by Ruby Loren
“I’ll start knocking through Darken’s stall, if you do Barbarossa’s,” she said.
Danny smirked at her. “Not still afraid of him, are you?”
"Nope, I just don’t want to get kicked in the butt because the horse with a sense of humour thinks it’s funny,” she told him, wiping the smile off his face.
He turned to the black horse. “Don't get any ideas.”
Hayley was still smiling when she nearly slipped over. She kicked the pile of wood shavings over and discovered that a shiny page from a magazine had somehow become pasted to the floor of Darken’s stable. How did that get here? She thought, bending down for a closer look.
It was an article torn from a horse magazine. She couldn’t read any of words apart from the caption below the picture of a big, black horse with a distinctive white sock on his right foreleg.
Lord Darlington and Thunder In The Night
Hayley heard her breath catch in her throat. All this time, she’d never bothered to study a picture of the stolen horse. All this time, a horse that looked identical to the one in the picture had been right under her nose.
It can’t be true! Her brain said, over and over again as she tried to process the thought that Barbarossa and Thunder In The Night were one and the same. From what she’d heard about the near-legendary horse, the one in the stall right next to her was its polar opposite. Barbarossa was goofy and not at all cut out for being a show jumping legend, due to his unusual quirks. But the horse in the picture and Barbarossa were near-identical. Everything from the face shape to the sheer size and then that white sock with its defined upward point…
"Everything okay?” Danny looked through the bars of the stall and Hayley quickly picked up the magazine article and scrunched it in her hand.
“Yeah, sorry… got distracted,” she said, her mind still racing. What should she do? What the hell should she do?
She thought about the way Romani was so clearly starting to fall for Danny and her heart wanted to break into a million pieces. All of the courage she’d started to find in the past week or so would go up in smoke when she found they’d been harbouring a horse thief.
“I'll be right back,” she said to a baffled Danny, walking out of the barn into the late August sunshine. She started the long trek up to the cottage but met Romani along the way.
“Hayley I was just coming to help. What’s up?” Romani faltered when she saw Hayley's expression. Rather than try to explain, she handed over the torn magazine page and watched as Romani stared at the photo.
“You’re thinking that… that…" She scrunched the magazine up and then just as quickly un-scrunched it. “I looked at photos when I heard he was stolen and it never even crossed my mind when Danny turned up with his horse. That horse in there is no show-jumping champion!” She said, sharing Hayley’s thoughts on the matter. They looked again at the shape of the nose and the sheer, unusual size.
“It’s quite a coincidence,” Hayley said, her voice dry.
“There's got to be a good reason. If the horse has changed so much, maybe Danny thought he was being forced to be something he wasn’t," Romani said, but while Hayley wanted to agree that if that were the case, Danny had done the right thing, they both knew the impact of having a horse stolen from you - especially Romani.
“Surely, the best thing to do is to show him this and see how he reacts,” Hayley said, keeping her voice light. Inside her heart was a lead weight. Just as she’d started to believe that Danny was who he said he was, everything was thrown into doubt.
“Okay… now or never,” Romani said and then ground to a halt, turning to face Hayley with pain in her eyes. “No matter what, I'm sure he had nothing to do with Summer being stolen. He couldn't have. He wouldn’t…” She said and then broke off shaking her head.
As they approached the barn with the incriminating article in hand, Hayley still couldn’t catch up to her thoughts. If the horse was stolen, why bring it to the stables? Why steal it at all? Danny said he didn’t compete in competitions. What did he have to gain by stealing such a high profile horse?
She pushed her hair back from her face and waited as Danny came out of the stall and saw them.
"Is something wrong?” The easy grin slid from his face as Romani silently unrolled the torn page and gave him a questioning look. He took the article and looked at it for a second before his eyes went to Barbarossa. A caged look crossed his face.
“You think that…” He stopped talking and his irises seemed to darken as anger diffused there. This was the man Hayley had met that stormy night. Was this the man Danny Grey had been all along?
“Danny, I’m sure we’re just making the wrong assumption,” Romani prompted but Hayley could feel Danny's anger growing.
"I should have known he’d win in the end. How long has he been whispering to you that I must have stolen my horse? The only thing I care about in the world..." Danny said and Hayley badly wanted to take a step back as wild anger crossed his features.
“Who?” Romani asked.
“Russell, of course. I assume this is his doing.” Danny turned his head to the side, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
Romani opened her mouth to argue but Danny was already grabbing his well-worn tack.
“I should never have stayed,” he said to himself, slipping the bridle over Barbarossa’s head and then mounting up bareback, carrying the saddle in front of him. He stared down at both of them, his mouth in a thin line. “I can’t believe you can’t see what is right in front of you. Do me one last favour and keep your eyes open. You’ll see what I mean sooner or later,” he said and nudged Barbarossa’s sides. The big horse needed no encouragement and tore out of the stables towards the open fields beyond.
“So, uh… that went well,” Romani said.
They stood in silence for a few moments longer, both wondering about Danny’s words.
“Should we call the police?” Hayley still felt just as baffled as she had when she’d first seen the magazine. She’d expected Danny to either laugh at the very thought, or to come clean but this… she didn’t know what to make of it. He’d run, but he'd also acted like they’d been the ones doing him wrong - not the other way around.
“I guess we just leave it,” Romani said, sounding just as hopeless as she had the day Hayley had first met her.
“Why did Danny Grey just blaze past us on that be beastly creature of his?” Russell rode up to the stables with Jack in tow on Evenfall.
“We think… well, we’re not sure but, he may have stolen the horse he was riding,” Hayley said, feeling like a traitor.
CHAPTER SIX
Summer’s Secret
“I knew it. I knew he was a good for nothing!” Russell exploded, jumping down from Darkening Dawn and handing the reins to Hayley, who tiredly accepted. She looked up into the eyes of the dark horse who snorted and fidgeted on the cracked concrete. He knew that his stable mate was gone.
“Have you called the police?” Jack asked, brushing a strand of hay from his red and blue flannel shirt as he slipped down from Evenfall.
Romani shook her head before sighing. “No, I don’t even know if we’re right. We just tried to ask him something and he took off,” she wrung her hands helplessly. Jack raised an eyebrow at Hayley.
“Well, that hardly sounds like the actions of an innocent man. Still, perhaps it is worth sleeping on it,” he said, surprising them all. "He shouldn’t be too hard to pick up if he’s riding around the country on a pretty noticeable horse. How about we wait a day or so and figure things out? It’s the championship in two days and maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t want anything to unsettle the horses. I say we let it go until then. Let things settle.”
Despite feeling like she wanted to start screaming at the mention of the competition, Hayley couldn't blame Jack. He and Russell had travelled down the country, roughed it in a dilapidated stables, all so they could compete in the locals-only event.
“I guess it wouldn’t be great publicity
either,” Romani sheepishly agreed, pulling on her curls before turning away, distress written all over her face. It was one bad piece of news after another for the Hawley-Jones Riding Stables.
***
“The harder I try, the more things go wrong. Maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be,” Romani said by way of greeting when Hayley found her sitting in the long grass of the field, watching the sun go down at the end of the day. Hayley sat next to her and looked up at the purple sky.
“I know it feels that way right now but, that shouldn’t mean giving up. It sounds lame, but you never know when something good will happen. Perhaps Russell will win the championship and people will flood here, hoping to find the secret of his success,” she hypothesised and Romani winced and smiled.
“The man’s ego’s as big as a house. The last thing he needs is to win!” She sighed and shook her head. “I guess that’s unfair. Deep down, I know I’ve never given Russell a chance because of his background, and surely that makes me just as bad as my mother. People can’t help who they’re born to be and the hand ups they’re given along the way. He could be a decent guy, but I've overlooked him because of his attitude. And the snoring…”
“Let’s not forget the snoring,” Hayley said with a light smile. Her thoughts were likewise drifting to Jack, as she wondered if she should have done more to include him in the work they’d done. She’d assumed he hadn’t wanted to get his hands dirty, but what if he’d just needed the encouragement to try? Encouragement no one had ever thought to give him.
“Have we made a mess of this whole thing?" She said aloud and Romani rested her head on her knees as sighed.
“God, I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.” She looked up at Hayley and snorted through a smile. “We’re just like the bad guys in the films who think they’ve got a good reason to do something but it’s oh so painfully obvious to everyone watching that they are completely deluded.” She frowned. “Oh no, I forgot! Danny had been taking out that horse Russell got for me because I couldn't bear to do it myself. I suppose now I should…”
“I’ll do it! Why don't you go up to the house and have a chat with Russell?” Hayley said, lifting her eyebrows hopefully.
Romani pulled a face but got to her feet. “Civility is all I’m promising. He’s still mostly an ass.”
Hayley was surprised to find that she was smiling when she walked up to the stall that contained Sandy, the unwanted present horse. “You poor thing, no one’s given you a chance either,” she said to the dull looking black pointed dun. No lustre shone from his coat but there was a sparkle in the horse’s eyes that Hayley knew belied spirit.
“All right, let’s go,” she said after the forgotten horse had been tacked up and she was in the saddle.
A few minutes later, she was blown away.
“Wow,” she said, walking off the blazing round they’d just completed. It turned out that Sandy was quite the show jumping star. Something in Hayley’s brain told her that Russell didn't know what he’d got. The horse that they’d hidden was probably the best jumper Hayley had ever ridden. She’d seen Darken and Evenfall in action and they definitely had better breeding, better class, but this smaller horse, Sandy… he did all that the other horses did but with such passion and performance.
"Let's see if you can do that again…” She said and the final dregs of daylight flew by in a blur.
“Easy!” She said, reaching out for a fistful of mane as Sandy swerved around a corner at an insane speed. The next moment they were over the top of another jump and she was laughing again.
“Impressive,” a voice said as she led Sandy back to his stall.
“I didn’t know anyone was watching.” She smiled at Jack in the dim light. He stood by her, looking thoughtfully at the dun horse.
“When I got these horses for Russell, I figured they just wanted to get rid of this one. Romani was right when she complained that it was a free horse. But why would anyone give away a horse this good?” He mused and Hayley shook her head.
“Maybe no one ever gave him a chance,” she repeated but it didn't feel right. No horse could walk untested into a show jumping arena and do what he'd done. Someone had put a lot of work towards helping him to become what he was.
“I actually came here to talk to you,” Jack said and Hayley turned away from the secret show jumping star. “It’s about whether or not we should go to the police. I know what I said earlier, but I’ve realised that it’s a pretty selfish thing to do, if someone really has lost their horse.”
“You know which horse we're talking about, don't you?” Hayley said quietly and Jack nodded in the evening gloom. “I'm not even sure I’m right. On the surface it seems so obvious but it's not what I've seen,” Hayley said, knowing she probably wasn’t making much sense. She slid the bolt across Sandy’s stall and turned to fully face Jack. His grey-blue eyes studied her and she realised he was still waiting for an answer.
“I think we should wait until after the championship. I know if he stole that horse then he should return it but…” She hesitated. “Firstly, I’d like to give him a chance to do the right thing himself and secondly, I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s not the right thing to do,” she finished. Jack’s expression remained unreadable but he nodded in response.
“Okay, that’s what we’ll do,” he said, reaching out and lightly touching her on the arm, just below her shoulder. Hayley felt her eyes widen as she looked up and saw him smile before he raised a hand and walked off towards the car park. She was halfway up the hill to see what Romani and Russell were up to when she heard him drive away and wondered if she should have done something differently.
***
“What have you been up to Hayley? You look like you’ve been rolling around in the hay!” Romani greeted her with a smile that was a little too tense. Hayley glanced down and realised her jodhpurs were covered with brown dirt.
“Was that Jack I heard leaving?” Russell called through the house and Romani raised an eyebrow at Hayley before stepping aside to let her through.
“Russell was just telling me about the time he beat the locals on their Arabian horses on a long distance race across a the desert,” Romani said.
“Isn’t that the plot of Hidalgo?” Hayley asked before her brain could stop her. Romani coughed to hide her laughter. Russell took another swig from the large glass of red wine he’d spirited from somewhere and smoothed his already smooth hair.
“Yes, well, it wasn’t quite that long a distance and there was some argument as to who was actually the winner,” he admitted. “But anyway, that reminds me of this other time when I was at Cambridge and there was this polo match… bloody funny!” He started laughing to himself. “No, listen… no wait, you’ll love this…” He said, spluttering wine everywhere.
Perhaps Russell wasn’t the monster they’d thought him to be, but that still didn’t mean he’d ever be Prince Charming. He’d forever be a very loud-mouthed toad.
***
“Hayloft?” Romani said to Hayley when they met in the entrance corridor ten minutes after Russell had fallen asleep. Snores were already resonating through the cottage and if they wanted to catch a wink, they had to get out of there. Even ear plugs weren't enough.
“I know after everything that happened, I shouldn’t, but I miss Danny not being here,” Romani admitted when they were halfway down the hill. In the end, they’d actually had a pretty good evening with Russell. He’d done most, well - all of the talking - but it had been funny. Not intentionally, but funny enough to give Romani and Hayley breathing difficulties when Russell had elaborated on some of the more far-fetched elements of his tales. If he were to be believed, he’d travelled the world and was somewhere between Ghandi and Lawrence Of Arabia.
“The thing is, I know for a fact from mum that all he’s ever done is work his way up through his family's accountancy firm," Romani had confided when Russell had popped to the bathroom.
“Maybe he doesn’t
think he can impress you any other way,” Hayley mused but Romani shook her head.
“I think it’s more likely to be to do with that bottle of red wine he found. It was a present from an old client. He had a reputation for brewing moonshine so when he brought me that bottle I gave it a miss.” She giggled. “Perhaps I should have tried it if it’s strong enough to give you flights of fancy that creative!”
Hayley ground to a halt a few feet away from the barn.
"I didn’t leave that open,” she said to Romani and they both looked at the once again ajar door. Hayley walked forwards, immediately sensing that the stable was quiet - too quiet. Darken hadn't stopped fidgeting since Barbarossa had gone but now there was nothing.
Romani swore under her breath as they looked into Darken’s stall and discovered it was empty. Much worse was the gaping hole at the back where the repairs Hayley and Danny had done earlier that day lay in ruins. It looked like they’d been kicked to bits.
“Oh my God, we’ve got to find him. It’s all my fault he's escaped. The wood, I didn’t realise,” Romani said weakly.
“Danny and I fixed that today,” Hayley said, unable to believe this had happened. You were fixing it… right before you found that magazine article and Danny took off, her brain corrected her and she found she couldn’t remember how close Danny had been to finishing the job. She opened the door of Darken’s stall and walked to the gaping hole. Broken wood shards were everywhere. She brushed the edges with her hand and dark threads of horse hair came away. Darken had definitely left this way. Her hand caught on something softer and she looked down at a small piece of blue fabric before the breeze snatched it up and took it away.
“Let's get Russell up,” Romani said, sounding like she was announcing a funeral, which wasn’t far from the truth. If Darken was gone for good, it would be the final nail in the coffin of the Hawley-Jones Riding Stables.
