The Girl with the Broken Heart

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “Good to know.” Kenzie tamped down her temper, reminded herself that Austin Boyd had done nothing except show up, and from the start she’d been rude to him. Why? Because he’d briefly reminded her of somebody she loathed? Because he didn’t know about soring? Austin came from Virginia, so the Tennessee walking horse breed was likely foreign to him.

  She ticked off the daily feeding schedule for the underweight mares, gave him a list of daily and weekly chores she wanted to accomplish, and ended with her goal to have all three ready for adoption before she returned to college in late August.

  Austin listened intently, his gaze never leaving her face. “And Blue? Why doesn’t he like men in particular?”

  “Because he’s been sored.” Austin gave a shrug, and it irritated her all over again. “He’s been trained to perform the Big Lick. Among other Big Lick abuses, Blue’s forelegs have been smeared with caustic chemicals, then wrapped in plastic to ‘cook’ into his flesh, and he’s been left with very painful acid burns. Even from this distance, you can see the places where his hair is permanently gone on the front of his forelegs.”

  Austin stared at the big horse, saw the gaps in hair growth and patches of scarred skin. Kenzie said, “Go online, watch a few videos about soring. They’re eye-opening. Eventually, we’ll put him in there for retraining.” Kenzie pointed toward the small round pen behind them. “That’s where the real work begins. But fair warning: Be careful. He could hurt you.”

  “I’ll watch my step.”

  She thought she heard a double meaning in his comment, that he’d be careful around her too. “Let’s get the hay into the pasture.” She pushed off from the fence, headed toward the stable.

  Austin fell into step beside her. “At least Blue seems to have fared better than the mares in the nutrition department.”

  “It’s Blue’s spirit that’s wounded,” Kenzie said. “No amount of nutrition can fix that.”

  At 6:45 the next morning, Kenzie was dressed and pulling on her boots when her doorbell rang. Who in the world…? With one boot on, she hobbled to her front door and peered through the peephole. She was surprised to see Austin under the porch light. He grinned when he caught her eyeing him and held up two bags from a fast-food place. She sighed, but remembering how she’d behaved toward him the day before, she opened the door.

  “Morning!” he said. “I brought breakfast.”

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  “And I wanted to apologize for getting off on the wrong foot with you yesterday.” He glanced down at her feet. “I’d like a reboot.”

  She shook her head, smothered a smile. “That was an awful pun.”

  He waggled his eyebrows, shook the bags. “Please? We might have to nuke ’em to warm them up. A long ride from the drive-through window in town.”

  She realized that he had to have gotten up very early for the twenty-five-minute drive into Windemere to buy the food and another twenty-five back. She opened the door wider and stepped aside. “Come on in. I’ll make us coffee.”

  “Nice place,” he said, following her into the kitchen, where she turned on a light and got busy. Minutes later the aroma of hot coffee saturated the air, plates were set on the café-style table, and the packages and cartons of breakfast were unpacked and warmed. “I didn’t know what you might like, so I went with high protein. Biscuit, egg, cheese, and a sausage patty. I bought a double serving of hash browns if you want to share.”

  She didn’t admit that his choices were exactly what she’d have bought for herself. “Sounds fine.”

  Minutes later they sat eating and sipping black coffee at the café table, where their knees kept touching. Kenzie pushed her chair farther away. “Why go to all this trouble? We’re supposed to meet at seven in the stable. We could have talked then.”

  Austin popped a hash-brown nugget in his mouth. “I just thought it would be nice if we got better acquainted over coffee and food…you know, get to know a little bit more about each other without any work distractions.”

  His request wasn’t unreasonable, and she was hungry. “All right…you go first.” Kenzie took a bite of her biscuit.

  He leaned back in his chair. “Okay. I was born on a cold winter day—”

  “Not that far back.”

  An infectious grin crinkled the corners of his eyes, green in the overhead kitchen lighting. “I grew up in Virginia. I have a brother fifteen years older than me and a sister twelve years older. Let’s just say I was my parents’ twentieth-wedding-anniversary surprise. When I was six, my brother was graduating from college and my sister left for college. When I was ten, my folks grew tired of city life and bought a place out in the country, where I finished growing up. When I was eleven, Dad bought me a horse. I named him Braveheart.”

  Austin’s fondness for his family showed on his face, and Kenzie felt memories of her childhood tug at her heart. “Sounds like royalty.”

  “Nah, I named him after my dad’s favorite movie,” he said with a chuckle. “Actually, my Braveheart was a…who knows? A mysterious blend of horse DNA—a pinto, brown and white, who listened patiently to all my complaints and rants about teachers and girls while I was growing up. I rode him at county fairs in barrel-racing competitions through my senior year of high school. I would have pinned a corsage to his saddle and taken him to the prom if I could have.”

  His description of his childhood seemed idyllic, as had been her early years. She wandered inside her more pleasant childhood memories, until she realized Austin had stopped talking. She quickly glanced over and saw an amused smile on his face. “I didn’t mean to put you to sleep. But to tell the truth, my life was pretty boring.”

  She offered an embarrassed smile, noticed daylight filtering through the blinds in the living room. “Thanks for breakfast, but we’d better get moving. Those horses need to eat too.” She attempted to shove her chair farther back, but he hooked the toe of his work boot around the chair’s leg first.

  “You were right to call me out yesterday. I wasn’t as prepared for this job as I should have been. Jon hired me on the word of a mutual friend who insisted I was qualified to do the job. And I am, but that’s no excuse for me not to be better informed. I took your suggestion, went online and saw some pretty ugly undercover videos about soring. I also researched the Tennessee walker and horse rescue work. I read about how people like you are making a difference in the lives of these horses. I’m happy to be part of your team.”

  “The videos are graphic, and most of the horses I’ve worked with have been neglected, which is abuse, but different from soring. I know training methods to undo some of that kind of harm, but it takes time and patience.”

  “Elevated shoe stacks nailed improperly to a horse’s hooves, heavy bands and ball chains wrapped around the tops of hooves, and the chemicals. Yeah, I saw all that in the videos. Inhumane, cruel.” Austin rested his elbow on the chair’s back. “Kenzie, I want this job, but if you want me gone, let’s tell Jon today. I shouldn’t hang around if you don’t think we’ll be able to work together. Horses are intuitive. They’ll be able to pick up on tension between us, and that’s not a good thing.”

  He caught her completely by surprise. Was that how she’d come across to him yesterday? As someone unable to work with him? Perhaps he needed the job! Who was she to reject him based on an ill-conceived first impression?

  “No.” She shook her head for emphasis. “I don’t want you to leave. Truly, there’s no reason we can’t work together. I apologize for the way I acted yesterday….Don’t know what got into me.” She smiled contritely. “We’ll start over today, okay? A reboot?” She held up her sock-covered foot.

  “Fair enough,” he said, breaking open a heart-melting grin.

  As she put on her boots, he poured himself another cup of coffee. “And while we walk, you can tell me your story.”

  “My story’s pr
etty boring.”

  “I don’t need to know your history, Kenzie.” His tone was gentle. “I want you to tell me about your heart condition.”

  * * *

  —

  They walked side by side down the flagstone path, Kenzie keeping to the stones, Austin to the dewy grass, sipping his coffee.

  “How do you know about my heart?” Kenzie asked.

  “Jon told me during our phone interview. He thought I should know before I accepted the job.” Austin glanced over at her. “Don’t you think I should know?”

  “I would have told you,” she said defensively. “My health won’t interfere with my job, so don’t worry that you’ll be stuck with most of the workload.”

  “I’m sure you’re capable of handling the work. Jon said you’ve done it before, so my being overworked isn’t a concern. I told Jon I was on board, and now I’m telling you the same thing.” They were into the woods now, where the air was cooler and sunlight hadn’t yet penetrated. “Just so you know,” he said with an exaggerated drawl, “I was a Boy Scout growing up, so I have first-aid training.”

  Incredulous, Kenzie stared at him. He winked, and she saw a twinkle in his eye. “A Boy Scout, huh?”

  “You got something against Boy Scouts, lady?”

  “Just the cocky ones.”

  He laughed.

  “So, no regrets about driving all the way from Virginia to do horse rescue work?”

  His tone turned serious as he said, “No regrets for me, but if we’re going to be a team, I’d like to hear the particulars about your health from you. I already blew it by not knowing enough about the horses I’m expected to work with. I don’t want to make the same mistake with my only teammate.”

  She slowed, knowing he had a point. She mentally sorted through what she absolutely needed to tell him. “I take medication, and I see my doctor regularly. He runs tests once a year, gives me the results, and sends me on my way. I’m holding steady. I’m strong and can easily deal with the horses. In fact, daily exercise is good for me.”

  Austin stopped on the path. “How did this happen?”

  She turned to face him, flicked imaginary biscuit crumbs from the front of her shirt. “It isn’t a birth defect. When I was four, I got sick…fever, rash, swollen lymph nodes, symptoms a lot of kids get. Eventually, they diagnosed me with Kawasaki disease.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Neither had my parents. It’s an autoimmune disorder. Bottom line is that in a small percentage of kids, the illness causes inflammation of blood vessels, especially in the arteries around the heart. I was one of that small percentage. Unlucky me. But for now, I assure you that I can wrestle bales of hay and do hard physical work without keeling over.”

  Birds chirped from trees, and a squirrel leapt from one branch to another, rustling leaves and filling the silence between them. Finally, Austin asked, “And that’s it? That’s all you have to tell me?”

  “What else do you think you need to know?”

  “Symptoms? Any signs I should look for if you’re feeling bad?”

  “If I feel bad, I’ll tell you.”

  She took off, but he easily caught up with her. “Hey, wait up, I still have more questions.”

  Irritated, she stopped, then told herself that maybe he had a point. If they were working and she had an episode of heart palpitations, or irregular breathing and galloping pulse, she would have to deal with it. She faced him. “If my heart rhythm goes out of whack, I get light-headed and dizzy. But I can feel it coming on, and when I do, I sit, do breathing exercises, and wait until the episode passes. Then I go back to work. It’s no biggie.”

  Blood vessels constricted by stress, a rare occurrence, could also be problematic, but she saw no reason to mention that now. She hardly knew this man, and he already had more information about her health than anyone except her parents and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “Are we finished talking about this? We should have been at the stable twenty minutes ago.” They resumed walking. “Hard work won’t hurt me, and I’ll tell you if or when I feel something going wrong. But you have a say-so too. If my health is more of a problem than you want to handle, you have my permission to quit.”

  “Why would you think I’d quit?”

  “When I was a freshman, I had a roommate change dorm rooms because she was afraid I’d have a heart attack in front of her. My doctor had insisted I tell her about my health issues. The girl freaked out, said she couldn’t handle that kind of pressure.”

  “Could you have a heart attack?”

  She waved him off. “Maybe someday, but certainly not this summer. I had a checkup in April and my doctor said all’s well. And just to be clear, I detest having somebody hover over me like I’m going to explode at any minute. That’s what makes it nice to work with horses. They like to keep their personal space to themselves.”

  “Get too close and they kick or bite the horse that’s crowding them, right?”

  “You do know horses.” Her comment was clipped, unfriendly.

  He ducked in front of her. “I know people, too, Kenzie, and I’ve come to help, not hamper, your work.”

  Her heart thumped, the rhythm totally unrelated to her health. She broke eye contact, stepped up her pace, not slowing until she broke into the open sunlight at the side of the stable, where she took a deep breath, feeling like a swimmer underwater a few seconds too long.

  Kenzie had posted a work schedule on the tack room door—daily and weekly tasks that she and Austin needed to perform to keep the rescue horses on a track to recovery. She took charge of the bothersome paperwork, but from day one, she insisted Austin give Blue his morning grain allotment. The first time Austin approached the stall’s half door, Blue flattened his ears and backed into a corner. Kenzie told him, “I want you feeding him every day. It lets Blue know where his food comes from and who’s giving it to him. Creates consistency and trust. Lower his feed bucket in with a rope until he gets used to you and lets you walk it in.”

  By week’s end, Blue allowed Austin to enter the stall with the feed bucket, although the horse still hugged the stall’s corners until Austin walked out. “When do we start working with him and changing his behavior?”

  “I’ve been thinking about snapping a lead rope on his halter and taking him into the round pen.” She gestured toward the outside enclosure earmarked for training.

  “I’ve never used a pen to train. Looks small.”

  “Too large a space and a horse can avoid a trainer. Too small and the horse might feel threatened.”

  “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  “Oh, he won’t hurt me. You’re the one who’ll be working him. By the end of summer, you and Blue will be best buddies.”

  “Braveheart liked me, and so far, Blue’s not a fan.”

  She smiled. “Don’t worry. The technique is simple, and horse tamers and trainers use it all the time. You’ll go into the pen with Blue, sit on an upside-down bucket, and ignore him.”

  “That’s it?”

  “For a while. All you do is sit there with a pocketful of treats and snub him. Horses hate to be ignored. You’ll move the bucket from place to place inside the pen every day. Sooner or later, Blue will decide to come over and check you out. Then you’ll reward him with a treat. Eventually, you’ll stand, pet him, talk to him, and start grooming him. A curry comb will feel good to him.”

  “Then what?”

  “Once Blue’s comfortable with you, you’ll bring in a saddle. It might make him nervous, but he knows its purpose. When he’s calm, put it on him, but don’t mount him. Be kind, but firm, and once he understands you’re not going to hurt him, put your foot in the stirrup. If he balks, back off. Try again the next day. Once he knows you’re the boss and you begin to ride him, he’ll quickly become a true Tennessee walking horse. The gaits are genetica
lly programmed, and Blue’s a natural.” She flashed a smile.

  “You make it sound simple.”

  “It isn’t, but I’m confident you’ll win him over.”

  “Well, if I’m gonna be sitting on a bucket all afternoon in the sun, I better grab a hat.”

  Another smile. “Before you do, I want us to give the Gray Lady a bath. Long overdue.”

  “She does look a little scruffy.”

  Kenzie slipped a halter on Mamie, attached a lead rope, walked her outside, and tied the rope to a hitching post. “First, a good grooming.” Kenzie swept a curry comb down Mamie’s flank, brushing off hunks of old winter coat, working carefully over the horse’s still-visible ribs. While Kenzie brushed, Austin ran his fingers, then a comb through the mare’s knotted mane and tail. Once satisfied with their basic grooming, Kenzie squirted a stream of heavy-duty horse shampoo into a bucket, and Austin filled it with fresh water from a nearby hose. After wetting down the horse, the two of them stood on opposite sides of Mamie and gently scrubbed off layers of dirt and grime with large, soft sponges.

  They moved in unison, from her forelegs to her underbelly and across her back, where Austin broke Kenzie’s concentration with, “So…Ciana tells me you’ll be a junior at Vanderbilt in the fall. What’s your major?”

  “I want to be a veterinarian. I’ll do my undergrad work at Vandy, transfer to University of Tennessee in Knoxville for my master’s. Equine-only practice.”

  Kenzie moved to Mamie’s withers and began shampooing the horse’s mane. The sun beat down, the air growing warmer and mingling the scents of grassy earth, soap, and clean horse hide. It was a smell she wished she could dab on like perfume. “How about you? In college? Graduated?” She had guessed they were about the same age when he’d first arrived, but now she wasn’t sure. His self-confidence, the way he interacted with her, pegged him as older. If only he’d come with a paper résumé.