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“Points for that,” she said. The teasing grin became a warm smile. “And watching you and Trey having so much fun would be worth a little dirt.”
“He’s the best,” he said with a smile. “I did a test run for the video this morning. I think it’ll work.”
“Like you planned, a continuous shot?”
He nodded, feeling a spark of the familiar excitement. “When I get it downloaded and set up, you want to come see what you think? You’ll have to picture what it will look like with the flowers, but it’ll give you an idea.”
“I’d love to,” she said, with an even wider smile.
He headed back to his lair. When he’d changed into dry clothes, he settled in to download the video he’d taken. He called it up and ran it on his biggest monitor; when Mom got here, he’d mirror it to the big screen on the far wall.
As he watched he occasionally made a time marker to note where he wanted to slightly adjust the course, but overall it was almost exactly what he wanted. And right now he was satisfied that the retractable landing gear had worked flawlessly, as had the remote control and the obstacle-avoidance system. With a video resolution of a little over 5K, he thought it was going to be amazing.
The only thing missing was the freaking flowers. And that was totally out of his control.
Some things only happen when they happen, son. You can’t force them or hurry them.
He and Dad had been talking about his impatience waiting for a mare to foal. The baby would be an offspring of his father’s beloved buckskin, Buckshot. She would later have a foal of her own, who would in turn have another, and finally result in the rangy, athletic colt even now out in one of the big corrals who was the spitting image of his great-grandsire down to the white blaze that ran crookedly over his nose.
He was sure Dad would have said the same thing about the blessed bluebonnets. They happen when they happen. In fact, now that the connection formed in his mind, he thought maybe he had heard him say it. It was hard for him to tell sometimes.
Sometimes memories got tangled up with wishes and he wasn’t certain which was which.
Chapter Thirteen
Ghost rounded the third barrel at what seemed like an impossible angle, then blasted out the other side and sprinted for the arena gate. It felt good, it felt fast. When her friend Jen let out a whoop from where she sat on the fence with a stopwatch, Britt knew she was right.
The grullo danced sideways the moment they were clear of the gate. The horse clearly knew, in that twisted little brain of hers, that she’d done well. She also knew the minute she was through that gate her work was done, at least for the moment. It was as if she could count and knew that Britt had said, “Just three runs today, girl. Just to keep in form.”
She wanted the horse fit, but also a bit pent up, so that when official competition began she’d be explosive. So, it was lots of riding the ranch for the exercise, but not a lot of time in the arena. Which made it harder on her, because the minute they were out of the arena, Ghost reverted to her tap-dancing, spooking-at-gnats self. Just as she did right now.
But Britt was ready for her. The only question was which way the mare would skitter. In this case it was to the right, toward Jen.
“Sixteen-seven,” Jen called. “Not bad for a practice run on a standard course.”
“And I wasn’t really pushing her,” Britt said happily as she reined Ghost in beside the fence.
“I could see that. She’s amazing, Britt.”
“I know.”
“Of course, she’s also bat-shit crazy,” Jen added with a grin.
“Yeah, well. There’s always a price.” Britt’s mouth quirked wryly.
Now that they’d taken the edge off, she and Jen had planned a ride around the ranch. Jen hadn’t been here in a while, and while she was here for the weekend, she’d told Britt she wanted to take advantage of the wide-open spaces she didn’t have at her smaller place out near Waco.
She waited while Jen saddled up Nugget. Once mounted, Jen looked over at her. “Need to ride fence?”
Britt grimaced. “No.”
Jen’s brows rose. “What was that look for?”
Because it was Jen and she never lied to her, she sighed and told her the sorry tale of the downed drone. And because it was Jen, she told it all. Jen burst out laughing before she’d even finished.
“So how is Ghost’s godfather?”
Britt grimaced again. Jen had coined the joking term long ago and insisted on continuing to use it. Britt saw the point, could even admit that in a certain sense it was true, but that didn’t mean she liked it.
