Natural Attraction (2 page)

I am also annoyed the trainer insisted I, as the owner, deliver
Maverick personally.

As well as that,
he expects that I, as the owner, will ride Maverick in front of him to demonstrate the issues I am experiencing.

What type of trainer is he?

Surely if he’s such a super star trainer he shouldn’t care if I ride Maverick today or more to the point, ever?  It really isn’t any of his business that I may have decided to never ride my horse again.  That I may have decided to have him retrained so I can sell him on.  That the only reason I need him retrained is so that I can sell him without the bad conscience that he could hurt someone else.

I think that
the trainer just needs to treat Maverick like an unbroken horse and get on with the job. I think that the trainer just needs to buck it out of him, or whatever it is that horse trainers do.

Hopefully I can convince th
e trainer that I don’t need to ride Maverick when we get there.  Hopefully he’ll take one look at my physical injuries and decide it’s not necessary.  Hopefully he won’t push me to reveal my terror at having to climb back on him.

It has been a long enough day getting here as it is.

It all started off badly when it took us three bags of carrots, over the course of two hours, to coax Maverick onto the float - the
first
time.  These first two hours were spent trying to convince him that the float did not in fact resemble the Devil’s own mouth.  They were spent convincing him that it was not going to instantaneously devour him if he entered it.  

The funny part was that when he
finally
decided that he had had enough carrots to tempt him onto the float, he did so without any urging from us. 

He did this after we tied him loosely to the back of the float and headed to the house for a drink.  It was while we were inside that we heard a bang, a thump and then another bang followed by the sound of hooves in the float. 

Looking out the window, we saw that he had untied himself and was standing happily in the float eating the hay net we had hung up inside for him. 

Really?
  Are all Arabians crazy?

When we got back, he was standing there munching hay looking relaxed and happy to be inside the float.  He then added insult to our injury by feigning to have no concerns with us tying him off, raising the tailgate or even starting the car.  It was only when Jen had moved my Land Cruiser forward about half an inch that he obviously took a severe disliking to something inside my horse float. 

This he communicated to us clearly by throwing the wobbly from hell.  This particular wobbly involved flinging himself all over the place, smashing the interior light off the roof of the float.  I think he did this with the top of his head.  He then landed upside down on the other side of the divider with his lead rope stretched so tight that we had to cut it to enable him to breath.

Jen and I had then
taken apart most of the float to ‘roll’ him out and then put him back on again.  Which to our astonishment, he did without hesitation. 

What the fuck?

I could only figure that he had worked out the fling and launch maneuver didn’t result in a comfortable traveling position.  He also worked out that he would just have to suck it up for the rest of the trip.

So now we
are running three hours late.  The hour-long drive has proven to be a nightmare.  This is because I have felt every single bump and dip in the road because of my two freshly broken ribs, my sprained right wrist
and
the shocking residual headache that I am experiencing.  The headache is from the concussion suffered during my monumental stack off Maverick three days ago. 

It sucks to be me.

“This has to be it.” I hear Jen announce as she slams the indicator on and takes her foot off the accelerator to start slowing us down. 

I look up and across to our right to see a beautifully presented entranceway to a gorgeous rural equine facility that is fully set up to cater to every equine need.  It has a beautiful set of double front gates that look to be handmade from wrought iron.  The gates are set well back into the driveway to allow vehicles to pull off the road before the gates open. 

The gates are hanging on a magnificent set of chunky post and rail timber gate wings that flank the driveway as they stretch towards the road.  The wings then angle out widely to allow large trucks and floats to turn into them so the vehicles are safely off the road before opening or closing the gates.  At the end of each angled wing sits a small, neat garden bed with shrubs and flowers creating a friendly and inviting entranceway to the property. 

The driveway itself is lined with beautiful old English trees and leads about two hundred meters or so up to a neatly presented, ranch style brick veneer home.  Behind the house I can see an enormous blue-
gray American barn and day yards with various horses camped in them.

The property looks to be about fifty acres in size, with lots and lots of double, single strand wire fences dividing individual paddocks.  The paddocks are bordered with bands of native flowering gums trees, alternated with thick shrubs to provide shelter belts to their inhabitants from all directions.  There are many horses scattered throughout the paddocks, grazing happily on thick, lush pastures.

This is not exactly the entranceway I was expecting to a property owned by a cowboy.  I suppose I was expecting rickety old barbed wire fences and a plain farm gate entrance.  I wasn’t expecting flowers.  Perhaps this particular cowboy has a neat freak wife, or some hired help to care for his property while he does cowboy stuff all day?

With property presentation being my first pleasant surprise, maybe I’ll be even more surprised and he will just be an old man who's only too happy to help sort my disaster of a horse out.  I can’t say I know anything about this guy other than Jen got his name off a friend.  She has been told that this old guy called Jack is into natural horsemanship (whatever the hell that means), and he is also into Arabian horses.  This in itself is a rarity as everyone I know is into those ugly assed, bucket headed Quarter Horse horses.   She has also heard that he sometimes helps others out in getting their horses going and solving issues such as bucking or bolting. 

“Wow.” I say to Jen as she swings into the driveway and pulls to a stop near the post with the button for the automatic gate opener.

“Wow alright,” she replies as she winds her window down and leans out to press the button that then starts the process of swinging the gates open in front of us.

“That’s cool,” I say lifting my eyebrows and bobbing my head towards her.  “I’ve got to get me one of those.  It would save me the hassle of getting out to open and shut the gate at my place all the time.”

“Shit yeah.” Jen approves.  “It would also mean that visitors wouldn’t have to get out and be accosted by your crowd of dogs until we were a bit closer to the house.  It would mean that visitors would have a fair chance to make a run for it and make it inside before being covered in an inch thick coat of yellow dog hair.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic.  I’ve only got three Golden Retrievers, not a crowd. I’ve also told you not to wear high heels and black dress pants to my house anyway.”

I scowl at her and then stick my tongue out to add emphasis to my statement.

Jen grins as she starts to move along the driveway.

“Oh don’t be in such a foul mood woman, I was only joking.  You know I love those dogs to death and I don’t give a shit about the dog hair.  I was just trying to get a rise out of you because I know you are cranky and here against your will.   It’ll be okay you know.  I have heard good reviews about this old guy and you do need to stop buying and selling all these hopeless case horses and just fix the one you have.  How are your ribs, wrist and head?
”

“Crap,
they are all crap.  I just can’t wait to dump this damned horse off and get the hell back home where I can lie on my bed and watch another episode of Sons of Anarchy.  Jax is calling to me you know? Is there any chance you can just get Maverick off on your own and plead my case as injured?  That way I don’t even have to get out of the car.” I beg unashamedly.

Jen sighs and nods.  “I can try.  Only because I love you and I
am aware that you are in real pain.  I am also aware that you are in need of some SOA Jax loving to get those good healing endorphins running.  It’ll probably be quicker anyway. No doubt if you start talking to this guy about Arabians we’ll be here for hours anyway. Just keep in mind that he was insistent you were going to have to ride Maverick for him today. I hope he can just talk to you through the car window to see your poor broken self, and then be lenient and let us be on our way.”

We drive the rest of the way along the driveway in silence until we have passed the house and roll to a stop in front of the day yards.   We both take the time to look around for a few seconds before Jen breaks the silence by announcing the obvious. 

“I don’t see him anywhere.”

“Ah huh.”

“He said he’d be near the yards.”

“Ah huh.”

“Admittedly, we should have been here three hours ago, so perhaps he got sick of waiting and went somewhere.” Jen says with a worried tone in her voice.

I think about what she is saying for a few brief seconds and feel a huge grin forming on my face. 

“Perfect!  If he’s not here, you can just dump Maverick in the nearest empty yard and we’ll ring Jack later to let him know what we’ve done.  This way I don’t even have to try to talk my way out of riding him and we won’t have to stay long.  The bonus will be that I get back to my bed, Sons of Anarchy, and my gorgeous Jax even quicker than I first planned.”

“Ooh, I like your evil thinking woman.  Let’s get this over with!” She chirps with glee as she grabs her door handle and launches from the car enthusiastically.

I watch in the rearview mirror as , like a woman now possessed, she tears around to the back of the float to drop the tailgate.  I hear the tailgate thud to the ground and then I hear her yell at Maverick as he throws another minor wobbly.  She then disappears into the float to untie him. 

A few seconds later, with much banging and crashing, he comes roaring off the float backwards dragging Jen with him.  It is only when he finds himself about five meters behind the float that he finally decides he is safely off the float.  Having decided this, he skids to a stop and starts staring anxiously at his surrounds.

At this point Jen starts looking rather pleased with herself.  Clearly it is pleasing to have survived the ordeal of getting him off the float.  I feel myself letting a long slow breath out between my lips.  A breath which I have only just realized I have been holding.

“
Phew!”
I mumble to myself, “That’s the worst part over. I hope when we have to pick him up again he’ll be a whole new horse.  One who calmly loads and unloads on the float so I can save myself these oxygen deprivation moments.”

I then see Jen scan her surroundings quickly.  She instantly hones her eyes in on an empty yard close by.  Giving Maverick a hefty tug on his lead rope to signal that he should follow, she strides off towards the yards. 

It is at this precise moment that I catch a flash of something in front of the car.  I flick my eyes back up from the mirror and get a brief glimpse of a black Nickelback t-shirt.  A Nickelback t-shirt that stretches across a lean, broad, set of shoulders.  These shoulders belong to a tall, roughly six foot, three inches man with muscle bound, tanned arms.  At a guess I would say he is about thirty-five and he is heading straight towards Jen mumbling, “Fucking.  Typical.”

Shit. 

Obviously we have been busted on our little fast track plan by the old cowboy’s hired help.  This is going to delay my plans with Jax and my bed.

Damn.

Oh well, worse things could happen as the hired help is at least Eye Candy.  If we have to experience a delay, at least the view is nice.

I move my attention to the driver side,
rearview mirror to watch the entertainment unfold.

I can now see that Mr Eye Candy has made it all the way over to Jen.  Je
n is now leading Maverick into the yard she scoped out earlier. 

Being inside the car and being about fifty metres away from all the action, I can’t actually hear any of the conversation that they are now having.  I do however sense the gist of it with Jen pointing at Maverick, then pointing back at the car at me, and then pointing at her watch.  I then see Mr Eye Candy nod once as he holds out his hand to shake Jen’s.

It is at this point that I get a little distracted at the sight of Mr Eye Candy’s back rippling against his shirt while he holds his hand out.  I also start wishing that I was uninjured and that it was me who had taken Maverick off the float. 

I then see what can only be described as a ‘cat who found the cream’ smile spread widely across Jen’s face as she asks
Mr.Eye Candy a question.  She then starts laughing, loudly, as her eyes swing to me and the car.

Um – what is that
look for?

What the hell could this guy have said that has sent Jen straight into fits of hysterical laughter and has made her look over towards me now?