“You okay there?”
“Just peachy. You need something?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Maybe because you’re being right weird,” she said before she could think better of it. Geez, her mum was right; her mouth was going to get her in trouble.
“Funny, coming from the woman who freaked out because of a little PG-rated nudity.”
Ugh. How annoying. “Sure, freaking out. That’s what I did.”
“Didn’t you?”
“I remember it differently.”
“And how is that?”
“I remember that you were being rude and highly unprofessional, and I had to leave the situation.”
He frowned. Good. Too bad that didn’t make him look any less handsome. “Come on, it wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t it?” she shot right back.
“I—”
“Look, if you’re here to apologize, then do it. Otherwise, I have work to do.”
“Apologize? For being shirtless on my own property?”
She leveled him with a look. Sure, maybe she was being overly particular, but she was never the type of girl to fraternize with her employer. And while she didn’t mind him taking off his shirt for some heavy work, she didn’t like how he’d acted once he’d noticed that she was… kerfuffled.
When she didn’t answer beyond that, he huffed, actually huffed. “Whatever,” was all he said, echoing the ending of their last interaction, before turning on his heel and heading back out of the barn.
“Hey, you alright over there?”
Nova took a deep breath and looked to Silas, who had a keen sort of expression on his face. Oh right, he had seen all of that. How mortifying.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “I know how to handle a guy like him.”
“A guy like him?”
Uh-oh. Right, even if Silas seemed like a nice person, she needed to remember that he was Sal’s brother. He would be way more loyal to him than her. “Oh, you know. The macho, confident type who’s never experienced the real world.”
“Ah, yes. Then that would be Sal, alright.”
Whew, crisis averted. Maybe she shouldn’t have been paranoid considering the tension between the two, but one never knew with family. It could have been one of those cases where Silas was allowed to trash talk his brother, but an employee certainly wasn’t.
Much to her relief, Silas dropped it and went back to babying Amaranth. She finished up with Obelisk and moved on to the other horses. Apparently, Elizabeth had put several through their paces out in the ring, so they could use a dose of encouragement and maybe some extra brushing. Nova slid into the care, going through the mental checklist the vet had taught her. The minutes slipped by and, before she knew it, Silas was knocking at the side of the stall that she was in.
“Hey, it started raining so I closed the barn doors. Do you want a ride to your car?”
Nova blinked, looking up at the ceiling as if that would tell her what the weather was outside. A beat later, she realized she could hear the gentle pitter-patter of a soft rain.
“Nah, I still have a few more hours of work left.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” She sent him what she hoped was an amiable grin. “Besides, a little rain never killed anyone.”
“Tell that to Noah.”
“Um, I’m pretty sure that was a lot of rain.”
“Right. Thankfully this doesn’t seem to be ark levels. I’ll see you around, Nova.”
“See you around, boss.”
“Just call me Silas, please.”
Nova nodded. In all honesty, Silas came across as too casual for one of her bosses. Especially considering that he was the one that she saw the most.
The Miller son walked out, the sound of rain increasing as he opened the door to exit before being muffled again. Nova loved when it stormed and the smell of the earth after. It reminded her of home, of gray days spent curled up with a book in the attic, pressed up against the window as she tried to carve away her own little escape from her family.
A frown forced its way onto her features, as it often did whenever she thought of home. There were so many things she missed, fish and chips, good tea, the sense of community, but there were also so many things she didn’t. At all. Like everything about her past, there was a complex mix of positive and negative that couldn’t be separated from each other. She could remember the time her family had all traveled to the beach, laughing and splashing. But she could also remember her mother’s comment about Nova needing to stop wearing shorts because she was getting fat.
Fat. She was fifteen at the time and barely a size two. But she’d been a size double zero for so long, the change as she went through puberty was definitely noticeable. And while Nova had eventually learned that there was nothing wrong with being a little heavier built, when she’d been a teen that offhanded comment had been devastating.
There was the time where she had really worked extra hard to make the honor’s list in her junior year of high school, a difficult thing to do considering all the advanced classes she was taking for college credit. But when she presented her certificate to her parents, they just asked why she hadn’t always been getting such good grades since she was clearly capable.
…ugh.
She wished she could wash away all the bad, but it didn’t work like that. Maybe that was one of the reasons the pros and cons of rain felt so familiar. Sure, it was gray and cold, and everything got soaked, but also it was life-giving, cleansing, and soothing. Couldn’t have the good without the bad. The bad without the good.
Her pondering and helping the horses had time slipping by far faster than it had any right to, and the next thing she knew, her phone alarm was going off in the pocket of her overalls, signaling that it was time to stop for the day. Wow. Nova had never had a job where her eyes weren’t constantly glued to the clock, praying to make it to the end of her shift. But working for the Millers was amazing. Even if they had some weird, rich-people drama going on.
Finishing up, she headed outside. Making sure her phone was tucked deep into her pocket, she tilted her face up to catch some of the rain.
It was slightly warm, although it would cool quickly as it streaked down her face. But it was nice nonetheless, twisty memories and all.
Before she could get soaked, she headed back to her car, enjoying the stroll. Since working at the Millers, she’d found that she’d been able to slow down much more often. Sure, she still worked as hard as she could while on the clock, but she found herself arriving early so she could mosey to wherever she needed to be, and then taking her time leaving. It was so different than any job she’d had before, but she absolutely loved it. She couldn’t have been more grateful.
A sighing sort of laugh bubbled up from her mouth. When was the last time that she had been so happy? She couldn’t say. Lifting her arms, she spun around, tilting her wet face back up again.
“Thank you!” she called to the sky. Or maybe God. She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that there was a warmth in her that—
THUMP!
Nova’s vision spun and all the breath was driven from her body. Breathing jaggedly, it took her a moment to figure out that she was suddenly on her back in the mud.