After Being Kicked Out, I Became the Queen My Family Can't Reach novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Horse Nobody Rides

Nine years on, Calla rides the stallion that has thrown four riders and wins a Cup entry under a false name from the neighbor who owns him.

The stallion had thrown four riders that season, and the fifth was standing at the paddock fence with her boots on the wrong rail.

Me.

I was twenty-eight and nine years gone.

I had driven nineteen hours in a truck with no air conditioning to stand in front of a man I had never met.

Keller Run sat on the east side of the same ridge as Redmond Hill.

You could see the white fence of my father's farm from its top pasture, if you knew where to look.

I knew where to look.

I did not look.

"You're the rider from the Saratoga barn," the man said.

"The one with the letter."

He was leaning against the paddock gate with a coffee mug.

His grin said he had already decided how this was going to go.

He was tall and dark blond, with his sleeves rolled and a sunburn across his nose.

He looked about thirty-three, and he looked like trouble in a way I didn't have time for.

"Jude Keller," he said.

"Rae Linden," I said.

The name came out smooth.

I had practiced it in the truck for six hundred miles.

Rae was my middle name, and Linden was my grandmother's.

Nobody on that farm had ever heard either one.

"That letter says you can ride anything," Jude said.

"That letter was written by my boss, who likes me."

"Is it true?"

"Mostly."

He laughed, a short surprised sound, and tipped his head toward the paddock.

"That's Corsair."

A black stallion was walking a tight, furious circle at the far end, ears flat, tail snapping.

He was beautiful.

He was also trying to climb the fence.

"He's six," Jude said.

"He's the fastest horse I've ever owned, and he's put four jockeys in the hospital since June."

"My last rider broke his collarbone on Friday, and the Redmond Gold Cup is Saturday week."

My stomach did one slow turn at the name, and I held my face still.

"I'll ride him," I said.

"In the Cup."

"Do you know what the Cup is?"

"Yes."

"Do you know whose track it's on?"

"I know."

He studied me for a moment longer than was polite.

Then he opened the gate.

"Saddle's in the barn," he said.

"I'll get my helmet."

"You won't need a saddle."

I'd already stepped through.

Corsair stopped circling.

I stopped walking, because you don't walk straight at a horse.

I stood still in the dust and let him look at me.

My mother had taught me this.

You don't reach.

You don't talk.

You wait until he decides you're less interesting than the grass.

He snorted, took three steps, and swung his head away.

I breathed out and hummed three notes under my breath.

Low, then lower, then up.

I had hummed that tune since before I could read.

My mother hummed it over every foal she ever gentled.

It meant nothing in words, and the horses had always understood it.

Corsair's ears came forward.

I took one step.

He took one back.

I hummed again, and he stood.

I laid my hand flat on his neck, under the mane, where the sweat was coldest.

Behind me, I heard Jude put his coffee down on the fence post.

"Huh," he said.

"Hold that thought," I said.

"Don't move and don't talk."

I took a handful of mane and went up in one move.

Corsair exploded.

I'd expected it.

He bucked twice, spun, and ran straight at the fence.

I leaned back and gave him my weight.

I hummed the whole tune through while he fought it.

Somewhere in the second lap, he stopped fighting.

By the fourth, he was running because he wanted to, long and low and wild.

I let him open up along the far rail.

The wind took my hair, which was short now and dark, and nothing like the long brown braid I'd had at nineteen.

For one minute I forgot where I was.

Then I brought him round, and walked him in, and slid down in front of the man at the gate.

Jude Keller had his mouth slightly open.

Two grooms behind him had stopped with their rakes in the air.

"Nobody does that," one of them said.

"Mostly," I said.

Jude looked at me.

He looked at the stallion, who was nosing my sleeve.

"Half the purse," he said.

"Three quarters," I said.

"Half, and you ride for me in the Cup."

"And you eat at my table all week, because I want to see how you do that."

"Deal."

He held out a hand, and I shook it.

It was warm and rough, and he kept hold of mine a beat longer than the deal needed.

"One problem," he said.

"Every rider in the Cup needs a card signed by the host.

"The Redmond office handles them."

"Renata Redmond signs every one herself."

"She likes to meet the people on her track."

The ring on her finger.

The emerald, turning under the lamp.

I kept my face perfectly still.

"Have you ever met her?" Jude asked.

"Never," I said.

Then I took the pen from his shirt pocket and wrote Rae Linden on the card, in my best clean hand.

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