LOL: Laugh Out Loud (After Oscar, #2)(66)
She ignored me, turning to Roman instead. “Dear brother, how well did it go for you growing up when you tried to tell me what to do?”
“Terribly.”
She grinned. “Exactly.” She made a shooing motion at me. “Now you get out there. Earl’s already gotten everything set up out there and wanted us to come fetch you.” I started to argue, but she shook her head. “You’d better hurry before my husband seduces your horse away from you. He’s a sucker for a sweet Percheron. If it was up to him, we’d have all kinds of draft horses on the farm.”
I smiled. “I’ll bet. There’s a pair of Clydesdales at the stables where I work… used to work… that are sweet as kittens. But all that leg feathering is a pain to keep clean. We call them our bathing beauties because they’re always getting cleaned.”
Sonya and Nay-Nay each took one of my hands and began tugging. “C’mon, let’s go!”
I gave one last look to Diana and she mouthed the word “go.” I nodded and let the girls drag me to the mudroom to put on my cold-weather gear. As I slid on my coat, I realized it smelled like laundry detergent, and I wondered who’d thought to wash it. It had to have been Roman. Considering I would have assumed the man didn’t even do his own laundry, it surprised me he’d thought to do mine. I wondered if maybe he’d been grossed out by the horse smell enough to sneak away while we’d been watching movies the day before.
But then I caught a whiff of his own coat and realized it smelled like detergent too. So if he did throw mine in the wash, he washed his own as well. I glanced at Roman out of the corner of my eye and caught him reaching for my gray scarf from a nearby hook. Before I had a chance to take it from him, he looped it around my neck and used it to pull me in for a kiss.
Despite the kiss being quick and chaste, Sonya noticed it. “Oooh! Uncle Roman kissed Uncle Scotty on the lips!”
I felt my face heat and noticed Roman’s do the same.
“I gave Scotty a quick kiss to say thank you for helping with the dishes, sweetie,” Roman explained.
Nay-Nay reached her arms up to me. “I kiss too!”
I picked her up and planted a loud smacking kiss on her cheek before turning and doing the same to Sonya. By the time we made it out onto the snowy path, the girls were giggling from the raspberries I’d planted on their cheeks.
Roman and I chased them through the snow, throwing small soft snowballs at them and dodging the ones they tried to throw back at us. When we arrived at the barn, everyone’s cheeks were flushed and Roman’s brown eyes were dancing. I could tell he was loving the chance to play with his nieces, and it was nice seeing him so… carefree. He deserved to have fun like a regular person without always looking over his shoulder and feeling like he needed to be “on” for whoever was watching.
When we got close enough to see Nugget in the small ring next to the barn, I stopped and stared. She was saddled and stood proud as a peacock against the side rail of the ring.
I felt a hand on the small of my back, nudging me forward. Roman, always there when I needed him.
Earl rubbed up and down Nugget’s long neck while murmuring to her under his breath.
“Hey, Nug,” I said, reaching out to let her smell me. Nugget let out a happy pbbbbt sound and tossed her head, jangling the metal tack and pulling the loose reins in Earl’s hands.
“She’s a good one,” Earl said with a grin. “But she does not like peppermints.”
“She loves carrots the most. Then apples,” I said, smiling back at him. “I never tried peppermints.”
“I’ve never met a horse who doesn’t like them,” Earl admitted with a chuckle. “But she’s a good-looking beast, Scotty. Clearly you take good care of her.”
I nodded and mumbled my thanks for the compliment, but inside I was clutching the words to me like a tiny piece of spun gold. There wasn’t much left in my life these days, but I’d have been damned if I’d have let Nugget bear the brunt of my stupid, irresponsible life situation. To know that a horse aficionado recognized I did my best to care for my horse meant the world. If my dire straits hurt Nugget, I’d… well, I didn’t know what I’d do. Sell her, I guessed. Like I was already doing.
Roman had offered to write me a check for the full purchase price. He’d even done the research on how much Percheron mares Nugget’s age and size sold for. But I’d been too nervous to accept that much money from him all at once. I’d never had several thousand dollars before, and it scared me to death. I’d asked Roman to send two hundred to my mom and then asked if we could do the rest later. And then I’d promptly relegated “later” into a pocket of my brain that had a heavy steel door locked closed with rivets.
“Scotty?” I looked up and saw Roman frowning at me. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t—”
“No!” I blurted. I wasn’t about to look a gift horse (man) in the mouth. “I’m just… I’m just so grateful to all of you for this. I can’t even begin to thank you for this incredibly kind gesture.”
Roman’s face softened back into a relaxed smile. “Good. I’m glad.”
“Okay,” Earl said with a clap of his gloved hands. “Let’s get started.”
We spent the next few hours chilly but happy as could be. Nugget loved the cold, which I already knew, and she was totally ambivalent about being ridden. She was so docile, Earl even let the girls take turns riding her around the ring after I was finished with my lesson. Seeing Roman’s nieces on her big wide back was like having a piece of some puzzle snap home. It felt so good. After all the little kids who’d begged to ride her during carriage rides, now here we were, on a spacious farm in Vermont where there was time and space to let her walk them around proudly on her back. It hit me dead center in the heart and made me feel so incredibly lucky to have that moment there with all of them.