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“Keep your heels down, Jenny!” Linda yelled at her student.
The sun had come that morning and the workday as usual, and the world hadn’t collapsed yet. But sly grins had awaited Linda at the breakfast table, along with the words, “Guess what you get to do today,” which caused Linda to worry.
Jenny came around the arena and slowed her horse. “Am I getting better at least?”
“Of course!” Linda said, wondering if she was encouraging enough to the young girl.
“Can we take a break?”
“It’s only an hour lesson.”
Jenny returned to her exercises in the arena while Linda observed.
The task that had been promised to Linda by her stepmother had been revealed to her that morning; she was to paint the barn.
Encompassing the ten stalls that made up the horse stables was a somewhat gigantic red barn that was two stories tall, oddly shaped, old, and red. Glancing over her shoulder at it, Linda determined that it certainly was overdue for a coat of paint, but wondered if it was in any way possible for her to finish the entire job in two weeks by herself.
She decided not to waste time speculating and instead planned to buy supplies during her lunch break and begin the task after work that night, working until it was too dark to see and then walking home. If she repeated this daily, she supposed she might be able to finish the job in time for the rodeo.
It was quite tactful of her stepmother to choose painting the barn of all things. Not impossibly daunting to cause the complete loss of hope, and certainly not easy enough to raise suspicion. She figured that it was chosen to bring just the right amount of misery to her life for two solid weeks that, when the woman somehow found a way to ensure her failure, the devastation of missing out on the rodeo would be coupled with the knowledge that she had only missed it by a hair.
That was not going to happen.
While she was not quite willing to be fired over the rodeo, which in turn would all but ensure the loss of The Stagecoach, she was determined to find a way to make it there to watch Blake against whatever odds her stepmother threw at her.
Blake was no longer just a picture tacked to her wall (several of them). He was a force in her world and, in a few days, he had resurrected the memory that the world was more than people out to get her. Some of those people were on her side too.
She wanted to be there at the rodeo, not just for her own amusement, but to support Blake. In a tiny way, to return the favor. She was on his team. She was Team Blake.
He had been noticeably silent that morning, and the panicked queen of drama inside her shouted about how he was gone forever and how she had done something wrong, but the voice was quieted with a cool head and a reminder that normal people don’t suffocate without talking to each other for 12 hours in a row.
She wondered what he was up to, as she watched Jenny trot in the arena. She wondered if the fires of their initial bond had cooled, and if the days of receiving pictures of waffles dropped on the floor were over. Was her phone silent because he was busy? Or was it because...
She hated the drama queen inside her. Why such doubt!? Why panic and overthink? What good did this do? It was quite annoying. Did all women have this in them? Sigh. And just when she had decided that she could survive the painful breakup and live her life without Blake, enduring bravely, there he was.
The sound of his truck, which she recognized, caught her attention, and then he was closing the door and striding along, tall and free, in the parking lot, making his way towards the arena.
Her sisters, on cue, moved to intercept, and Linda assumed that this was going to be another mess.
Unable to abandon Jenny and intervene, she observed from afar and moved to a position where she could hear them better.
“Linda’s working right now, Blake. She can’t see you,” Emily said with only a bit of a sneer.
“Oh, that’s fine, I didn’t come here to see Linda today.”
Linda smiled, knowing he was outsmarting them.
With batting eyelashes, Caroline asked, “Did you come here to see us, Blake?”
“I sure did,” he responded.
Linda’s smile dropped and a frown formed. When Emily reached out her hand and put it on his arm, it formed harder.
"I was hoping to do a little business with you two," Blake said.
Linda wasn’t the only one who disliked Emily’s busy little hand and Caroline, observing it, moved closer to Blake.
“What is it that we can do for you today?” Caroline said with an emphasis on the word “do” that was highly inappropriate.
“Well,” Blake said as he leaned over her, causing Linda’s eyebrows to rise in a manner that suggested that this man was in trouble, though he couldn’t see them. “I’d like to purchase some of your services.”
Linda took the hat off her head and threw it gently into the breeze, giving up. It landed in the dirt.
Emily was not receiving her fair share of the attention and she boldly moved directly in front of Blake, placing her hand on the middle of his chest.
“And what services might those be?” she asked, also doing something with the word “services” that she should have gotten in trouble for.
Looking back and forth between the two girls, Blake stated, “I’d like to purchase private horseback riding lessons.”
The two girls recoiled, and then countered. “We don’t offer private lessons.”
“Well, what about that?” Blake asked, pointing at Linda in the arena, who at this point was sitting on the ground in the dirt, giving up on life.
"That's not a private lesson, she just only has one student," Caroline said, the snotty tone returning to her voice.
“Well, that’s no problem, I’ll just join that lesson.”
Caroline and Emily looked at each other, figuring out a way to object.
Blake produced two one hundred dollar bills and held them out in a way that clearly hinted that there was one for each of them.
“I’ll make my first payment up front,” he said with subtle but undeniable authority.
Revealing their true loyalty, one sister snatched one of the bills, triggering the other to do the same. Disgusted with themselves, they made no further bargain with Blake, no discussion of the actual price of lessons, and really no more comment whatsoever.
Instead, they paced back towards the office, shoving the bills down their shirts and exchanging judgmental looks with each other for taking them.
Blake made his way to the arena and approached Linda, who was still pouting on the ground. Jenny was trotting around on her horse.
“What’s going on, Linda?” Blake asked.
“I don’t know, why don’t you ask my stepsisters?”
Blake rolled his eyes and sat down cross-legged with her in the fluffed dirt of the arena.
“I’m here for my lesson,” he said, tipping onto one side so he could lean close to her.
“Good, because I’m going to teach you a lesson,” she said, finally smiling, unable to maintain an attitude for even ten seconds when Blake prompted her.
“Hi, Blake!” Jenny said and took her horse towards the two.
“Hello, Jenny. Are you an expert yet?”
“No, I’m not very good.”
Blake stood up on his feet.
“I’m sure that’s not true. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
He approached the horse.
“Is that what you’re here for?” Jenny asked Blake.
“I’m here to take a lesson, but Linda won’t give me one.”
Blake rubbed the animal she was on, sizing it up.
“Why not?”
“Because she’s mad at me.”
Linda remained seated, finding the interaction adorable.
“Oh, what did you do?”
“I got a little too friendly with her sisters.”
Jenny made a face. "Her stepsisters?" Blake nodded and she looked at Linda, confused. "But they're gross!"
Blake laughed. “I don’t think she cares.”
“Yeah, that’s ‘cause she wants you all to herself!”
“Alright!” Linda popped up out of the dirt. “That’s enough,” she said as she approached them.
Blake was examining the horse. “I think I rode this horse.”
“No!” Linda said, “You did not,” motioning to Blake with her eyes to keep quiet.
“Oh,” Blake said, “I guess not,” and winked at Jenny.
Jenny didn’t understand half of what was going on, but that’s how she felt most of the time, so she and Blake giggled together.
“Get back to your lesson, Jenny, your mother paid good money for you to learn how to ride.”
Jenny turned the horse and lined it up to practice a canter.
“I paid good money to learn how to ride, too.”
"You know how to ride," Linda said.
"Well, maybe you can teach me something else," Blake said as he moved close to Linda.
Surprised, she held her hand out to his chest to stop him. “How about how to hold a paintbrush?”
“Are you teaching art class now?”
“I need to paint that-“ she pointed at the barn and waited for Blake to look, “entire thing in two weeks.”
“That’s quite a job.”
“If I do it, I should be able to come watch you at the rodeo.”
The reaction that she saw in Blake was of great interest to Linda. When she mentioned coming to the rodeo, though it was subtle, she saw a great excitement appear in him. The idea that Blake Lockwood cared if she were there watching him ride made her blush, and she turned away to watch Jenny.
“You better get painting then!” He said.
“Yeah, it’s a really big job. It’s too bad I don’t have any help.”
"Mmhmm," Blake said, agreeing. "Good luck," he said, and roughly patted her shoulder. When he saw the look on her face he laughed, having made his joke, and said, "I'm just kidding, I'll see if I can make some time to help, if it means getting you to the rodeo. When are you working on it?"
“After work.”
“Five?”
“Something like that.”
“Alright. Which horse should I ride?”
"We'll probably just use ladders," Linda said.
Blake rolled his eyes for the second time. “I don’t mean to paint the barn, I mean for my lesson!”
“What lesson?”
“The lesson I just paid all my money for! I want to ride a horse, Girl!”
Linda laughed and accepted that everything was just a little more surreal when Blake was around. That is to say, everything was better. She allowed Jenny to escort Blake to the stable and show him, step by step, her technique for preparing and saddling a horse. Jenny was very proud of her knowledge and Linda was proud of her.
Linda watched Blake interact with the girl, showing interest in what she was teaching him and covertly teaching her as well. They interacted naturally and lovingly, and watching them both trying to remember how to tie a halter and figuring it out together made Linda feel warm (though they tied it wrong).
It was like observing a Christmas card or the end of a holiday movie as the music grew louder and the family in the movie was happy, finally. She watched them both excited to get Blake onto a tall horse at last and take it out of the barn, along with Jenny’s, to ride in the field, and strange physical feelings strangled little organs inside Linda’s body, telling her things she didn’t understand.
Poor Carl seemed like maybe he would like to have some fun too so she held onto his mane and rode him out into the field with no saddle, then hopped off and smacked him on the butt so that he would run with the others. He mostly just chose to eat grass, and sometimes Linda would shout an instruction to Jenny on her form, and both she and Blake would try it out.
The lesson went on for almost an hour too long, but Jenny’s mom saw from the parking lot that they were having fun and she recorded it on her phone as she waited. When Jenny left with her mom and Blake left shortly after, Linda once again felt uplifted, and worn out, and dizzy, and all the other things that she was used to feeling after the emotional bull-ride of being around Blake Lockwood.