The group of weanlings thundered across the paddock, their earthy hues clouded by the dust they kicked up when they ran. Two of the young horses broke off from the group, bucking and twisting, nipping at each other's shoulders and shuddering to a stop to engage in mock battle.
Ashleigh stood by the fence and watched with a smile on her lips. The chestnut, Wonder's Pride, pushed the slighter, but lively bay filly, who whipped around and sent a kick in his direction. Pride dodged artfully, allowing the filly a chance to sprint away before he took off in full pursuit. The two tore by the fence, the lighter filly keeping her lead and reentering the group of weanlings before Pride could overtake her.
The young horses were just what Ashleigh needed. They provided a familiar feeling of comfort in the rapidly changing scenery, and she found herself watching Pride and feeling less enthusiastic about his growing limbs and hopes, wishing he'd stay small. If she could have frozen time after he was born she would have. That April, before her parents decided to move, before she decided to purchase Fleet Goddess, before she confronted Mike about why he never quite believed in her, was a high point of her life.
Now it was September. The summer was ending. Mike was in New York with Jazzman, and they hadn't talked once in the course of the past week. Her parents were settling into their new home across town, cheerful and energetic with the prospect of setting up their new stables. Fleet Goddess had pulled a tendon in her last work, knocking her out of much of the autumn races. Ashleigh was left with little to do but watch Pride grow up, and half the time she wished he wouldn't.
How silly she was being. Ashleigh sighed, glancing up from the weanlings to the empty white house that could be seen through a screen of trees on the other side of the paddocks. A pang of homesickness hit her suddenly and uncomfortably, making her push from the fence and walk in the opposite direction of the house she'd called home. It wasn't her home; the farm wasn't her home. She hated change, she realized, but there wasn't much to be done about that.
Walking along the fence, down the grassy aisles she used to ride Wonder over when she was a wiry thirteen-year-old, Ashleigh managed to let herself dwell on Mike. They weren't broken up – not yet. After Goddess won her race he'd apologized to her during the celebration afterward, and while Ashleigh had accepted she didn't know if she was over it. Mike out of everyone should have known what the support of others meant to her. When Wonder had raced she would have gotten nowhere without Charlie, who'd stuck with her through every challenge presented to them. Mike casually didn't believe in getting your hopes too high. Now she was afraid he'd doubted her from the beginning.
She walked and thought, coming to conclusions and then backtracking. The grassy aisles became maintenance trails and then dwindled to narrow footpaths up to the stream that cut through the property. Ashleigh figured it was so dry the water in the swimming hole would only be a shallow pool of mud and rocks, but she was pleasantly surprised to see the waterfall still pattering quietly and the stream continuing a steady, if significantly smaller flow. The water level was well below where she normally liked to sit, so she climbed down to the stream bed, walking across the dry pebbles and smooth rocks to the water's edge.
It hadn't rained since a freak storm in the beginning of the month, but the water was still deep enough to swim in. Ashleigh studied it for a moment before deciding to take off her shoes and socks, dipping her toes into the cool water before deciding to hell with it and shucking off her jeans and yanking her shirt over her head. She dropped the clothes on one of the flat rocks behind her and stepped into the water, wading out to her waist and then slipping under the surface.
She hoped rather than expected that no one would happen across her. The temperature was in the high eighties, a day for the swimming hole if ever there was one, but the stream was barely moving and the Keeneland September sale had most of the grooms occupied. She swam in peace for several moments, treading water in the deepest section of the pool and floating with her face turned up to the sky.
Ashleigh hadn't been back to the stream for some time, avoiding it if at all possible. It was easy now, with her time so divided between home and the horses. Relaxing anywhere felt like an impossibility; spending time with outside of school or work just didn't happen anymore. So the swimming hole was out of her life, although it had been since she and Brad had tried to share it between themselves. She often wondered about that moment, wondered why thinking about it sent a shiver up her spine.
Sighing, she slipped under the surface. Don't think about it, she told herself. It was nothing. This is the last time you'll do this. Forget.
When she came up for air, she turned around to look down the nearly dry stream bed and felt a shriek climb up her throat before she could stop herself.
Standing next to her clothes, looking mildly amused if not extremely curious, was Brad. Of course it was Brad. Who else had nothing to do on the farm these days? She put a hand to her mouth, cutting off her shocked cry.
Brad looked down at her clothes, but seemed much more interested in watching her. The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. "Just couldn't help yourself?" he asked.
"Do you mind?" Ashleigh asked, ignoring his question. He chuckled.
"Come on, Ash," he said. "We managed to share nicely last time."
Ashleigh just gave him a look. Last time she hadn't been in her underwear, and last time he'd gotten into a fistfight that had left him with a black eye for a week afterward. He hadn't spoken to her since, as if the whole ordeal had been her fault.
"I'm not," she started to say before stuttered to a stop when he kicked off his sandals and started to pull off his shirt. She watched, mortified, as he tugged the t-shirt over his head and tossed it carelessly next to her things. Then he was in the water and under the surface, and Ashleigh was pretty sure she would die of humiliation right then and there.
He came to the surface nearby, shaking water from his eyes and raking his fingers through his wet hair. Ashleigh stared at him balefully. He was smiling.
"This isn't funny," she stated.
"I don't know about that," he said, looking over at her. She realized with some annoyance that he could reach the bottom. She shifted around until she felt a rock that she could perch on that left everything below her shoulders carefully submerged. For an extra measure of defense she crossed her arms over her chest.
"You don't have any friends that are going to come popping out of nowhere," Ashleigh assumed, and he shook his head.
"It's just you and me," he replied, his smile broadening.
"Stop it," Ashleigh demanded. "God, can't you just go back to college like normal people? Haven't you started yet?"
"Not until this Monday," Brad said. "No sense going to Chicago today, especially when I stumble onto something like this."
"You're not going to tell anyone about this," Ashleigh insisted, trying for persuasive and coming off as anything but. Of course he was going to tell people about this, although for the record he hadn't said much about how he'd gotten that black eye. She had to give him credit for that. This, however, was a completely different problem.
"Oh no?" he asked, moving through the water toward her. Ashleigh briefly considered scrambling off her rock, but there wasn't anywhere she could go. "The Ashleigh Griffen caught with her pants down. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Caught with them off. That's a pretty good story, if you ask me."
"It's not a story at all," Ashleigh told him.
"Yeah, you're right," Brad said, although his smile didn't dim. "It needs a punch line. Luckily I'm here to provide that."
"Right," Ashleigh scoffed. "What's this fantastic piece of fiction going to be about?"
"Don't know," Brad said, stopping a few feet from her. "We'll need to work on the true story first."
"How about this for true story?" Ashleigh asked. "You turn around, I get dressed, and I leave."
"Do you really trust me to comply with that?" Brad asked. Ashleigh sighed, supposing she really didn't know what she could trust Brad with. So she perched on her rock and kept her arms crossed, staring at him as they lapsed into silence.