by Cathryn Hein
‘So let me see if I’ve got this straight. Rowdy wins, you tell me your big secret, and I hate you and never want to see you again. Yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. And if Rowdy loses, our contract ends, I take him home, and then that’s it. You cut me off, refuse to see me, maybe stand at the gate with a shotgun in your hands so I can’t come in. No more Sophie and Aaron. No more of this. No more of anything. Am I right?’.
‘Something like that.’
She shook her head, feeling the sting of hot tears and the choking grasp of her throat closing over, but under this, in her chest, anger stewed and steamed like a geyser.
‘You bastard,’ she whispered, and then in a lash of fury, she rounded on him. Her hands pushed hard into his chest. ‘You absolute bastard!’
‘Sophie —’
She pushed him again. ‘I’ve done nothing to deserve this. Nothing!’
He grabbed her wrists. ‘Stop it.’
She wrenched them free and tried to push him again but he caught her in his arms and held her trapped. She squirmed and writhed but his arms were strong and hard. His mouth pressed close to her ear, murmuring, ‘Don’t, Soph. Please don’t. It’s bad enough as it is. Hate me, but don’t fight with me. It’s the only way, you’ll see.’
She shook her head, sobbing. ‘No.’
‘It’ll be okay, I promise. You’ll be all right. You’ll get over it, and in a few months, you’ll think back and laugh and wonder what the hell got into you.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You will. You’re strong. You can cope with anything.’
She pressed her face into his chest and breathed in the scent of him – washing powder, horse, chaff and something unidentifiable, the essence of Aaron – and shuddered. He didn’t understand how she felt, the force if it. This wasn’t a crush. She’d had those, experienced that squirming longing for someone she barely knew, someone whose only appeal seemed to stem from extreme attractiveness or the ability to charm.
This wasn’t that. This was love. Aaron might have his secrets, but she didn’t care. She loved every bit of him, from his handsome, rough exterior to his gentle, flawed core. Nothing would change that. Nothing.
She tilted her head back to look at him. His mouth was turned down, as if weighted by the unbearable sadness of what he was going to put them through. She felt a tear dribble down the side of her face and wanted to wipe it away, but his grasp was too tight. It slid toward her chin.
‘I love you,’ she said.
He stroked her hair. ‘I know.’
‘I won’t hate you, no matter what you tell me. You’re a good man, I know you are.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘But you are.’
Gently, he traced the journey of her tear with his finger and then cupped her face with his hand. ‘No, Sophie. If I was, I would never have let it go this far.’
‘But it has gone this far.’
‘Yes,’ he said, letting her go. ‘But come Saturday week, one way or another, I’m going to make sure it ends.’
Twenty-three
An expectant hush fell over the Millicent Showgrounds as Sophie rode into the ring. Several competitors ceased their warm-ups and rode closer to watch. Others made their way ringside, murmuring among themselves. This wasn’t one of the premier classes – they weren’t scheduled until the weekend – but competitors in the South East Showjumping Club’s three-day Winter Championship carnival took even the most minor classes seriously. Despite their outward friendliness, inside, competitiveness reigned. Sophie was no different.
The buzzer went. A large digital clock began its forty-five-second countdown. With her weight on her knees, Sophie leaned forward and slid her hand down Buck’s sweaty neck. He tossed his head, snatching at the bit, wanting to get on with it.
They cantered a circle, Buck’s gait collected, bouncy, his neck arched. A fleck of white froth flew from his mouth and landed on Sophie’s shiny black boot. She didn’t notice, her mind focused on the first jump. Nine competitors had made it through to the jump-off, serious showjumpers chasing prize money and grading points. If she and Buck were to win, they had to go clear and fast.
They approached the start flags. Sophie sat back, and with her backside and legs driving him forward, faced Buck at the first fence. With a snort and a shake of his head, he crossed between the flags and charged at it.
In this showjumping event, the jump-off was a shortened and heightened version of the course they had all jumped in the first round. The winner would be determined by whoever made it around in the fastest time with the least number of faults. In the more advanced classes like Buck’s, where dropped rails, refusals, run-outs and falls were few and far between, it was speed that counted.
They cleared the first – a simple parallel bar – at an angle and raced for the second. They jumped the brush and rails almost on the diagonal, and then turned sharp left to take a formidable white gate. It rattled loudly, but Sophie didn’t look behind to see if it fell. She’d count faults when it was over. With a shift of her weight, Buck changed his leading leg and spun right toward a green and gold painted double. In his excitement, he launched half a stride too early and although he cleared the fence, on landing, he found himself in trouble. Only one stride separated the first and second elements of the double, and it was a long one. Sophie rode him hard, trying to give him the impulsion he would need to make that stride and clear the wide parallel of the second fence.
Buck grunted with the effort, but it wasn’t enough. He’d taken off too far away from the second fence, and as they came down, his hind legs caught the last bar. Sophie knew from the rattle and thump that it had fallen, but she pushed him on over the remaining jumps anyway. Never look back, her mother had taught her, and she never did.
They scooted through the finish flags and pulled up with a skid, Buck huffing and shaking his head as they jogged out of the arena. Four faults. Five horse-and-rider combinations had already gone through clear. They were out of the money.
‘Bad luck,’ said Michael Fenton, grinning at her from the back of an enormous grey. ‘You were making good time until the double.’
She shrugged and slapped Buck’s neck. ‘He gets a bit excited sometimes.’
Michael winked. ‘So do I.’
‘Give it a rest,’ said Sophie, rolling her eyes.
‘Not until you agree to have a drink with me.’
‘Not a chance.’
‘Dinner?’
‘Nope. As of right now, I’m out of here.’ She kicked Buck into a canter.
‘A quickie in my trailer then?’
Sophie smiled and kept going.
‘Come on, Soph. Give a bloke a break,’
His voice faded as she wove through the cars, horse trailers and trucks scattered across the showgrounds. Most would be staying for the weekend and the even bigger events, but Sophie wouldn’t be there. Come this time Saturday, she’d be leaning over the rail at Springbank praying for Rowdy and swallowing her fears over Aaron.
Michael was nothing if not persistent. From the moment she’d arrived that morning, he’d been hanging around, lounging against her float, regaling her with stories from his time in England.
‘You’re looking good these days, Soph,’ he kept telling her, unaware she was immune to his pick-up lines. ’Damn good.’
Michael had been friendly, funny and oh-so-charming, but Sophie knew from experience it was an act. Even if she weren’t in love with Aaron, she could never see Michael as anything other than the man whose cruel teenage prank had almost caused her to self-destruct. She might have forgiven him, but forgetting was another matter.
For the sake of politeness she’d accepted an invitation to join him and a few other riders for coffee in the kitchenette of his massive horse trailer. But ten minutes in, when still no one else had shown up, and after having removed Michael’s hand from yet another part of her anatomy, she’d had to leave.
‘Come on, Soph,’ he’d complained. ‘We
’ll be great together. Just like before.’
She’d stared at him in disbelief and then shook her head at the weirdness of life.
She’d always believed she was unattractive, a dull version of her mother, but over the last four months, it appeared that she’d blossomed. Many times, she’d looked at herself in the mirror and studied her face, puzzling over what had changed to make her attractive to men like Ben and Michael, when they once wouldn’t have given her a second glance. All she could see was that her hair was different. She still had the same boring grey eyes, the same pale skin, the same undramatic looks of the chronically plain.
Yet Aaron had once called her beautiful, and for one brief ecstatic moment, she had felt it, like a flush of happiness warming her from the inside as if a bulb had been switched on.
Maybe that’s what love did, made people radiant. There was no other explanation, because if there was one thing she knew for certain, her newfound allure wasn’t due to pregnancy.
The car rocked as Buck kicked at the tailgate and stomped on the floor of the float. It never ceased to amaze Sophie that the horses knew they were nearing home. Chuck had been no different, and even Aaron’s horses became agitated as they approached Hakea Lodge.
She turned into Vanaheim’s drive and stopped at the gate to check the mail, smiling as Costa Motza looked up and whinnied, then goofily trotted over to say hello. Chuck followed close on his heels, his neck snaking and his teeth bared as he tried to nip his rival.
From the day she’d let Costa Motza into the paddock, the two horses had become friends. At first, they’d squealed and sniped, but soon settled down to the business of grazing. Only Sophie’s presence caused a breach in their domestic harmony. Jealousy, it appeared, was not just a human emotion.
She leaned over the rail to give them both a scratch. Costa Motza looked put out that Chuck received his first, but he’d have to get used to coming second at Vanaheim. As much as she adored the gangly chestnut, Chuck would always be her favourite.
After kissing both horses and checking the mail, she returned to the Range Rover. It would be dark soon, and there were too many things that needed to be done around the place to spend any more time playing with Chuck and Costa Motza.
It was after nine by the time she made it back into the house. She sat in front of the television with her dinner of microwaved leftovers perched on her knees, listlessly picking at it while watching the late news. A suicide bomber had killed seventeen people in Pakistan. In eastern Europe, unexpected heavy rain had caused flash flooding and landslides. In America, a gunman had opened fire in a crowded shopping mall, killing five, two of them small children. But Sophie hardly registered the barrage of grim tidings. Her mind, as always, had drifted to Aaron.
She wondered what he was doing, how he was feeling. More nervous than her, she imagined. Tomorrow, if Rowdy won, Hakea Lodge’s future would be secure. He’d have what he wanted, and so, she supposed, would she. She’d have Rowdy, the horse she’d fallen in love with all those months ago. Life could go back to normal.
Except it wouldn’t. It never could.
She stared at her half-eaten casserole, and then walked to the kitchen and scraped it into the dogs’ bowls. She rinsed her plate and gazed at her reflection in the window. He loved her. He hadn’t said it, but she knew it, and where there was love, there had to be hope.
No light came from Hakea Lodge. Despite the hour, Sophie had assumed Aaron would be up, pacing, thinking, worrying like her, but he must have gone to bed. It was a stupid idea anyway. If he wouldn’t let her comfort him before, he’d hardly allow her to now.
Her breath foggy in the night cold, she dug her hands in her coat pockets, fingering the apples she’d placed there, and continued walking up the drive. She wanted to spend a few minutes alone with Rowdy, anyway. Not that she could be sure of his reception either. Work at Vanaheim, preparations and the showjumping competition itself had kept her away for the last two days. Rowdy normally descended into a sulk if she was absent for even one.
The yard was silent, the horses asleep, the only noise a light breeze rustling through the trees and skipping fallen leaves and twigs around the quadrangle. Quietly, she unlatched the door to Rowdy’s stable and slipped inside, softly talking to him. He whickered and buried his soft muzzle into her hand. Sophie pressed her face against his warm nose and stroked his neck.
‘Tomorrow’s a big day for all of us,’ she whispered. ’You have to win for Aaron’s sake and you have to stay safe for mine. You think you can do that?’
Rowdy breathed hot air onto her chest. She scratched at the spot around his ears she knew he loved, smiling as he tilted his head into her fingers, demanding more. When she deemed he’d had enough, she pulled an apple from her pocket and held it out to him. The crunch of his teeth sounded unnaturally loud in the confines of the stable.
When the apple was gone, he bunted her for more, snuffling around her coat and slobbering apple juice. She pulled the other apple from her pocket and hid it behind her back, but he could smell it. He pushed at her with his nose, demanding she produce the fruit, and then curled his head around her side, his lips rubbery on her hand as they reached toward the smell.
She let the game last a little longer, finding it strangely comforting, before giving in and holding out the apple. In the dim light, she saw Rowdy’s eyes close in equine ecstasy as he sucked and crunched. She kissed him fondly.
A hollow bang, like someone kicking a drum, made her jerk upright. A horse snorted and moved in the night. She stilled, cocking her head and straining her ears. The skin of her scalp prickled, but she heard only the breeze and Rowdy’s blissful chewing.
She stepped toward the door, cursing inwardly at the sound of her boots catching on the straw, and looked out into the yard. The house remained in darkness. Nothing moved on the verandah, no one sat waiting for her on the step. The door to the kitchen remained closed.
She opened the half-door and stepped out, squinting toward the yards. Something drifted on the air, a faint, sickly-sweet smell, like rotting compost or body odour, and then it was gone. She frowned, unsure if she was imagining things. She turned back to kiss Rowdy’s nose, then closed the stable door and slipped the bolt, unable to shake her creeping unease. Rowdy hung his head over the door. She stroked it absently, looking at the yards.
A horse snorted again. Sophie could see moonlight reflecting off its faded canvas rug as it shuffled around its yard. Sophie let her shoulders drop. It was nothing, just an insomniac galloper knocking at its feed bin. She shivered and drew her coat around her and, after checking the stable bolt once more, headed off across the yard. It was time she was home in bed. Tomorrow would be long and stressful enough without adding sleep deprivation to the mix.
Halfway down the lane she stopped to look back, disturbed by the goosebumps creeping up her neck and the unshakable feeling that someone was watching. The wind dropped, leaving the yard eerily quiet. She swallowed, wanting to call out, but afraid of waking Aaron. She waited, senses sharp, her heart beating hard, but still there was nothing.
Shaking her head at her paranoia, she broke into a jog and slipped away into the night.
Twenty-four
With a steaming mug in his hands, Aaron wandered out onto the verandah to inspect the yard. He yawned and stretched, careful not to spill the hot tea, and leaned against a post. The sun was just rising, casting muted peach-coloured light through the pines and gracing Hakea Lodge with an incongruous beauty, as though nature was indulging in a touch of soft-focus photography. A pair of magpies serenaded the new day with a warble from the feed-room roof, and a rabbit peered wide-eyed at Aaron from beside the tractor shed before turning its fluffy white tail and darting back into the bracken.
Aaron stared absently at Rowdy’s stable, thinking of Sophie. No matter what happened today, tonight, once the yard was settled, he’d tell her everything, the whole sordid, sorry mess. Then, when she’d gone, he was going to ring Josh, go into town and drink unt
il he could no longer remember the look on her face. Until the alcohol washed the bitterness from his mouth and numbed the aching core of his body.
He sighed, knowing it wouldn’t work, knowing nothing could ease the torment of losing her, and of causing her suffering yet again.
He took a sip of tea, and tried to think of the good things in his life. He had the yard, and after last night, regardless of whether Rowdy won or lost, it was safe for a little longer.
He’d had a call from a man offering him a couple of horses to train. The man – a local farmer and a highly respected racehorse owner named Colin Dickinson – had known and admired Rodger Laidlaw, but mostly he’d been impressed with Aaron’s record over the last few months, especially with horses the so-called experts considered no-hopers.
Aaron had wanted to tell him that it wasn’t him, it was Sophie, but Colin had ploughed on. Aaron would start with two gallopers, and if he did well, they’d look at doubling that number. Aaron’s gratitude was so profound that, had Colin been standing in front of him, he’d have cried in his arms like a baby.
He smiled at the memory and took another sip of tea, then frowned. Something about the yard wasn’t right. The horses were restless, pacing, tossing their heads, and the air seemed close, heavy, as though laden with fear.
Pollyester Girl circled her yard, snorting, and suddenly it dawned on Aaron. For the first time in memory, there was no Rowdy hanging over the half-door yelling for his breakfast.
‘Oh, Christ,' he said, dropping the mug and sprinting across the yard.
He yanked at the stable bolt, cursing as it caught in his bumbling fingers, and threw the door open. The stable’s air was thick with the stench of fetid manure, stale sweat, and the indescribable, indelible smell of an animal in pain.
Rowdy stood in the corner of the box with his head down, his sides heaving as he took shallow, jerky breaths. He lifted a foreleg as though to move towards Aaron, but then dropped it back down, as if the effort were too much. His woollen rug was dark and soaked with sweat. His hind legs were dull, his once shiny coat stained stiff with dried excrement where he’d scoured during the night.