October 16th 2020

Chapter 290
Their Work With Horses

For his final fall semester, Lucas didn't actually have a whole day without classes anywhere between Monday and Friday, which led to him now working at the bookstore all through Saturday and Sunday. He did have Monday afternoons free though, and so he would spend these at Sullivan Stables, with Juliet and Dr. Alvarez, and the rest of the team up at the ranch.

As close as he was to doing the job he'd long dreamed about, he knew he still had a few steps to cross before it was all said and done. But then seeing as these last steps would see him actually putting the things he had learned and would still be learning into practice, they hardly felt like steps at all. This past summer, with the work he'd put in to help the doctor, he'd gotten to make an actual plan for what the next few years would look like, and he was pretty excited about it all.

Every time he drove up to the ranch, every time he passed through that arched gate, he would feel like a part of him was coming home. This place had so many ties to his family. This was where he and Maya had been married, the place where his mother had learned to be a rider, the place his grandmother had built from the ground up. The sign over the main gates, the looped words carved into the arch, those were a replica of Marianne Sullivan's own handwriting. He hadn't realized it until he'd looked at the document she'd drawn up, the one where she'd stipulated he was to be hired on if he became a vet like he'd told her he would and if he still wanted it, naturally. He passed those gates, and he could see her smile, there in his mind's eye.

Being here now, more and more, it felt like the world was showing him how right he had been to choose this path. The idea that he would get to come here, to carry on his grandmother's legacy, not with her name perhaps but with her heart and her spirit… He had spent so much of his childhood here, and then after his grandmother had passed, it had just been so hard to return, to look around and not find her waiting. So, for many years, he had barely come around at all. It was the wedding that really got him to come back in earnest, to really loop himself back into the old feelings he had for the property. And then from there, oh… From there, everything had changed.

He thought of Maya every time he passed that big tree. They'd been married under the shade of those leaves, and it was like a ghost image of that day existed, whenever he saw the tree. He remembered exactly the feeling of seeing her walk out in that dress, the look on her face as she came up the aisle, as they stood facing one another… When he saw that tree, she was with him.

She was up at the school today, first day back. Right about now, she'd have to be in the middle of meeting her new freshmen, and that made him smile for another reason, thinking how he and Sam had just needed to tease her for how excited she got at the thought of being with her students again. It all came from a place of love, of course. Lucas could understand the excitement of returning to that place. It was where she became the thing she'd been meant to be… one of them at least. In his own way, Lucas went through the same feeling whenever he came here, to Sullivan Stables.

"Oh, you are a sight. Can I borrow you?"

Lucas turned from the tree to find the ranch's event coordinator coming his way, balanced on her cane. Donna Devereaux had been a dancer in her youth, a ballroom champion, the pride of Austin, born and raised. These days, and after several hip and knee surgeries, she would say she was happy just to be walking. She still had so much of that fire in her though, and she had a commanding nature to rival the likes of Melinda Friar. Naturally, she fit right in at Sullivan Stables.

"Uh, yeah, I just," he looked out toward the clinic, hoping to see the doctor, or anyone… Thankfully, he locked eyes with Elias, one of the assistants, and once he did he only had to point out Donna for the message to be clear. He'd been commandeered, and there was nothing to be done for it. Elias lifted up his hand and nodded, and they were good to go. "Lead the way," Lucas turned back to the woman and offered his arm.

"You are your grandmother's boy, you are," Donna smiled as she took the arm and started toward their intended destination. Lucas smiled, too. She and his grandmother had been school friends. Marianne had hired on her friend when they'd started doing events, in what Donna referred to as a 'shrewd business maneuver.' It was around the time when her dancing career had been brought to an end, having already lasted stubbornly too long. As much as his mother could be a great source of stories about her own mother, there was really nothing like hearing one of those stories from Donna's perspective. Lucas especially loved the stories that came before his mother's birth, when Marianne Sullivan had been a girl.

After assisting Donna with some boxes of supplies, Lucas had hurried back to find Dr. Alvarez. He knew the man enough to know that he would not have batted an eye for being called Manny, and Lucas would call him so, when they were off the clock. But he was here to work now, and so it was Dr. Alvarez he went to find.

"Hey, Doc around?" he asked when he walked into the clinic. Once again, Elias was his first contact.

"They had him come down to check on Trooper, told me to tell you to get out there when you arrived," Elias informed him.

That was all he needed to hear, and he was off to find the man and the horse. Trooper… He was one of their oldest, had been born here. More importantly, he was one of the very last horses left at Sullivan Stables who had been around in his grandmother's day. Much as he tried not to play favorites, it was hard not to look at them and remember how his grandmother would have looked after them, might have been present when they'd been born. She would often show up when a birth happened. He had ridden Trooper when he'd been little, old enough to be taken up on one of the horses.

But he was getting up in years now, and he likely didn't have more than one or two left in him. The fact that Manny was with him now had Lucas wondering if he'd have even that. Was this why he wanted him to meet him? To tell him Trooper was dying?

Lucas walked through the stables, finally reaching the stall where he'd find the doctor and the horse. Dr. Alvarez looked as though he'd finished doing whatever he'd come down here to do and was now simply spending time with the old horse, brushing him with his hand.

"Sorry I'm late, I got caught by Miss Devereaux on my way in," Lucas explained, and the man had a smirk like a laugh barely stalled.

"Haven't we all?" he joked, and Lucas was the one trying not to laugh now.

"How's he doing?" he asked, stepping forward. The horse looked to him, showed his familiarity for him and his appreciation. By now, Juliet would say he tolerated most people, but he only truly responded to a select few, and Lucas was absolutely one of those few. He liked to imagine the horse saw him and knew him for being Marianne Sullivan's kin.

"Oh, he's doing just fine, aren't you, Troop?" Dr. Alvarez smiled. The horse made a sound, possibly of agreement. "The kid calls me to check on him anytime he does anything to suggest his health is failing for old age. If you ask me, he does it on purpose, looking for some more acceptable attention," he went on, looking to Trooper like he might have been a small child in need of scolding but too adored to be given much more than a shake of the head.

"If he's fine, then why did you need me? I mean, I just thought…"

"I know what you thought," Dr. Alvarez assured him. "Listen, Juliet and I were talking, and much as we both hate to even have to consider it, we agree it's time to think about the next chapter in Trooper's life." Lucas didn't know what to make of that, certainly didn't feel comforted by the words, and Dr. Alvarez looked like he read as much in his face. He raised his hand in reassurance. "Like it or not, there's little more for him out here, and we could use the space," he gestured around the stall.

"What does that mean for him?" Lucas asked, turning to Trooper, reaching to touch his head. The horse showed he appreciated the contact.

"Well, now, we went over a few ideas, but you know, we loved your grandmother very much, and she loved him, too. That's how I came to this thought. Got in touch with a friend, asked if he might be able to house Trooper here for whatever time he had left in him, and he agreed, provided someone was able to look after him out there. It so happened I knew just the guy, already lends a hand up there from time to time. Plus, he lives just up the road, so it'd be real easy for him to look in on old Trooper here."

It didn't take long for Lucas to figure out what he was getting at, and his nerves released all at once. Doctor Alvarez and Juliet wanted to send Trooper to the Sanderson farm.

"What do you think? Sound good?" the doctor asked.

"Sound perfect," Lucas nodded, smiling. Soon, they made their way out of the stable and started back toward the clinic.

"So, started classes this morning, did you?"

"Yes, just the one so far," Lucas told him.

"I'll be glad when you're with us the way you were over the summer again," Doctor Alvarez declared. The way he spoke, Lucas could easily fill in the sentiment behind those words. The season had been hell for him, where the ranch was concerned, spending what little time he could out here while spending most of the rest looking after his wife, Esther. And then she'd started to recover, and with that the man had done some recovery of his own, back at his post in full swing. Donna would tease him and say he'd wound back the clock twenty years.

"So will I," Lucas promised.

He went back to look in on Trooper before heading home that day. Doctor Alvarez had explained that the transfer wouldn't happen for another couple weeks, giving the Sandersons time to prepare for his arrival. But Lucas would be involved every step of the way. Maybe for being married to a woman full of enterprising ideas, he looked at the horse and wondered if this arrangement might not be one they could repeat in the future, him and the Sandersons and the ranch. Whichever of their horses would next be coming to the end of their days, the 'legacy' ones especially, they could care for, up on the lane.

"It's going to be hard leaving this place," he told the old horse, who looked at him like he knew his days at Sullivan Stables were numbered. "Don't worry. You're staying in the family."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners