Jace stood straight and stared at me. He hummed, looking me up and down.“Since Olivia discovered you weren’t batting for her team, I bet she’s been chewing your ear off about the business. Hasn’t she?”
“She came by the stables a couple times asking about the stables, expansions, and stuff,” I admitted. “But I’m not saying what anyone should do, I just wondered, that’s all.”
“You’re lucky you’re my favorite person, and you’d always take my side, otherwise, I might’ve thought you were switching up on me.”
I leaned into him with my hand around his back, I pulled him in for a kiss. “I would never switch up on you baby.” I planted a smooch on his cheek as he turned before I could reach his mouth. “I like you too much.”
He giggled and turned to kiss me on the mouth. “I like you too.”
“Good,” I whispered in his ear, scratching the stubble scruff on my chin up the side of his face.
Martha appeared in the doorway of the stable. “Ooh, didn’t mean to sneak up.”
“It’s fine,” Jace said, patting a hand on my chest. “We’re supposed to finish collecting these eggs.”
“We are,” I said.
“I was just coming by because—”
“We’re behind schedule,” Jace finished for her. “I know, I know. And it’s my fault.”
“Might be my fault too,” I added. “I had a lot of questions about eating chickens.”
She chuckled. “Oh no, we don’t have broilers here,” she said. “There’s a big commercial one a little further upstate. Plus, I don’t think—”
“Jace could handle it,” I finished this time. “I see how attached he gets to the animals.”
He blushed, looking away from his mom to me, biting on his lip as he continued to turn red in the face.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” she said, leaving us with a trail of chuckles.
The chickens around us clucked, becoming impatient with us to finish gathering their eggs and then the reward of feeding them as I was sure they saw it. The rest of the morning was just as chaotic, and Jace was just as adorable.
25. JACE
The horses were still not my favorite animals to be around, but I’d committed to learning to ride them, and I was actually not that bad at it. Over the afternoon, we took the horses out to one of the larger fields. I rode on the back of Bramble and Lorenzo rode on Ashwind whose temperament he was trying to tame. He was nowhere near as bad as Coal though. Coal and Mary trotted alongside us, although Coal like to be ahead when possible acting like he was leading.
Lorenzo had packed a basket which he rode with on Ashwind. He wouldn’t tell me what was in it, or why he was bringing it along for the ride, especially since we weren’t going to be riding for too long.
We reached the edge of the land that bordered the thick of trees. It was where the family land ended and one of the maple tree farms started. We had our fair share of maple trees on the land, but they were rarely tapped. I never learned the skill, and my father wasn’t getting around much because of his back.
Lorenzo got off his horse and pulled the basket down with him. “Come on,” he said with a gesture of his head.
“What?” I asked. “We’re supposed to go back. That’s what we’ve done all the other times.”
He laughed. “Not this time, babe, I brought snacks.” He lifted the basket and gave it a shake. “But you’ve got to come down to see what’s inside.”
Part of me wanted to refuse and be a little brat about it, but I wanted to see what was in that basket, and I wanted to give my ass a little rest. Nobody told you how much your ass would ache when you were slamming around on the saddle—and my ass had been slammed around quite a bit, but I still wasn’t used to it.
In some not-so glamourous technique, I swung my leg over the side and climbed off Bramble. She let out a little whine, almost like she was relieved I was off her. “Ok, now,” I grumbled. “I’m not that heavy.”
“Come on, over here, let’s sit down,” he said, waving me over to a spot a little away from the horses.
“Aren’t they going to run off?” I asked, kicking my way through the grass to the small area of dirt by the trees.
“No, they trust us, they know they get taken care of, they’re not in any danger, they’ve got no reason to run and they know that,” he said, opening the basket for a brief moment and yanking a rainbow blanket from inside. “See, they’re just eating grass and probably gossiping.”
As Lorenzo laid the blanket down, I continued to stare at the four horses. They were all so well behaved, it was a stark difference to the way the three of them had turned up. Lorenzo tugged on my arm as he sat on the blanket.
