We all watch as Lydia turns, clearly waiting for Tristan, who’s now walking toward the pool, and I can’t help but feel like she’s purposefully giving us the perfect view of her tiny little hiney. I hate her. Oh yes, that’s been established.
Janna leans in and whispers something to Wills.
“No worries there. Tell you what, Vivienne, you’ll have your golden boy back in no time. That girl—the viper—she’s going to be mine. Promise you that. I’ll just use the Wills swag on her.”
“Wills swag? Give me a break.” Chris laughs. “You wish, man. You have no game. We all know that. Or, did you learn a little something out at juvie?”
Whoa! What? Juvie?
Wills doesn’t reply. His freckled face turns bright red. Why is it that Chris can say so much crap to people and they don’t ever come back at him? I mean, I don’t know the story as far as Wills going to juvie, but, if some ass were giving me grief like that, I’d have a comeback.
“Game. Whatever,” Chris continues.
I can’t bite my tongue any longer. “Oh, ’cause you have such good game, Haverly?” I say.
“Mhmm, talk about viper. Vivienne Taylor bites,” Chris replies.
Austen gives me a look. He’s warning me.
“I just think you’re a bully, and I call it like I see it,” I say.
“Kids, kids, let’s all get along. Okay?” Wills chimes in. “Chris didn’t mean anything by what he said to me.”
Chris shakes his head. “Just like Vivienne, I call it like I see it.”
Gag. Oh God. Am I seriously at a first-rate equestrian program, or did someone just check me into a loony bin? I’m pretty much done with the day’s drama. Where is Riley?
I don’t see my friend, but I do notice that as Tristan comes through the gate, Lydia reaches her arms around him and gives him a kiss.
“Ah, there’s golden boy now,” Chris comments. He glances at me. “Sure you don’t want him back?”
I ignore him.
“Lighten up,” Emily says. “You don’t know all the crap Vivienne has been through.”
Now, that’s kind of a shocker to have Emily defend me, especially since she seems like she’s hardly paying attention to anything half the time. I know Austen wants to come to my rescue, but if he opens his mouth and starts talking, we might be outed.
Lydia and Tristan join our group, and she immediately hands him a bottle of suntan lotion. All the guys stare as she rolls onto her stomach and unties her top so he can rub the lotion on her. I swallow hard as I watch him, because it really wasn’t that long ago that he snuck up on me—before we were ever together—and did the exact same thing to me by the pool at Fairmont. I glance away.
As this little show is happening, with all eyes on it, I feel my fingers being tickled. I look down and see that it’s Austen and he’s handing me a napkin. I give him an odd look.
“Open it,” he whispers.
I do as he says. He’s written, 9:00 behind barn two tonight.
I nod, smile, and close my eyes, leaning against the lounge chair. Lydia and Tristan can go ahead with their little spectacle. It’s the last thing I’m worried about. One thing is bothering me, though. What is the deal with Wills? Why did he spend time at juvie? Clearly, he’s known Chris for some time—and I’m guessing Chris knows the whole story of whatever got Wills into hot water. All the more reason for me to find Riley and see if he understands Wills’s connection to all of this. Did Wills know Joel? If he did, he might have some answers for me.
I send Riley a text asking where he is. I don’t get a response. Aggravating! He said he was going to be here! That was the real reason that I came, so that we could talk. But, looking at the crowd around me, I’m not sure if we’d have any privacy to really talk, anyway. Heck, Austen and I have to exchange notes to have any kind of conversation with one another, so we don’t blow our cover. Clearly, Riley and I will have to find somewhere much more private than the pool to have our talk.
I steal another glance at Austen, and somehow the dysfunctional bunch around me stops bothering me for a moment—all because of the napkin in my hand and what’s written on it. I guess that nothing else really matters in this moment. I smile slyly at Austen, and he smiles back. I can’t wait for nine tonight.
CHAPTER fourteen
Lydia is still out, presumably with Tristan. It’s eight thirty. Emily isn’t around, either, and God only knows where she might be. But Janna won’t shut the hell up! All I want to do is be inconspicuous as I try to put on a little lip gloss and look somewhat cute for Austen. Fat chance of that happening while I’m getting the third degree. I’m also really irritated that I haven’t heard back from Riley. I’ve called and texted. I need to find out what cabin number he’s in and track him down.
“What did happen between you and Lydia?” Janna asks after she’s already asked me how I got accepted to Fairmont, what life is like at home, what it’s like in Southern California, how I met Tristan, and on and on.
“Oh no,” I say, suddenly struck with brilliance.
“What?” Her eyes widen.
“I forgot to call my mom at eight. I promised her that I would tonight. It’s the one night this week she’s not on call for work. She’s going to be mad at me. She loves to gab.”
“Oh.”
This is obviously a lie. My mom is somewhere in France right about now. Of course, I would actually like to call her. I’m more than ready to tell her that my dad is teaching here for the summer, and ask her how to handle it. But I can’t e-mail a question like that; it’ll only stress her out. Knowing my mom, she’d be on the first plane back here. She can be slightly protective of me, and I refuse to ruin her vacation. She deserves it and had really been looking forward to it. All I can hope is that my lie fools Janna. “I’m just going to take a walk and call her. I’ll be back.”
“Oh. Okay. Be careful. Kind of dark out there.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m not too worried. Not going far.”
I grab my phone and flee the cabin. I’m sans lip gloss and I never even got to pull a brush through my hair, but it is what it is, I suppose.
I walk as quickly as I can to the barns, not wanting to be seen. I’m early because I had to escape Janna as soon as I possibly could. I couldn’t take her jabbering any longer.
When I’m almost there, I hear two voices, clearly a girl and a boy, coming down the path toward me. I quickly pull behind one of the smaller sheds near the barns, hoping they’ll pass without noticing me.
They do exactly that, but my jaw drops when I see who it is: Tristan and Emily. What in the world are those two doing together at this time of night? It can’t possibly be that he’s cheating on Lydia. Emily has pretty dark hair and a kind of cool style, but I’m surprised that Tristan can handle her complicated personality. I thought he was all about hanging out with superficial blondes these days. The first thing that crosses my mind is that they are down here getting drunk. I know Emily likes to sneak alcohol when she can. That’s not really Tristan’s scene, though. I shake my head to clear it. I’d like to get to the bottom of what those two are up to, that much is for sure. I check the clock on my phone and see I still have some time to kill before Austen shows up. I decide to visit Harmony for a few minutes. I turn the corner into the barn and I have another one of those stop and look moments.
Wills is standing in front of Melody’s stall, petting her. And he looks to be talking to her. He spots me. “Oh, hey. Nice horse,” he says.
“She is. You know her?”
“Uh, well, kind of, but not that well.” He looks at his watch. “Oops, I gotta head back. I’m actually meeting with Faith. She wants to talk to me, I guess. Probably in trouble. I kind of put out a couple plates of horse cookies in the Commons House as if they were regular cookies.” He smiles sheepishly.
“Ah, well, I think most of us would know the dif
ference.”
“You’d be surprised,” he says. “All right, well, I’m out. Gotta go take my punishment.”
I watch him leave the barn and I’m mystified. I would’ve liked to ask him how he knows Melody—and whether he knew Joel. Although these two questions are just the tip of the iceberg, because there are other mysteries about Wills that I’d like solved. For example, I want to know why he’s buds with a jerk like Chris Haverly, not to mention the story of how he ended up in juvie.
I head to Harmony’s stall, my mind still racing. When I walk up, her head is buried in her feeder. I go to pet her and she shies away. “It’s me, silly girl.” She walks forward again and puts her head back in. I stare at her in surprise. I mean, yes, my horse likes to eat, but it’s strange for her not to respond to my voice—she must not have heard me with her head buried in the feeder. Then it hits me. She didn’t respond, because she didn’t hear me, yes, but the bigger problem is that she couldn’t see me, either. I swallow hard as I realize that I neglected to speak with Holden about the problem with her eye. Instead of watching the peep show by the pool and socializing, I should have been taking care of my horse.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The list of what I need to deal with is getting longer by the minute. Solving Harmony’s eye problems, dealing with my father being a coach, explaining the situation to my mom, figuring out how to handle my feelings for Austen, solving the mystery of what really happened to Joel . . . Oh brother. Can I just please tell my brain to shut up?
I walk into Harmony’s stall and as she continues eating, I stroke her neck and say, “I’ll get your eye taken care of. You don’t have to worry about it.” I feel so guilty that I haven’t done this for her sooner. What the hell is wrong with me that I forgot to take care of this? All of a sudden, I’m crying. Jeez! Tears too? I’m at least two weeks from my period. I’m seriously having some issues.
Your dad is what’s wrong.
I take a step back and look at Harmony. Oh my . . . this takes me by total surprise. “Are you talking to me, girl?”
Yes.
Okay now, I’ve had this special, secret gift since before I can really remember. My first experience that stands out in terms of a horse communicating happened when I was five and our neighbor’s pony bucked me off his back. I landed hard and was crying on the ground when the pony came over to me with his head down. I suddenly had a clear image of a knife in his back. I looked up at my mom who was hovering over me, making sure that I was okay, and I said, “His back hurts him.” From then on, things like that happened a lot, and eventually my mom became completely convinced that I could communicate with horses. And she was right. Over the years, I’ve learned to expect communication from horses through pictures of events, snippets of memories, or waves of emotions—never words. If a horse shows me something they witnessed with their own eyes, I might hear dialogue between two people. But hearing a horse’s voice in my head? No. Not ever.
“My dad, huh?” I say, out loud.
Yes. That’s why you keep getting upset, and forgetful.
Oh wow, wow, wow—mind-blowing wow.
“Viv?”
Austen’s voice pulls me out of the incredible moment I’m sharing with Harmony, and I look up, surprised, as he peers around the corner.
“Hi,” I say, sounding as stunned as I feel.
“Come on. Let’s go out the back. It’s dark and we won’t be seen.”
“Night, sweet girl,” I say to Harmony. I want to say so much more, but the timing isn’t going to allow for it.
Instead, I walk out of the stall and take Austen’s hand. We walk around to the back side of the barns. “You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. Sure. Why?”
“I don’t know. You just seemed a little off when I walked up.”
“Oh. I was lost in thought. Kind of a strange day, you know.”
“I would agree with you.” He puts his hands on my waist. A silken warmth begins to travel through me. God, it’s strange that I’m feeling this way about Austen, but I can’t deny that it’s nice. I lean my head against his chest and he leans in. I can hear him breathe me in.
“You smell so good, Vivvie. You know what the weirdest part of the day was for me?”
“What?” I ask, pulling away and looking into those big blue eyes of his, which I can see in the moonlight shining down on us.
“It’s that I was so close to you at the pool, but there was nothing I could do to defend you when Chris was being such a jerk. Not without everyone knowing how I really feel. I knew that if I opened my mouth it would be all over.”
I nod. “I knew it too. It didn’t matter, though, because I knew exactly what you were thinking.”
He takes my hand and we start walking. “That’s the best part about this thing between us. We both know each other so well we can basically read each others’ minds.”
I laugh. “Yeah. I suppose we can.”
“At least I seem to be charming Chris Haverly,” he says.
“I noticed. And?”
“He’s an ass. You pegged him.”
“Not only an ass but a creeper, right?”
“I won’t argue that. He’s a big partier. Invited me to some rave next weekend.”
“A rave?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
“I know what you’re thinking. But I told him that we had to invite you too.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say. “But if I go, it might just start World War Three,” I add, giving him a slight smack on his shoulder. “Then again, I don’t really want you going alone.”
“You don’t have to worry about me getting into any kind of trouble. You should know by now that I’m a pretty straight and narrow kind of guy.”
“I do know that,” I reply.
“Haverly, though, not so much. Hopefully if I go out and party with him, I’ll be able to find out exactly what he’s involved in. For me to get what his deal is, I’m going to have to play along.”
“I know. I don’t like it, though.” We stop walking when we reach an old pine tree. Austen sets down his backpack and unzips it, pulling out a blanket. We sit down and I smile. “You think of everything, don’t you?”
“I try.”
Feeling a little awkward, like this is the first time I’ve ever been alone with him, I return to the topic that’s both easy to talk about and still making me burn with curiosity: whether Austen learned anything else about Chris Haverly. “Anything else on the creeper besides he’s a partier and an ass?”
“Not yet. But, it’s there. I know it. That guy is bad news. He just is. My gut says so. And I don’t like the way he is with that girl from your cabin.”
“Janna?”
“Yeah, that’s her. He was kind of a jerk to her at the pool after you left. When she got up, he yanked her back down into her lounge chair so hard that I bet he bruised her arm. Then I overheard him saying something about how ‘close’ she was going to feel to him before the summer was over.”
My heartbeat picks up as I feel a wave of concern for her, and I remember that Chris said something similarly threatening to me. “God, I have to warn her to stay away from him before it’s too late. What does she see in him?”
“I hate to say this, but you’re probably going to have to let her fend for herself,” he says. “She looked pretty into him at the pool.”
From the backpack, Austen pulls out a Twix, my favorite candy bar since I was about eight years old, and hands it to me.
“Yum,” I say. “You’re too much.”
Next he pulls a Breyer model horse out of the backpack. My eyes mist with tears as I recognize the figurine. “Thought you might like this,” he says, pressing it into my hands.
I can’t speak for a moment. Then I manage to say, “You kept this?”
“Of course. My tenth birthday. Not that
I was into Breyers like you and the girls, but I thought it was pretty sweet when you gave me this and told me that it was your horse, Dean.” He laughs. “Do you remember what happened after you gave it to me? What you said?”
I blush remembering the silliness of my younger self. “I told you that my horse would be watching over you at night, because he was good at keeping bad dreams away. I can’t believe I was so dumb.”
He reaches out and touches the ends of my hair and then traces my face with his fingers. “It wasn’t dumb. Not at all.”
I blurt out, “Do you believe in soul mates?”
He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into him. “Of course I do. I’m with mine right now.”
That’s when he kisses me, and that crazy silken warmth that’s becoming so familiar washes over me. I feel his hand, calloused from riding, slip under my shirt and I feel a burning sensation almost like fire where he touches my bare skin. The warmth inside me turns into a heat that I’m certain I’ve never felt before. Our kiss grows deeper and longer and my body wants more, surprising me, because I want more than kissing now. I feel like I’ll do anything to get closer to him. Then, suddenly, he stops kissing me and pulls away. “Austen?”
“I love you. You know that. So, the last thing I’m going to do is rush this. You’re special. You always have been. And if things work out the way I hope, then we have our entire future ahead of us—together. Let’s slow it down. Okay?”
“Okay.” I nod. “Can I ask you something? If you want to, you can tell me that it’s none of my business.”
“You can ask me, but I already know what the question is, and the answer is yes. Yeah, Viv, I’m still a virgin.”
“I am too,” I reply quickly.
He kisses me gently on the lips. “I was hoping you’d say that. I didn’t know, because of you and Tristan.”
“No. We didn’t.”
“Then we have something to look forward to, but first, I really think we need to get used to what’s happening between us right now. We’ve been friends. Now we’re something more, and after, we’ll be even more. I say we enjoy the ride.”
Perfect Harmony: A Vivienne Taylor Horse Lover's Mystery (Fairmont Riding Academy Book 3) Page 8