Leaping Hearts(9)

Her stepbrother had a different take on it. Peter had become involved on the business end of things after college because his mother demanded that he make himself useful while he tried to become an actor. Figuring he’d be away a lot on callbacks, and would soon be a Hollywood star, he’d agreed to take on managing the books and quickly displayed a knack for finances. Unfortunately, his fiscal successes didn’t impress him and he viewed time at the stables as a reminder of theatrical failure. After many years of auditioning, it appeared as if that one toothpaste commercial might be the national nadir of his acting career.

Though they fought about money, and just about everything else, A.J. had to admit Peter was good at managing the place. He had a flair for numbers even if his people skills were deplorable, and she knew Sutherland’s wouldn’t be the success it was without him. Sadly, though, he hated going to the stables and made sure everyone knew it. He didn’t like the way the place smelled and the way hay and horse hair clung to his clothes. He hated the mud in the springtime, the bugs in the summer and the cold in the fall and winter. And no matter what the season was, he detested his office. Originally, the room had been a grain storage area and it still smelled like old sweet feed when it rained, no matter how many times he shampooed the rug he’d installed.

The only thing he did like was making money, and he liked for it to accumulate in accounts. Every time A.J. wanted to buy something for the stables, she had to go like a beggar and throw herself at him. She hated the begging. To her, money was all about utility. It gave people the ability to pursue their dreams, and her dreams were expensive. Where money came from had never been of interest to A.J. She was always too busy picking out hooves, carting around bales of hay and bags of grain and giving worm shots. Wasting a moment to worry about how much she was spending on something she needed or waiting to see if a better price came along struck her as pointless.

Courtesy of the two different philosophies coexisting in the same business, there’d been a lot of battles, and the fights didn’t stay at the compound. With both living at home, whatever blowup had occurred at the stables followed Peter and her up the hill to the mansion and was served with dinner. Regina would take Peter’s side, and A.J.’s father, who got gassy in the face of conflict of any kind, would plead for everyone to keep a cool head and a quiet tongue.

Garrett took a lot of antacids.

With her and her stepbrother in their midtwenties, A.J. knew it was high time they moved out but she was too busy training to go look for a place of her own and she knew Peter thrived on all the amenities available to him at the mansion. She also suspected he’d need to be surgically removed from his mother’s influence. Regina Conrad, now Sutherland, was a domineering woman with an insatiable need for approval. As a consequence, she had a burning desire to prove that everything about her and her son was superlative. To A.J.’s mind, the constant barrage of propaganda was hard to be around and she didn’t know how Peter could stand being the subject of so much hot air.

The consolation prize, she guessed, was one hell of a mother fixation.

To her, the pair seemed like expensive pieces of matching baggage but Garrett appeared content. His happiness was the reason she kept trying to make things work with her stepbrother and Regina. It wasn’t easy.

Coming to the auction office, A.J. opened a door, which creaked in the friendly way farm doors do, and stepped inside. Margaret Mead, an Irish widow of sixty, looked up from behind the counter and smiled. The two had known each other for years.

“Ah now, A.J., you should be lookin’ happier this day.”

“You must not have heard what I’ve volunteered for.”

“I’ve heard, all right.”

“So are you going to jump on the bandwagon and tell me I’m crazy, too?” A.J. put her knapsack on the counter and leaned across it.

“Is that what they been sayin’ to you?”

A.J.’s look was dry.

“Just ignore them,” Margaret said as she brought out a folder. “You followed your instincts on that horse. People only get into serious trouble when they think the pitch of other voices is more true than their own. The stallion is yours now and the slate is clean. You start fresh with him.”

Margaret passed some paperwork across the counter and retrieved a pen out of a coffee mug full of various and sundry writing utensils. A.J. reviewed the documents, picked up the Bic and was about to scrawl her name on the bottom when she looked at the top of the charge slip. It read Sutherland Stables, c/o Peter Conrad.

On impulse, she ripped it up.

“I’m going to write a personal check instead,” A.J. said, taking out her wallet.

She wasn’t sure what she was doing but the decision came out of the same place that made her bid on the stallion. Postdating the check, so she could get enough money in the account before it cleared, she choked as she filled in all the zeros. It was a monstrous stretch of her savings but instinct told her it was better to make the investment than have any chance of Peter refusing payment while they fought over her right to buy the horse.

As she ripped her check free and handed it to Margaret, she wondered if she’d lost her mind. Over the years, she’d managed to save up a nest egg from excess money her father had given her. It was a symbol of independence she’d never seen fit to use before, and now she was wiping it out.

Maybe Peter had a point about financial prudence, she thought, getting a sense for the first time of how finite money could be. She found it hard to believe that she’d just sunk all her net worth into a four-legged, maladjusted frat boy with hooves.