Lilac's Chance

Chapter Eighteen

-some of y'all may have noticed that I deleted the last chapter on here (Braydon's birthday) and some of y'all may have not. Just in case, I'm saying so here: that chapter's a goner. Bye bye. It sucked and I'm not afraid to admit that I messed up badly. Also, Lilac needs a helluva lot more angst before reaching her happy ending, don't you think?-

After I finish glaring at my author, I sit on my couch, scrubbing at Last Chance's mud-soaked bridle. We'd tripped, badly, schooling today, and though she's sound, I feel unsettled. Our redneck racetrack has gone under, and is more swamp than any feasible definition of ground. Meanwhile in Kentucky, they're enjoying gorgeous weather and actual sun and tracks that drain.

I scrub harder, internally cursing the rat-a-tat rain as it drums along the roof, constantly reminding me that not only is it keeping Last Chance and I out of shape, but that we have a race in less than a week.

We're so unprepared.

Harder. The section I'm working at begins to gleam like new, and I move on to the other cheekpiece.

My phone buzzes, lighting up with a photo of a gorgeously dark colt grazing next to his dam, a shining blue sky filling up the background. Not a raindrop in sight. Without pausing in my bridle scrubbing, I lean back and kick it off the coffee table, sending it scurrying across the floor-

-and straight out the door as Braydon opens it and steps inside.

"Don't let it escape!" I hiss as he instantly curves his foot and boots it back over the threshold. It skips over the carpet and finds its final resting place beneath the fridge. Crap. Now I'll have to figure out a way to move the thing.

Or maybe I'll just leave it there.

"May I ask?" Braydon's eyebrows lift as he shrugs off his coat and hangs it up. Rain sucks his shirt against him, almost see-through, defining everything under there. I avert my eyes, looking back to the bridle and shake my head.

"It's sick of being inside all day and wanted out. Like Flicks."

Braydon purses his lips. Flicks had found her way outside and into the largest mud puddle to exist on this side of the Mississippi river. She'd earned herself a lifetime ban to the barn, and for once I agree with not keeping her in. Wet dog is a smell we've become only too well-acquainted with in the past few days. "Well, I'm going to shower," he says at last. "Hank will be in soon. He's just finishing up with Joker's colt."

Well, okay then.

I think my irritation is seeping into my expression, because Braydon kind of sighs before pushing into the bathroom and slamming the door. I'm alone with my thoughts again.

They're not very happy ones.

*****

"Rise and shine..."

My bed is an ocean and I'm its willing victim, drowning in sleep. I cling to it, burrowing deeper into a sea of pillows and blankets.

"Seriously, Lilac, get up."

"No."

It's cold where my bare skin meets the air, and I'm not willing to surrender myself to the day. Not yet. There's something like a sigh over me, and silence for a few moments. I'm just about to drift back into the waves of sleep when I hear:

"It's race day."

My eyes fly open. "Why didn't you just say so?"

Braydon is standing over me, arms crossed, half exasperated and half amused. "Is this how all professional jockeys act?"