back to herself she's in the air. And he's holding her. And she shrieks. He just keeps walking and ignores her protests.
Finally she groans and lets her head hang down, watching her hair wave back and forth and the ground slip by until it all dims and she's gone again.
She wakes up well past dawn, and she's in her bed. Under the covers. At least she's still dressed, save for her shoes.
She could kill him. Instead she just smiles a little and falls back to sleep.
*
Guayusa gives birth in April. It's a big, chestnut colt. White star, four white feet, with muscles and bone to spare. Ashleigh visits them on a slow day and watches them run and run and run in the grass.
*
This is the year they win one of the classics. Townsend Prince's son, a big bay colt by the name of Townsend Cat, wins the Belmont Stakes like he was simply born to do it. Ashleigh doesn't go, hasn't been to Belmont in her life, but she watches on her parents' television set.
Her eyes catch on Brad standing with the horse by his right hand, a willowy blond by his left. She feels her stomach drop, and she knows exactly why.
*
The year passes. She watches Townsend Cat win the Haskell and come so close in the Breeders' Cup Classic, watches Lavinia Hotchkins-Ross tip-toe her way through the barns.
*
It becomes tremendously apparent to her that she needs a life, so she asks Mona to find someone for her. Anyone.
It doesn't go well. There are horrible dates and then there are catastrophic dates. She's telling Mona as soon as possible that her services are no longer required. She'll take her life as is.
Then she meets his smirk the next day, his inquiry into how that whole thing went last night like he just knows without needing to ask that it was an unparalleled horror. She wants to know how he does that. How he just knows.
*
He twists her arm and gets her to come to the Keeneland Yearling Sale. She has no idea why he wants her to come with him, but she folds herself into the passenger seat of his low-slung Ferrari and lets the wind whip in her hair all the way to the track.
When they get there he puts a program in her hands and makes a bee line to barn twelve, so she's starting to think this is premeditated. She trails behind him, not really sure where he's headed, but she thumbs through the thick booklet, curious to find Edgardale's entries scattered among the listings. She finds Guayusa's unnamed colt, hip number 351, and nearly runs into Brad when she belatedly notices he's stopped.
“Look,” he says, pointing into the stall. It's Guayusa's foal, standing there in all his awkward puberty. She'd know him anywhere. “That's my next Derby winner.”
She snorts. “You've got to be kidding.”
“I'm definitely not kidding,” he says, giving her this serious stare that is simmering with unrestrained glee. She has no idea how he pulls that off.
“Brad,” she says, “Can I just point out two things?”
“Sure,” he says, leaning against the solid stall door. “Shoot.”
“First, that little guy is a yearling. Townsend Acres has won precisely two Derbies, so that's a huge stretch.”
“Noted,” he nods. “You're also a huge downer, which is also noted. What's your other point?”
“That's Guayusa's foal!” she practically whisper-yells. “He's got five half-siblings who have collectively managed to earn less than what a starter home might be worth.”
He raises an eyebrow at that.
“Look,” she continues. “I love my parents. I love that they're trying with this mare, but it's the biggest long shot in Townsend Acres history if you buy him and expect to see him turn into something greater than allowance quality on a second rate track.”
“That's remarkably honest of you,” he says after a second. “I appreciate that.”
She lets out a breath. “Yeah, so can we look at actual prospects now?”
“Sure,” he shrugs, “but I'm pretty sure I'm adding him to my list.”
“Are you being bullheaded just to piss me off or are you really that inclined to piss away a lot of money today?”
“Maybe both?”
She rolls her eyes and follows him.
*
Guayusa's colt sells for $135,000. Her parents will be thrilled. Brad leans back in his seat and smiles, all self-satisfied while he taps his program against his knee.
“I hope you're happy,” Ashleigh says, and he just nods.
*
He names the colt Heraldry. She has no idea why.
*
“He really gets into this sometimes,” Samantha tells her. “When he finds a horse he really likes, I swear he can make them champions by will alone.”
“Seriously?” Ashleigh asks, more than a little dubious. They're both watching Brad stand with the colt, Herald, they call him, because that's a logical name for a horse. Ashleigh rolls her eyes.
“Sure,” Samantha says. “Look at Prince. Victor, Panther, Cat...now Herald.”
Ashleigh groans and tips her head back to the sky. “That is such a stupid name.”
Samantha shrugs and gets back to work.
*
“Herald is a piece of work,” he says. Ashleigh stands next to him at the paddock and watches the colt strut around on his little piece of land. He's grown into himself through the winter, all lithe grace and lean muscle. Everything is a challenge and a puzzle to be solved with him. Ashleigh knows the exercise riders have their hands full in the mornings, and that Brad rides him in the afternoons. They've all been thrown more than a few times.
Ashleigh looks up at the start of a black eye Brad's sporting because the colt decided it would be fantastic to throw his head back as hard as he could. She winces a little and says, “Haven't you put something on that yet?”
“It will be fine,” Brad shrugs, and Ashleigh is inclined to disagree.
“That's not what you're going to say tomorrow,” she says, and pushes his hip with hers. “Come on, I'll get you some ice.”
He follows her to the farmhouse, and watches from his spot against the counter while she piles ice into a towel. She hands it to him and he says, “Don't have any steak around, or something?”
“Does it really sound like a good idea to put raw red meat on a bruise?” she asks. “I mean, really?”
He presses the ice against his eye. “Good point.”
“Yeah, I have lots of those,” she says. “Maybe one of these days you'll say, 'Maybe I should have listened to Ashleigh' when Herald is dragging you or someone else around the training track.”
“I'm not great at hypotheticals, Ash,” he says, pulling the ice pack from his eye, studying it and then reapplying it to the bruise. “But I'm pretty sure it would be more panicked than that.”
“Right,” Ashleigh nods. “That thought would come later, while you're in traction in the hospital.”
“You really don't think this is a good idea, do you.”
It isn't a question, and she really doesn't know how to answer it. She presses her lower back against the counter and says, “No, I don't think that. I just really hope he's worth it. That's all.”
Brad smiles at her from underneath a portion of towel that's dropped in front of his face. She leans forward and moves it, tucks it under his fingers.
*
The colt's first race is surprising. Brad invites her up to Churchill Downs to see it, like he thinks that if she doesn't witness the brilliance of this animal she'll never believe him when he brings back good news.
Ashleigh finds herself standing next to Lavinia, who is busy between making small talk and watching her like a hawk. Ashleigh wants to tell her she has nothing to worry about. She's a broodmare manager who's chosen to wear a t-shirt and jeans to Herald's first race. There's no comparison, but if Lavinia wants to be wary, Ashleigh lets her.
Brad has Jilly Gordon ride, and Herald blazes around the track like he was born to tear it up and burn it to pieces. Ashleigh remembers her mouth dropping open as soon as Herald breaks out of the gate, because he just turns on some invisible jet pack and goes sprinting off to the lead. She thinks he's at least ten lengths in front of the next horse when he crosses the finish line.
Lavinia jumps up and down in her heels, covering her mouth with her hands. Brad moves Lavinia's fingers and kisses her, while Ashleigh tries her damnedest to keep her eyes on the colt.
*
“See,” he says later, during the celebration. “Who was wrong?”
She doesn't look him in the eyes. “Me,” she says. “That was totally me.”
*
Herald goes racing through New York, and Ashleigh stays at home to wean the foals. She goes back to Edgardale while Brad lives it up in Saratoga, visits Guayusa and her new filly foal. The baby is a light bay, mousy and soft, her fuzzy baby coat shedding off to reveal a darker color underneath.
A moment of impulse makes her take a photo of the two, and she sends it to his phone. She gets a text back a few minutes later.
I've already got a name for her.
She just bets he does.
*
Herald comes back from New York as one of the best two-year-old colts in the country. He'll be the morning line favorite for the Breeders' Cup Juvy, or so Brad excitedly tells her on the phone. But when he comes back home he's reserved. Herald's antics don't even seem to register, and there's nothing that brightens him up like Herald's mindless violence.
Jilly is the first person to tell her when Ashleigh has finally had enough of walking on eggshells.
“They broke up,” the jockey says, shrugging. “Why?”
“He's just been different,” Ashleigh says, not feeling much of anything. She's proud of that, really. Then she's annoyed that she'd feel pride. She should feel nothing and feel nothing about it.
“Yeah,” Jilly says, and then lowers her voice. “It's just rumor, but I heard he asked her to marry him.”
“Oh.”
Jilly nods. “I guess I'd be different, too.”
*
Ashleigh walks up to the main house. His parents are off in England, busy doing whatever they do with the oversees operation, and she just walks right in because the door is unlocked and the lights are on.
“Brad?” she asks the emptiness.
“Ashleigh,” she hears his remarkably calm voice from the next room. She walks in and sees him flopped on his back on the ridiculously ornate and therefore completely uncomfortable sofa. “If you're here to maybe talk to me about anything, the blanket answer to any question or comment is no.”
“I don't think that works,” she says.
“I don't really care.”
“What is that supposed to accomplish?” she asks. “Is that supposed to get me to shut up and leave you alone?”
“With anyone else,” he sighs as she shoves his legs off the sofa and sits down on it, making a face. It really is uncomfortable.
“I heard from Jilly.”
He grunts. “And what version does she have?”
“Nothing detailed,” Ashleigh says. “Just that you asked and she said no.”
“We'll leave it there,” he says, lifting his legs back up and placing them in her lap. She gives them a disgusted glare and shoves them off again.
“I'm not a foot stool,” she snaps at him. “And you can grow up at any time. You asked, she said no. Sometimes that's how it works.”
He doesn't say anything, just digs into his jeans pocket and pulls out the little jewelry case. He tosses it to her and she catches it, holding it in her hands. She doesn't really want to know.
“Go ahead,” he invites her, lifting his hand. “Take a look.”
She pops it open, but it's not what she expects. “It's my mother's,” he explains for her. “It's sort of a Townsend tradition. It passed down to me.”
Ashleigh can't help herself. She tugs the little heirloom out of its slit in the fabric, taking a closer look. She loathes herself a little for liking it, for feeling her heart thud a little too hard in her chest. This is just so many different shades of pathetic that she pushes the ring back into the box and puts it on his chest.
“It's beautiful,” she says, forcing the words out of her mouth and rising. He looks at her curiously, and she stalls for a second before saying, “Just make sure your head's on straight before you get on Herald. If I see you taking any of this shit out on that horse, I'll kick your ass.”
She leaves before he can say anything. It's the only thing that makes her feel a little better.
*
She thinks he might have gotten over it around the time Herald goes to the Breeders' Cup. Even when the colt winds up scratching before the race thanks to the equine equivalent of a cold, he comes back to the farm his old self.
From the door of the broodmare barn, she can see him back the colt off the trailer. When he looks up at the breeding complex, at her barn, she ducks into the doorway a little bit, out of sight.
*
They meet on the trail, like always. Stardust switches her tail like a pissed off cat, lays her ears back at Victor and lets out an angry little squeal. The stallion snorts, baffled as always, and stays on his side of the trail.
Brad grins and pats the stallion's shoulder. “It's okay, guy. She hates us all equally.”
“That's not it at all,” Ashleigh says, sticking up for her mare. “She's just choosy.”
“You've never bred her?” he asks, looking at the mare, or at her leg, she can't be too sure.
Ashleigh feels a heat rise around her neck, despite her coat and gloves and the start of winter's bitter chill. “No,” she says. “I never wanted to. Besides, foals would cut down on our riding time.”
“Good a reason as any,” he shrugs. “You going to Edgardale tomorrow?”
“My mom is making a Thanksgiving feast,” Ashleigh says. “I've been enlisted to help her take care of it, so yes. Are you staying here?”
“I suppose,” he says, shrugging as the stallion works his mouth on the bit and makes sideways glances at the mare, who is taking extra strides to ignore him. “My parents are in London, and I thought about flying out, but who the hell wants to deal with that, you know?”
“You should come to Edgardale,” she says, the words out of her mouth before she can call them back. He gives her a look out of the corner of his eye. The words are out now, so she has to bravely push on. “We make too much food, and I can't let you stay around a nearly empty farm and an empty mansion or do whatever it is you'll do.”
His answer is casual. “Sure, if you've got the room.”
*
He follows her up to Paris the next day, and she keeps glancing at the massive Townsend Acres truck in the rearview mirror. She's told her mother about this addition, and she's truly hoping this isn't going to be awkward.
Of course, it isn't. Her mother plows into the wine he brought, and Justin is more than happy to have someone who isn't a blood-relation to Caroline around. Rory is a little reserved at first, treating Brad as more of his sister's uninspected boyfriend than her rich and powerful, completely platonic boss. Ashleigh smacks him on the arm and tells him off, practically chasing him out of the kitchen so he can go watch football with the rest of the men like a normal Kentucky-raised boy.
Caroline smiles from her spot at the kitchen table, feeding Emma tiny spoonfuls of strained peas. “You know, he might be right.”
“Rory is never right about anything,” Ashleigh says, going back to basting the turkey and shoving the oven door closed. She takes a sip from the wine glass she's got stationed near the stove top.
“Hear me out,” Caroline says with a wicked little smile. “Brad Townsend follows you to little Edgardale because he's got nothing else better going on?”
“Maybe he didn't,” Ashleigh says.
“He didn't just hop on the private plane and jet off to London?” Caroline raises an eyebrow. “Mom, back me up here.”
Elaine shakes her head. “I'm not going to hazard a guess,” she says, topping off her wine glass and putting the empty bottle in the recycling. She pats Ashleigh's admittedly very tense back. “But I'm happy to have more company, sweetie.”
Ashleigh groans and pulls one of the pies out of the oven to cool. “Is this dinner going to be ready any time soon?”
Caroline smiles to herself and gives baby Emma another spoonful of peas.
*
After dinner, Ashleigh slips out of the house for a breather and heads down to the barn. She finds herself standing outside of Guayusa's stall. The mare gives her little acknowledgement, keeping her attention on her pile of hay. She's hugely in foal, due in January this time. Ashleigh doesn't even want to know how she feels.
“I think,” she hears him from the doorway, “that I've nearly got your dad to sell me her filly privately.”
She turns away from the mare and watches him walk up to her. He looks positively bright-eyed, maybe from the scotch they've all been drinking, or the prospect of having another of Guayusa's babies in his barn. The mare had no foal after Herald, leaving Brad a little rabid for another one.
“Don't believe him,” she advises. “That baby is going to auction next year, especially if Herald does what he thinks he'll do.”
She can't quite see the outline of his smile in the dim light, but she knows he is. “Yeah, it's probably too much to hope I can get her for a song.”
“Is that your plan?” Ashleigh asks jokingly. “Get her on the cheap?”
“Nah,” he sniffs. “I was going to start at half a million and work my way up.”
“Good luck with that,” Ashleigh chuckles as the mare finally leaves her hay to check out the people hanging around her stall. She pushes her head into Ashleigh's side and then gives Brad a once over, allowing him to run his hand over her blaze and across her nose.
They're quiet, and she doesn't know what to say to fill the void. She's tired of talking about the mare, about her babies, but there's nothing she can think to say except for, “I'm sorry I presumed you wouldn't have anything better to do than come here today.”
“Why would you say that?” He lets his hands fall when the mare goes back to her hay, ignoring them once more.
Ashleigh keeps her eyes on the mare and says, “Just to put it out there, I guess. I did sort of assume.”
“I'm glad you asked,” he says. He scrubs a hand in his hair and then looks at his fingers uncomfortably. “It's nice to be around a family that acts like, well, a family.”
“So that's why you didn't jet off for London?” she asks, looking over at him while he still looks at his hands. She stops just short of saying something unintentionally insulting. She barely knows his parents, never met his sister, and while the farm isn't his it may as well be. She doesn't think it's fair to him, but he doesn't say anything about it, and she keeps that thought to herself.
“No,” he says, looking up from his hands and catching her eye. “Not exactly.”
*
Her breath catches in her throat, and she's both immeasurably frustrated and happy beyond words when Rory comes jogging into the barn to yell that they're missing the last five minutes of the fourth quarter and the game is tied. What the hell are they thinking? It's damn cold outside.
They follow him back to the house, walking side by side.
*
His parents come back mid-December, and she gets an invitation to their holiday party in the mail, because the Townsends are not the kind to just drop invitations off casually. It's a black tie event, highly formal, and she'll need a new evening gown. She needs a new one each year.
She hates evening gowns. They're ridiculous and ugly, even if they're stupidly expensive and made out of silk. Each year she donates her gown to Goodwill and doesn't think twice about it. This year, she calls up Mona and Leslie and tells them she needs the most beautiful dress she can obtain. Price isn't an issue. They both go nuts.
At the end of a week of searching, they find a dress that looks like it has a life of its own.
“It's Carolina Herrera!” Leslie whispers, slipping the red silk through her fingers and keeping her voice low, like anything else would be irreverent.
“Where?” Ashleigh looks around, and Leslie rolls her eyes.
“The dress is Carolina Herrera,” Mona tells her. “Before you ask if that's the name of the dress, I'll tell you now that it's the designer.”
“Oh,” Ashleigh says, and then nearly gags at the price. This isn't going to be the sort of dress she throws at Goodwill later.
*
It's well worth the money. The dress fishtails and slithers behind her heels, does a slippery slide over her hips, catches at the edges of her shoulders, drapes and folds over the cut at the back. Mona pins her hair up behind her head while Leslie dusts her with make-up.
“I feel like a fairy godmother,” Leslie says. Ashleigh looks up at her, pushes her bangs aside.
Leslie finishes up and says, “Just be home by midnight.”
*
She thinks that for the first time since she started to work at Townsend Acres, Clay Townsend really looks at her. This disgusts her for a second before she's rescued by Brad, who has two flutes of champagne and gives her one.
“Really, Dad,” he admonishes while Clay keeps looking at her. “You haven't offered the lady something to drink yet?”
Clay smiles, keeps looking at her. “I confess it quite slipped my mind.”
“Well,” Brad says, takes a healthy swallow of the bubbly liquid, “excuse us, Dad. I need to talk to Ashleigh for a second.”
Clay doesn't move, so Brad puts a hand on the small of her back and they extricate themselves, winding through the mass of people and finding a relatively hidden spot near the tree. It towers above them, gold and green and red.
“I hate to say this,” she says, turning and finding him close by. Now he's looking at her. “Thanks,” she says, abbreviating what she would have said. Her treacherous heart completely overacts to his proximity.
“Well,” he says, taking a breath. “I really can't blame him.”
“Is that the Brad Townsend version of a complement?”
“Hardly,” he says, still looking at her. “I actually wanted to give you something. Can you,” he keeps looking at her, actually waves his hand at the dress like it's distracting or confusing, “walk outside in that?”
“It's in the guesthouse,” he says, and it takes her a second to remember that he lives there when he's not in the mansion. Or somewhere on the farm. Or at some racetrack or something. Her body is going haywire, and she's not thinking straight.
“I'm pretty sure I can get there and back,” she says. “I walked here, you know.”
“Did you,” he says, still looking.
“Yes,” she says, sipping her champagne. “I'm remarkably independent.”
He laughs and takes her free hand. “Okay, woman. Let's go.”
They slip out of the party and she stares at his back as they walk, watches the black material of his tux between his shoulders. She tells herself to get it together. First step in that direction is to probably let go of his hand, but she really doesn't want to. So she follows him into the guesthouse and pauses while he shuts the door and turns on the light.
She takes another shaky sip of champagne while he puts his on the kitchen counter and picks up an envelope.
“What's this?” she asks, taking it when he hands it to her.
“Your present,” he says. “I know I've kind of ignored this holiday before, because I've got too many employees to keep straight, but I'm not too closed off to the idea of starting a new tradition. Open it up.”
She puts down her glass and pulls out the little stack of papers, glancing over them quickly. She laughs.
“My dad sold you the filly,” she says, like she can't believe it. Then she pauses and looks at him suspiciously.
“She's yours,” he says, still looking at her. Her palms are beginning to sweat.
“What,” she starts and looks down at the papers. “Brad, this is too much. This is way too much. She's worth more than a song, and I know my dad made you pay it.”
“Of course he did,” Brad says. “But that's not the point, because I wanted her. And I wanted you to have her.”
She opens her mouth and closes it again, puts the papers on the counter. “You can do anything you want with her,” he continues. “Have me race her, breed her, use her as your riding horse when Stardust needs a day off. Whatever you want to do.”
“You're kidding,” she says, shaking her head. “No one pays that much for a pleasure horse.”
“So breed her,” he says, shrugging. “Race her. Ride her when you want.”
“Why are you giving her to me?”
She looks up at him, wanting some sort of answer other than he can do as he likes. He's standing so close, and he's given her a horse worth thousands, maybe millions, and he doesn't seem to have an answer for her so when she thinks she might just scream in frustration he closes the distance and kisses her.
She kisses him back, instinctively. Her hands go to his chest, his jaw, around his neck. Then she pulls back, sucks in a breath while he rests his forehead against hers, pressing her back against the counter.
“We should,” she starts, but he kisses her again, like he's afraid of whatever she might say. She lets him, wouldn't be able to deny him, and pulls back, licks her lips to try again. “We should do this slowly,” she says, feels his hands on her hips through the silk. “You know, that's sensible.”
“Definitely,” he kisses her, puts a hand on her neck and slides right inside of her. She arches back, moves her elbow to press her fingers against his side, her arm knocking her glass back and off the counter. It shatters into pieces on the tile. She jumps and rips away from his mouth to look down.
He moves to her neck as she makes a strangled noise and says, “The glass, Brad.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, and she feels his teeth. Her eyes fall closed. “It's broken.”
She laughs, but that's cut off when he pulls her away from the counter, picks her up just enough to move her over the glass and then puts her down safely away from the shards that crunch under his shoes.
“Slowly,” he says against her lips. “I can do slow.”
*
She wakes up in the morning, curling in the sheets. There's one remaining bobby pin that didn't make it out of her hair the night before, and she digs it out of the mass of wild curls at her neck. She lets it drop on the floor as he moves a hand in her hair, pulling it into his fist to kiss the skin behind her ear. She hides a smile behind the sheet she has twisted in her fingers.
“We should get out of bed,” he says, and she can feel the rumbling of it from his chest behind her. “We need to go get your filly.”
Laughing seems appropriate, so she does it as he turns her over. She tucks her head against his neck and laughs and laughs. He gathers her closer, her arms folded against his chest as she pulls herself together and breathes in a steady breath.
“Okay,” she says. “Let's go get her.”