Lilac's Chance

Chapter Seven

Last Chance is coming along amazingly. I stare between her eagerly pricked ears at the barren landscape in front of us, grass bent over and crackling with frost rolling outwards from our makeshift track. Her canter is powerful; each fall of her hooves is a punch into mortal earth that propels us forwards, her hind end reaching far underneath herself to push us even further ahead.

When I ask for a gallop, she swings into it, smooth and businesslike. Ears flatten into a wind-tangled mane as she hums along the track, streamlining. Her ground-eating strides cover the distance easily, and after we've covered a quarter-mile, she still seems raring to go. I have to fight her to a walk, the reins biting into my gloves even as the cold bites into my face.

Hank looks pleased as I trot her over to where he stands with a stopwatch as his only company. "She'll do well in her debut."

"Debut? I thought she's raced before." Last Chance's head flies up in dismay as I work on the reins, moving the bit in her mouth until she understands my request and lowers it.

Hank snorts. "Didn't even make it to the gate."

That is definitely not what I want to hear. I stare at Hank for a while, but he's not looking back, merely studying the stopwatch. 

Of course, I've looked up Last Chance online, but all I can find are rescues. So the only access to information I have is through Hank and Braydon, and neither have volunteered anything.

Without a response, I stiffen my hands and shift my weight. Last Chance pivots around my leg and backs away from Hank, towards the long spread of fields that stretch out behind Bonawinds. Flecks of cattle cover the distance, but this close to the farm the land is empty.

"Never raced before," I muse to Last Chance's golden neck, bent up and over her bit. "I shouldn't be surprised, honestly."

She doesn't listen to me, and when I rock the bit in her mouth until she tips her head to the right, I see how her amber gaze is focused in front of her, not at me. "What happened to your last jockey?"

No answer. Nobody on this farm tells me anything. There's a massive store of frustration welling up in me, scalding hot. I try to hold it back- any self respecting horse worth its oats won't deal with a frustrated rider, and I know this- but it doesn't work.

Last Chance bolts.

Head to chest, avoiding the bit, the mare is a golden bullet hurtling across an ocean of dark grass, and I am just a thistle tangled in her mane. Tiny. Inconsequential. And unable to control one thousand pounds at a gallop.

My reins are flapping, and my stirrups are too short to be useful. I watch the ground rush past me, feel the wind trying to drag me off, and for the first time in years it occurs to me that I might fall off. This isn't a Thoroughbred in a snaffle bit on a track held in by a railing. This is a Quarter Horse rushing across the outback of Texas, heedless of holes and trees and stray fencing.

I have to remember this.

Slowly I regather my reins, take a hold of Last Chance's mouth. She's not curled against herself anymore, so I have a little more leverage.

And then I yank on my left rein.

It's a trick I've seen Braydon do with Fudge, and it works. Last Chance's head flies up and to the left, her gallop falters, and then she flails to the side, scrabbling to stay upright. The sudden loss of speed is like a punch to the chest, but I catch myself on her crooked neck and drop my stirrups, clamping my legs around her sides to stay on.

Then she's stopped, and we're both breathing hard. My heartbeat is an uneven staccato tapping against my chest,  and Last Chance braces her legs, unsure after they betrayed her moments ago. Once she's settled, once I'm settled, I ask her to walk on again.

She tries to bolt. I try her back, harder, and she chomps impatiently at the bit.

This isn't working. Head bowed, back raised, she jigs impatiently throughout the entire cooldown. We circle the main part of Bonawinds three times before her breathing settles, and even then she's still walking briskly.

I jump off of her when I reach the barn and hit the ground. Hard. She's smaller than my Thoroughbreds, but a lot more exhausting to ride. Almost immediately she starts moving off, and I'm a second too late to realize that I don't have a hold on the reins.

Then a hand shoots out of the barn to snag her reins, and Last Chance stops, stamping a leg. She's pissed. So am I.

Braydon appears from her other side and frowns at me. "You need to get along better with this horse."

It's the most he's said to me since our argument, and it takes me a minute to rustle up an appropriate response. "I'm working on it."

"No, you're riding her and forcing her to listen. Where's the trust and partnership?"

I don't want to reply, because he's right, and this irritates me. Maybe he sees this in my face, because he huffs and starts to move away. 

"Wait-!"

He pauses, but I can't think of anything to say.

You are a professional. Start acting like one.

I swallow my pride. "I'm- sorry. For how I've acted. And what I said."

Braydon hesitates, but he nods, once, and strides away, leaving me alone with Last Chance. No response. No acceptance. Nothing.

"I think I might hate him," I whisper to Last Chance. She snorts, but she doesn't believe me.

*****

"Lilac!"

The voice on the other side of my phone is familiar, but it takes me too long to place it. "Derek?"

"Correct."

He's gone to college, in England of all places, and it's distorted his accent. Regardless, I'm pleased to hear him. Phone cradled against my shoulder, I shift in the stall to continue brushing Last Chance. Heeding Braydon's words, I've thrown myself into caring for the filly. We have less than a week to go before Sam Houston, and I want to know that we're on the same team.

"How have you been?"

"I've just returned to the States. Dad's been acting strange, and I think it's your fault."

I blow out a breath. Last Chance looks at me, eyes dark and ears pointed away from me. So far she's unimpressed. "What for?"

"Let's just say, when he calls and asks you a question, you'd better answer yes."

And he hangs up.

I shove my phone back into my pocket- of my jacket, not Braydon's- and roll my eyes. "Brothers," I tell the mare, "are idiots."

Maybe it's my voice, or the confession, but Last Chance snorts and lowers her head to lip at my jacket collar. We're in her stall, and she's completely untethered, so her standing by me is completely her choice. My hand finds and tickles her withers as I whisper, "maybe we're getting somewhere."

She sighs and drops her head further, creamy eyelashes closing over steadily sleepy eyes. She'd had a good workout this morning- conditioning, not training, so we'd gone on a long trot around the farm-and I'm starting to get a better sense of who she is. Ears flatten and back tenses when she catches sight of other horses, but I don't think she's at the bottom of the pecking order. She's definitely not at the top- she's too antisocial.

But I think, just maybe, she's not a lone wolf like Hank sometimes says. I think she just needs a friend.

"There's a good girl." I whisper softly to her and continue drawing the brush over her coat, slowly and carefully. She's golden and glowing with the sunset breathing through the barn doors, and achingly beautiful. She's not Skip, my favorite Thoroughbred, or Goodie who carried me through the toughest races in North America, but she's slowly becoming one of the precious horses I hold in the stable that is my heart.

She startles awake when my phone rings again. Remembering Derek's warning, I press 'answer' with a little trepidation. It's Dad.

"Celebration had her colt today. He's big, jet black with white socks. And he's yours, legally, if you come back."