Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“That’s what I like to hear. And mama?”
“She’s good. I gave her a thorough examination. She’s producing good milk.”
“If you’ve got time today, can you take a look at Misty over in the show rider barn? She’s eating but not with her normal gusto.”
“She the one that colicked a few months ago?” the vet asks.
“Yeah. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
I turn to my brother and motion for him to follow me. We walk back to the barn’s entrance and I ask, “Do you think you can meet with a potential buyer for me in about half an hour?”
“Sure. Which horse?”
“Popcorn. It’s a trainer and one of their riders is flying in from North Carolina. They’ve got the money to make the purchase, but they want to put the kid on the horse first.”
“Not a problem. I’ll head over there now to make sure she’s cleaned up nice.”
Popcorn is a beautiful black saddlebred mare who performed very well for one of our show riders this past year. But the mare is getting up in age at almost seventeen and only has a few more years of competition left in her. Unfortunately, her rider has leveled up and bought a fancier horse, so Popcorn needs to go. She will be perfect for a kid with a few years of experience who’s looking to get into the show ring for the first time, and that’s just such a buyer flying in from North Carolina.
I normally manage all the sales, which includes not only showing the horses to their full potential but the negotiations, veterinary vetting and payment.
But today I hope to resolve something that has been niggling the back of my mind regarding Sylvie, all because of that damn phone I gave her.
At about quarter after three, knowing that Wade is going to handle my three-thirty appointment, I ditch my truck and grab one of the Gators. I don’t drive it over the main roads out of the farm, but instead through the woods and I park it just inside the tree line, about a hundred yards from the main driveway, off the state highway.
I push the seat back and prop a foot up on the outer edge of the open doorway, drumming my fingers on my knee while I wait.
I don’t check my watch but call on my patience. I know Sylvie’s school bus arrives at the edge of the driveway sometime between three twenty-five and three forty. It depends on how many kids take the bus and what traffic is like.
I hear the big yellow shuttle coming down the road before I see it. It drives right by me, and I watch as it comes to a chugging stop. The stop-sign arm extends and with the light flashing, Sylvie exits and crosses the road safely, although no other traffic is in sight.
So far, my suspicions are not coming to fruition, but I have a reserve of patience.
This is especially so after I watch the bus drive into the distance and Sylvie makes no effort to walk down the oak-lined driveway to the house. Instead, she leans back against one of the brick pillars securing the wrought iron gates which can close to prohibit people from coming into the farm. But it’s been years since those things worked and they perpetually stay open.
My Spidey senses tingle as I watch her pull out her phone and use it while she waits for something. Her thumbs fly over the screen, and I’m quite positive she’s texting someone. I then see a charcoal gray Porsche Cayenne coming down the road. Sylvie lifts her head as the car slows and pulls onto the shoulder. It crawls to the edge of the driveway so she can walk the ten feet from the pillars where she’d been waiting, and Sylvie leans inside the rolled-down passenger window.
I don’t make a move, watching without a single worry that the person inside that Porsche will kidnap my daughter.
That’s because I know whose car it is… Rosemund Mardraggon.
One of the best things that has come from secretly recording my daughter’s French outbursts is that in a million years, Sylvie never thought I would take the effort to translate what she said. Within those rants, Sylvie mentioned Rosemund’s name several times and in such a context that I knew they had been talking with her new phone.
This ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem. I, after all, gave Sylvie her number. I told her, “I want you to have a relationship with your grandparents and all the Mardraggons. Call her as much as you want.”
That might have been a little white lie. I don’t want her to have anything to do with the Mardraggons, but I had to start somewhere in this game of building trust and that seemed like a necessary concession to make for the time being.