Nova (27 page)

“You’ve got quite the fan gathering,” I heard a voice say. Ben
was entering
the barn and held
his
hand
s
out to the dogs as they greeted him.

“It feels like I’ve been gone for longer than a week,” I admitted.

He slightly nodded as he looked at me. “Yeah, it kind of feels that way.” He moved to the horse and gave him a pat against the side of his face. “This guy here has really missed you, too,” he said. “I think he’s been driving everyone nuts.”

With a smile I asked, “What do you mean?”

“He never shuts up.
My dad even tried moving him to a different part of the stables to socialize him
,
but it didn’t help. He’s a big mouth.”

“Are you driving everyone crazy?” I asked Born To Be Wild. “You’d better behave or you might get shipped back to Mountain Trails with crotchety ol’ Greg Jacobs.”

“Greg was actually here the other day.”

“Oh?” I asked with raised eyebrows.

“He wanted the horse back.”

“
What
?
”

“Don’t worry, Dave sent him packing.”

“He signed a contract,” I said angrily. “What makes him think he can just march in here and demand his horse back?”

“He offered to pay the medical bills
and boarding
in exchange for the horse.”

I scoffed. “Nice try, but Jack would never allow it.”

“No, he didn’t. He made it clear that the owner wasn’t giving him up.”

I gave him a curious look. “The- the what? What owner?”

Ben chuckled and said, “You.” When I didn’t respond he added, “Jack says he’s your horse.”

I took a moment to think that over, and then I smiled. “Really?”

Ben nodded. “Around here his name is ‘Nova’s
Loud Mouth
Horse.’ ”

I laughed, quickly getting used to the idea. “I’ve never had a pet before.”

“Never?”

“Nope.”

He rubbed the horse again and said, “So you’re starting small, eh?”

I smiled and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

I found a couple of treats for my horse and fed them to him. Ben remained quiet, leaning against the stall door. I kind of felt like there was something he wanted to talk about, but maybe he just wanted to chat in general. I decided to ask, “So what have you been up to lately?”

He barely shrugged and said, “Not much, really. Just been helping around the ranch and stuff.”

“So are you employed here again?”

“Uh, no.
They wouldn’t hire me here. And I wouldn’t expect them to.”

“So you just ‘help out’?”

“Well, more of a trade for staying here I guess.”

I nodded. “What did you do in North Dakota?”

“For a job? Uh, well…a few things I guess. Ran an outdoors store with a couple of
guys
… Did guided tours and stuff for, like, hiking and mountain biking. Took groups rock climbing and snowboarding. Stuff like that.”

“Ah, adventure sports.”

“Yep,” he smiled.

“So you’re another adrenaline junkie, huh?”

He studied me for a few seconds and then replied, “Yeah, me and Austin did all kinds of stuff like that together.
That and the cars
.”

I looked at him curiously
.
“What do you mean?”

“Uh, the racing. We raced together. I thought you knew that.”

“Um, no, t
hat was something I wasn’t aware of.
”

“
Oh
. Actually I was the one that got him started on it.”

“Really,” I stated blandly. “So I have you to thank for how much I hate it?”

“You hate that he races? Why?” I gave him a
look
and he smiled. “Too dangerous for you?”

“It
is
dangerous.”

“Mm, I suppose. But if he didn’t race, he’d be doing something else that’s dangerous, just for kicks. It’s in his nature.”

I did agree with that but I didn’t say so out loud. Even
Marlo
had stories to share about how bold and daring Austin was as a kid.

“So how’d you guys get involved in racing?” I asked.

Ben paused for several seconds and then finally said, “Uh, illegally, I guess.
I take it Austin wasn’t too quick to share that with you?
”

I raised my eyebrows at him.
“What do you mean ‘illegally.’ ”

“Uh, street racing?
I pulled him into it, and even though he liked the racing aspect of it, he had more of a conscience than I did. We made a good chunk of money from it,
though
.”

“So Austin decided to stop street racing, and you guys had a falling out?”

He was quiet again as he seemed to think about his response. Eventually he said, “I bet against him and he was supposed to lose a race, but he didn’t. His competitive side took over and he wasn’t willing to pull me out of another mess I got myself into. I owed some people a
lot of money
, and Austin
was tired of always having to win me out of my debt. I don’t blame him for that anymore, but at the time I just kept screwing up and couldn’t seem to get myself together. I was addicted to gambling that way, always betting on some sort of race. If I didn’t do
the race
myself, Austin was a sure win for me.”

“So because he wouldn’t lose
that one race
, and you lost money, you guys weren’t friends anymore?”

He sighed. “I just needed help, but I didn’t know what to do. Austin came from a financially successful family, I shoveled manure for a living. I just wanted a different life. After my sister died, I just wanted out of here. Everything here reminded me of her, and it just…it just hurt to be around it all. I made some really bad mistakes, even taking money from his family. It’s not something I’m proud to admit, but I had people I owed money to.”

“Well if that’s what you’ve been avoiding all these years, then just come clean about—”

“I already have.”

I was surprised to hear that, assuming that that’s what he’d been afraid to face.

He sighed and said, “Before I left this place, I told Dave what I had done, said that I just needed to leave town for a while, but promised him that I’d pay him back someday.”

“And have you?”

“Yes.”

“Everything?”

He shrugged. “What I’m pretty sure I owed him.”

“And what about Austin?”

“What about him?”

“The only thing that tore you guys apart was the racing thing? Did he know
you’d been stealing from his family?”

“
I’m not sure
. I
thought
he
would
figure
it out after
a while—my guilty conscience I guess—but
especially when I would magically produce the money I owed people. But
he
never actually
said anything
about it, so I’m not sure if his dad told him or not.”

“He somehow knows about it now.”

He barely nodded.

“And about the meds in Jack’s office.”

His face darkened. “I wasn’t into drugs,” he seemed to clarify. “But I did sell them to people, which I know isn’t any better. Mainly I traded the Ace as payment for what I owed a couple of the guys.”

“You sold horse tranquilizers on the street?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I know, pretty bad.”

“Yeah, that’s…”

I could tell judging him wasn’t what he needed at that moment, so I chose not to continue with my thoughts. I was actually more curious about his relationship with Austin because I still didn’t understand it fully.

“I’d really like to know why you think Austin gave up on you. I mean…obviously you see how you guys drifted apart, right? Why are you so angry about that when you were the one at fault?”

“I open up to you and take accountability for my end of it, and it’s automatically all my fault?”

I shrugged. “Then set me straight. What am I missing? Y
ou were the one that got into debt, but y
ou feel that Austin let you down because…?”

“Because
all he had to do was race one last race to win my car back, and he wouldn’t do it. I just wanted my car back
to
be done with it all.”

“So maybe he didn’t believe you were actually serious. Maybe you’d fed him that line before, and maybe he didn’t want to get burned by you another time.”

His face darkened again and I could tell I’d struck a nerve. “So are we back to the shrink thing, or is this information that you actually know?”

“I really don’t know anything about the two of you because Austin won’t talk about it. I know he’s mentioned that you and him have done some crazy things in the past, but mainly he just says that he can’t trust you anymore.”

“
Hmph
, likewise.”

“Why don’t you just try talking to him sometime?”

“Oh, that’s a great idea,” he smiled sarcastically. “Is he home? I’ll just, you know, go hit him up with conversation real quick,” he said, pretending like he was heading over to the house. He scoffed and shook his head. “You really think Austin would give me the time of day? Don’t
be naïve. He’s not
gonna
want to mingle with someone
with
my reputation
and I don’t blame him
. He’s in the racing circuit, where he wants to be. He won’t take a risk on me again, and I don’t expect him to. The only thing I wish is for him to not treat me like I’m still that same guy…”

He might have continued, but he stopped when Dave appeared from the direction of the arena and seemed to look us over just slightly. However, he only made mention of Born To Be Wild and how well he was healing, and then gave me the news that I should take ownership of the horse.

“I would love that,” I replied. “Thank you so much.”

“It was actually Jack’s idea. He’s got the horse’s papers for you in his office whenever you want to grab them.”

I was really excited about it and expressed my gratitude again.
After discussing a few more details, Dave turned to Ben and said, “I’ve got two horses to load
if you can give me a hand.”

“Sure,” Ben replied. Dave left for the stalls, so Ben turned to me and said, “Well, uh, I guess I’ll see you one of these days, huh?”

“Weekends.”

“Every weekend?”

“Yep, except for Austin’s last two race
s
.”

He slightly nodded, paused for a few seconds, and then said, “Well, see you around,” as he walked away.

Chapter Fourteen

I spent a little more time in the barn before I returned to the main house. I thought for sure Austin was done with the phone calls he needed to make, but he was still on the phone when I found him in the office. I was going to leave him alone until he was done, but he got up from the desk and motioned for me to join him on the couch. I listened to him finish up arrangements to test drive some car, and then he hung up.

“How’s my beautiful girl doing?” he smiled. “You get your fill of all your little barnyard friends?”

“No, not really,” I pouted, laying my head against him.

“You didn’t? You mean we should hold you hostage here and tell your school you’re not coming back?”

“You would do that?” I asked eagerly.

He laughed and said, “Sure, if that’s what you want.”

We were both quiet for a few seconds until he moved us apart so he could look at me.

“Nova, what’s going on? Is that really it? You don’t want to be at school? I mean I sensed that you were a little disheartened about leaving and stuff, and you even said you were bummed out, but I thought you
wanted
to be at school.”

“I do, I just…” I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I’m not sure how I feel.”

He slightly nodded. “That’s reasonable. You love working here so it’s hard to leave and go back to school, right?”

“Not only that, but I just…I feel so misplaced right now,” I finally said. “I feel like I know what I should do, but it’s just
hard because I don’t want it to be that way.”

“What way?”

“I know I should finish school, but I guess the more appealing choice would be to keep working here instead.”

I could tell he was surprised to finally hear me say that. All along I’d been saying I wasn’t going to give up
my education
. But there was also something I wanted to hear
him
say, and if he did, it could very well change everything for me.