He Sold My Mother's Farm, So I Got Engaged to His Best Friend novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Filly

At the Lexington sale, Hayes buys her mother's last foal for a record price in front of the pavilion, and Boone drags Lainey into an empty barn aisle, unaware that Hayes is watching.

"Why was it in your pocket?" I asked.

Hayes opened the box with his thumb.

Inside was an old diamond in a thin band of yellow gold, worn smooth on one side.

"I was taking it to a jeweler in Lexington on Monday," he said. "The prongs are loose."

"On the night of the supper."

"The jeweler's open Mondays, darlin'. Suppers are on Sundays."

He took my left hand without asking and slid the ring onto my finger.

It fit.

I looked at it for a long time after he went upstairs.

By ten the next morning, I was wearing it in the sale pavilion in Lexington.

The pavilion was a round room with a little dirt ring at the bottom and tiered seats all the way up.

Buyers sat with catalogs on their knees, and the auctioneer's chant never stopped.

Outside, the yearlings were walked in a circle under the trees before they went in.

Boone was selling hip number 212.

She was the Clover filly, my mother's old mare's last foal.

I had driven up from Auburn the night she was born and pulled her out with my own hands.

Kaylee was in the walking ring in a yellow sundress and my mother's pearls, talking to a cluster of buyers.

She saw me and raised her voice.

"That's the stepdaughter," she said. "The one marrying Hayes Ransdell."

The buyers looked over.

"Can't blame her," Kaylee said. "Vet school loans are no joke."

One of the men laughed and then looked sorry he had.

Kaylee walked right up to me, close enough that I could smell her perfume.

"Your mama's filly is going to buy me a house on the beach," she said. "I just wanted you to know."

"I hope you drown in it," I said.

"Ladies," Hayes said behind me.

He put his hand flat on the small of my back.

It stayed there, warm through my dress, and Kaylee's eyes followed it.

"Kaylee, you've got lipstick on your teeth," he said pleasantly.

She didn't, but she turned away to check.

Hayes steered me inside and up into the seats.

"You didn't have to do that," I said.

"Rule one," he said. "People are watching."

The filly came into the ring at a quarter past eleven.

She was a bay with my mother's mare's white blaze, and she walked like she owned the place.

My throat closed up.

The auctioneer started her at a hundred thousand.

The bids went up fast, a nod here, a raised finger there.

Three hundred thousand.

Five hundred.

A bloodstock agent near the rail kept lifting his pen without looking up.

Hayes lifted his catalog.

The spotter in the aisle shouted and pointed at him.

"Hayes," I whispered. "What are you doing?"

"Buying a horse," he said.

Seven hundred thousand.

The agent lifted his pen.

Nine hundred.

The room started to go quiet.

One million.

The agent hesitated.

Hayes lifted his catalog again without blinking.

"One million two hundred thousand," the auctioneer called. "Do I hear three? Three? Sold, to Mr. Ransdell."

The room burst into applause.

It was the highest price of the session.

Down by the ring, Boone stood with his hands on the rail, and he didn't clap.

Hayes signed the sale ticket on the clipboard when the runner brought it up.

Then he stood and handed it to me in front of the whole section.

"She's yours," he said. "Wedding present."

People around us cheered, and someone from the trade paper took our picture.

I held the ticket with both hands.

My mother's filly had my name on her.

I went down to the consignment barn to see her before they moved her to Hayes's van.

I was halfway down the back row of stalls when a hand closed on my arm.

Boone pulled me around the corner into an empty aisle.

It smelled like straw and liniment, and nobody was there.

"What the hell are you doing?" he said.

"Visiting my horse."

"You know what I mean."

"I'm getting married, Boone."

He took my jaw in his hand.

His palm was rough, and his thumb rested on my chin, holding my face up to his.

He had never touched me like that.

In four years, he'd hugged me twice, both times at funerals.

"You're making a fool of him," he said. "And of yourself."

"He's forty-seven," I said. "You're about to be fifty, and you're marrying a girl who's twenty-four."

"I know exactly how old I am."

His voice had gone low and rough.

His thumb moved, once, along the edge of my jaw.

I don't think he meant it to.

"Do you love him?" he said.

"Yes."

He looked at my mouth for a long moment.

Then he let go of me so fast I stumbled against the wall.

"You never could lie worth a damn," he said.

He walked out the far end of the aisle and didn't look back.

I stood there with my heart going hard and my face still hot where his hand had been.

Then I turned around.

Hayes was standing at the other end of the aisle with his hands in his pockets.

He had seen all of it.

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