Page 25 of The Only Seconds that Matter
“Do you want a regular braid or a French braid?”Victor asked.
Taylor twisted around with narrowed eyes.“You know how toFrench braidtoo?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”Taylor didn’t give it much more thought than that.“French braid, please.”
It had been a long time since Victor had braided someone’s hair, but he’d practiced so much on his friends in high school that the muscle memory was still there.Afterward, Taylor insisted on running to the bathroom to look at her hair when Victor finished, and she cried, “Wow, it looksgood!”as if that were some kind of revelation.When she ran back into the living room, she was smiling.
“You should have a girlfriend,” she said with a sage nod.“Then you’d have someone’s hair to braid.”
“I have horses with plenty of hair.”
“Can we go out now and see them?”
“Sure.Want to help me feed and water them?”
“Yeah!”
“Alright, put your shoes on.”
With her shoes on, Taylor practically skipped outside and darted ahead like the dogs did first thing in the morning when they were at their most energetic.Victor had to speed up his pace just to keep up, and by the time he got to the overflow barn, Taylor was already climbing a panel to get inside of a pen.She was greeted by several curious noses, one of them belonging to the gray-faced elderly horse and the other the skinny black Arabian mare who looked even worse now that she was under full sun.Her coat had gone to shit from lack of nutrition, and her hooves definitely needed work.Victor would have to call the farrier out today or tomorrow to trim them all.
Taylor hugged the neck of the Arabian mare, running her fingers over a knotted mane and looking at her as if she were a new puppy under the Christmas tree.To distract her, Victor asked her to check the water and fill it up if needed.Victor went to work on bringing over a few bales of hay for them to eat.
Victor had just retrieved his medical supplies with a thermometer when he saw Johnny’s truck heading up the driveway.Taylor had already dashed out of the horse pen to wave at him, so he pulled around the main barn and parked.When he stepped out, Taylor ran to him and hugged him tightly around the waist.
“Hey there, redhead,” Johnny said, hugging her back.He had a large swollen bruise across his jaw and a dark mark across the bridge of his nose.“What have you been up to, eh?”He paused.“Your mama do this braid for ya?”
“Come look!”Taylor insisted, grabbing his hand.“Look at the horses we got at the auction!”
She pulled Johnny along, and Victor went as well, the buckles of the lead ropes thrown over his shoulder jingling.Johnny turned to Victor with a smile, his face cast in shadow by his black cowboy hat.
“Howdy,” he said by way of greeting.“You need help?”
“I’d love that, actually.I’d like to tie up all the horses so that I can look them over and take their temperature.If their temps are up, it could mean Strangles.”
“Sure thing.”
Johnny and Taylor went to work without complaint, catching horses and tying them along the fence so that each was ready for Victor to analyze.He took pictures of them from the front, side, and back, noted their temperature, resting heart rate, and foot condition.The horse with the pus-filled eye had one shoe that needed to be removed, but no one else was shod.The donkeys also were exempt from the exam, considering they were feral and ran off any time they were approached.
Taylor was surprisingly good with each horse, and Victor thought that if her grades were better, she might make a competent vet.He had to call his own, though the only urgent thing was the one horse’s bad eye.The rest were scraped up, battered, and skinny but it was nothing some time and good feed couldn’t fix.The yearling would need surgery for the hernia, but that could wait until the quarantine period was over and it moved on to Melissa’s rescue.
Taylor told Johnny all about the Arabian mare and how much she liked her, and Johnny kept throwing looks at Victor, as if questioning Taylor’s account.When she involved herself in picking out horse’s feet, Johnny sidled over to Victor and spoke in a low voice with his arms crossed over his chest.
“She convince you to buy that horse or what?”he asked.
“I didn’t buy it solely because she asked me to,” Victor replied.
“No?You got a dire need for an Arabian?”
Victor sighed.“She can be very persuasive.”
There was a buzzing in his pocket, and Victor pulled out his phone.He got a text from Kayla.
Is Johnny there yet?
Victor texted back,He arrived half an hour ago.
