Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
He looked at me accusingly.
“Sorry, buddy,” I said as I scratched him between his eyes. “It wasn’t my decision. He had to go back to his mama.”
The horse gave me the side-eye.
“I can make it up to you with a clean stall and a carrot, though,” I said as I caught my gloves and the shovel that were right next to his stall.
He nudged me as if to say he wanted the carrot now, but I waited until I was completely done with his stall—he waited outside in the barn right under the heater until I was done. Only when I’d gotten the wheelbarrow out of his stall did he go back inside and stare at me impatiently.
“Give me a minute, damn,” I said as I walked to the fridge and came back with the biggest carrot in the bag.
He took it in one swift move, crunching on it twice before he swallowed it down.
I smiled as I closed the stall door and moved to Bennie’s stall next.
Bennie was a Palomino, according to the vet. Or, more specifically, a quarter horse that was palomino in color.
I didn’t know what he was, only that he looked tan and had a white tail.
“You’re next, buddy,” I said to him.
He didn’t look for Brawny like Shadow did, but he did nudge me and ask for lots of pets.
I gave him those pets and got to work on his stall while he waited patiently.
When I was done, he got an apple because he preferred them over the carrots.
Sinta, the black horse, stared as if she wanted to murder me the moment I got close to her.
According to the vet, she was a Friesian.
In my opinion, she was a fuckin’ bitch.
She was by far the meanest horse here, and I wasn’t sure why I kept her around.
However, I’d kept her anyway, even though she only let me close enough to her to brush her down if I stood with my arm completely extended and not a single inch closer.
She trotted out of her stall as the princess she felt she was and walked to the fridge.
I didn’t make her wait.
I gave her the apple.
Then I locked myself in her stall so she wouldn’t come up and bite me on the ass like I’d had the bad luck learning was a quirk of hers.
She charged back inside like a bat out of hell the moment I opened the door, and I slipped outside and locked her in.
My baby, however, was Bobber.
She was a brown quarter horse with white between her eyes, one white sock on her left leg, and the best personality I’d ever experienced in a horse.
I liked her a lot, and that was why I saved her for last.
Because I liked to spend a lot of time with her.
She nuzzled my face when I opened her door, and I took the time to love on her the way that I should.
She chewed lazily on the feed while I finished cleaning out her stall.
Then stayed with me, trailing after me like a large dog, while I got them all hay and feed.
When everything was ready for them for the night, I put her up with a carrot and closed the barn down.
The wind hit me like a slap in the face as I headed out of the barn.
I shoved my hand in my pocket and pulled out my phone, placing the call to my sister instead of Apollo.
“Hey there,” Dru answered on the second ring. “How’d it go?”
I told her all about the woman.
“You thought she would be large and in charge?” She giggled.
“She operates heavy machinery. I don’t know why I expected her to be like that, but I did. But she’s tiny. Delicate. She has some meat to her, but her height is severely lacking.”
Dru giggled again. “I’m glad that it went okay. Was she happy to have the dog back?”
I told her everything that happened, ending with what Mable had told me when I’d asked about how the dog went missing in the first place.
“What a bitch!” Dru snarled. “Babe, you’re definitely doing something about this.”
Apollo grunted in the background. “Already on it.”
We spent the next ten minutes talking while I headed inside and got everything closed down for the night.
I had an early morning, and I should’ve been in bed an hour ago.
However, I couldn’t regret the time I’d spent with the tiny little backhoe operator.
It just sucked that I’d probably never see her again.
Five
It’s called gross pay because it’s disgusting to see what you could’ve made.
—Mable’s secret thoughts
Mable
“Yo!”
I looked up to find Jim there, waving me down. He had one of my leftover chicken biscuits in his hand, and he was trying to hold his pants up as he ran toward me.
“What’s up?” I asked.
It’d been three full days since Brawny had come home, and I couldn’t be happier.