Page 110 of The Only Seconds that Matter
“Your sister was forced to have a baby at sixteen and babies are way harder to care for than a ten-year-old.You figure it out if you have to.No one’sgood at itwhen they first start out.”
“You would be.You got your shit together.Maybe I should ask my sister ifyoucan adopt Taylor.The girl practically lives here already.My sister would probably not even notice a difference.”
“I’m not Taylor’s uncle.No one’s going to trust a single man in his 30’s with a ten-year-old girl unless he’s related to her by blood.”
“I’ll just tell her you’re gay.”
“Johnny.”
Johnny snickered, then stopped when he saw the look on Victor’s face.“What?I thought you were out.”
“If you want to tell your sister we’re dating, be my guest.That’d probably be the only way she’d trust me, and even then, I doubt it’d be by much.I’m already shocked that she lets me take Taylor to horse shows without you.”
Johnny again spent a few moments of silence to look contemplative.Was he considering it?Victor had to admit that his sister’s politics were hard to read.Johnny certainly wasn’t religious, and Victor doubted she was either.
“Ain’t no way I’m gonna tell Mike,” Johnny finally said.“But my sister is… complicated.”
“Oh?”
“She ain’t enlightened or anythin’ but she ain’t hateful either.She likes you, and I don’t think knowin’ you were gay would change that at all.”
“What about you?Will you come out to her?”
Johnny shrugged, which Victor considered a non-answer.How typical.
“Can you at least talk to your sister about Taylor?Maybe you can arrange a few days a week where she lives with you.I can help you clean your place.I wouldn’t worry about cooking—ten-year-olds only want Kraft mac and cheese and Pop Tarts anyway.”
There was a knock on the office door.When Victor went to open it, there stood a sweaty Taylor with a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow full of dirty shavings.“I’m done!”she said with a gap-toothed grin.
“Wow, lightning fast.”Victor turned and gave Johnny a look.With a sigh, Johnny clapped his hands down on his knees and stood.On his way out the door, he squeezed Victor’s shoulder, but Victor had no clue if that was an answer or not.
CHAPTER 31
Victor barely saw Johnny at all the next two weeks.Victor’s time was filled with two-day shows, transporting a client’s two horses across state lines, helping a boarder’s horse recover from hock surgery, handling three mares in for breeding with Blitz, training any one of the four horses he had in that month, and all the lessons squeezed in between.On top of that, Victor had to fit in sessions with Cyclone and his half-sister Venus, who was still too young to ride but mature enough to learn groundwork.Taylor was in and out to work with Midnight, often without Victor’s supervision or instruction.She knew enough at this point that Victor felt confident she could bring Midnight along without always being told how to do it.Right now she was learning cattle work, which probably wasn’t an instinctual talent for an Arabian but one that Midnight seemed to enjoy nevertheless.
Jade gave lessons to the younger children, and one of their parents asked Victor for a full lease of Sprout with the possibility of purchasing him at the end of the summer.This meant he could no longer be one of Victor’s regular lesson ponies, and that meant going back to the auction in hopes he could find a replacement.He didn’t tell Taylor about it this time; he didn’t want to be guilted into picking up another charity case, as much as it had worked out last time.Instead, only Jade came with him.
They made the long trip to Texas, where there was an auction that ran every week instead of monthly.The parking lot was packed with dealers’ long stock trailers and semi-trucks, so Victor had to drive around for a while to find a place to park.After getting a number, he and Jade wandered the pens, many filled with loose horses that had only a halter as a means of identifying where they came from.Other pens had branded Quarter Horses already tacked up and ready to show off.Victor was most interested in the ponies, but he couldn’t resist browsing the others, even though he knew he had no time to take on any prospects at the beginning of the summer show season.
Toward the back of the complex he came across a pen of twice-branded horses, all loose and ungroomed.Many were much stockier than typically loose horses were, some with feathered legs and manes so long they’d tangled into knots hanging past their necks.
“Bucking stock, I’m guessing,” Jade said.
“Definitely.”Some were over 16 hands tall and probably 1400 pounds.Victor couldn’t imagine Johnny strapping himself to something like that heavy and powerful.They were the kind of horse that would fetch you thousands as riding horses.Peoplelovedto buy draft crosses, especially if they were pretty colors, as many of these were, such as the buckskin draft with the mane and build of a Friesian.If he weren’t so deadly, Victor would have taken a chance just for the resale value.
“My buddy brought these in,” said a voice, and Victor turned to look at the chubby guy who had sidled up next to them, one cheek bulging with chew.He tilted his head toward the pen of bucking stock.“Lotta different kinds in there.You looking for something for a string?”
“Oh no, I’m not in the rodeo business.I run a riding barn.”
“Ah.Most of these are retiring.But…” The man squinted at the herd for a moment, then pointed toward the back.“You see that big chestnut back there?”
Victor did.She was tall and barrel-chested like the rest, with a blaze down her face and two white socks on her hind legs.A gorgeous horse for sure, and obviously well-fed even if her feet were chipped and her mane was a mess.
“She’s only three or four I think.She’s the worst buckin’ horse of the bunch, so that’s why she’s gettin’ sold.Too mild-mannered for rodeo.I think if you could make a ridin’ horse outta any of them, it’d be her.”
Victor was about to tell him that he wasn’t really looking for training prospect at the moment, but he didn’t want to get into a conversation.So instead he said, “I’ll keep an eye on her in the ring, thank you.”
The man tipped his hat and walked off.Jade squeezed Victor’s arm on his other side.
