Page 53 of Quiver

The girl on the horse…Jannah, Janie? No, Jenny, sat a little straighter. “Am I doing it wrong?”

Kylie hadn’t even noticed her position. “You’re great. Maybe try with your hands out to your side.”

“Sure.” The teenager did as instructed, then pursed her lips together tightly, as if concentrating harder than the task should warrant.

“You feeling okay?”

She nodded. “I just, I’m curious, and my dad told me to mind my business.”

Kylie shook her head. “A woman with questions deserves answers. Don’t swallow yours.”

She smiled brightly. “What’s a movie star doing in a barn in Vermont?”

“Excellent question, and I wish I had a better answer to give, but the most truthful one I can offer is that I’m here for the same reason you are. I want to learn mounted archery.” It might not have been the whole story, but the simplicity of it pulled her back to the present. She wasn’t generally the type of person who lost focus when chasing down some goal she’d set, but between Ava and Fletcher and ghosts of the past, she’d lost sight of a few things today.

“Are you staying around here?”

“No,” she said quickly as she reached the end of the arena and turned Winston in a wide circle.

The teenager sighed. “There’s not much here, huh?”

She glanced across to Fletcher, and her heart squeezed as if wanting to argue that point, but she knew from experience if she waited long enough, the urge would pass. “Nothing for me anyway.”

“All right,” Fletcher called, “can I get all the groups back together again near the entrance to the arena?”

Kylie helped her rider dismount, and they joined all the others with Winston in tow, careful to stand away from Ava. Fletcher didn’t make eye contact with either of them as she stood in front of the class, holding Gabrielle’s reins tightly. “You all did a lot of work today. Raise your hand if you had fun.”

Every student did, and Fletcher flashed the first genuine smile Kylie had seen today. “Awesome. We’re going to have a great season, and don’t forget, we’ll have a big competition showcase at the end.”

“How’s it work?” a boy near the front asked. “Like a contest?”

“Kind of. We’ll have brackets by ability and experience. A lot of my former students will come back, but we’ll also do a sort of showcase where more experienced riders and archers, myself included, show you all the things you can build up to.”

Several of the students smiled, and Kylie couldn’t deny the excitement, nor was she immune to it. The prospect of watching Fletcher in her element carried extra incentive for her, both for her career aspirations and her personal enjoyment.

A boy in the front row raised his hand like he might in school, and Fletcher smiled down at him. “Yes?”

“Why’s there a cymbal on your ceiling?”

She glanced up to the metal disk hanging from the rafter. “It’s called a qabaq. Shooting the qabaq is a traditional Turkish game, or trick shot. It started with a gourd on a string atop a high pole, but now we use things that make a lot of noise. The goal is to get your horse up to a gallop and ride right under, then release the shot. Sometimes mounted archers use this shot as a competition, and other times we do it to show off.”

“Can you do it?” the boy asked.

“Sometimes,” Fletcher admitted. “It’s not easy, and it’s harder to do inside because I don’t have much space to pick up speed, but I’ll tell you a little secret. Sometimes when no one’s here, I get a running start from all the way back in the barn and then try to hit it.”

“No way,” one of the older teens murmured.

“It’s true,” Kylie said, and everyone turned to face her.

“Have you seen her do it?” Jenny asked.

She nodded, trying not to smile too much at the memory. “When she was about your age, she was already the best in the area. Her parents didn’t let her ride through the barn, but when they’d go out of town, she’d hoist the cymbal and try to break her own record.”

Kylie didn’t add how sexy she’d found that or mention all the times she’d sat to the side, breathless at the fierceness of her beauty, or the way Fletcher’s singular determination stirred things in her young body it would take years to fully articulate. Instead, she just said, “She’s always been impressive in her wheelhouse.”

Fletcher shifted from one foot to the other, jaw clenched and brow furrowed, giving every indication she didn’t enjoy this walk down memory lane as much as Kylie did. She finally cleared her throat. “Any other questions about what we did today?”

“No,” one of the adults said, “but with an endorsement like that, I kind of want to see you do the cymbal trick.”