Crossover 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book One' (2 page)

“Nice.” I paused. “Did you hear about
them cutting down a new trail back there?”

She shook her head no.

“Weird. Well, maybe I never noticed it
before. It was a little narrower than the main trail.”

“Where abouts?”

“After the bridge, just past the
clearing.”

“Hmmm. I don’t remember one there. Are
you coming back tomorrow?”

I nodded. “I’ll be here for ten. Dale
is giving a lesson in the morning and I really want to get some
more lead changes done on Lena before the show next
weekend.”

Another of the reasons why I put so
much time in at the arena was the fact that I also had three horses
I was training for other people. My favorite at the moment was
Lena, a little three year old dun Quarter horse mare. Her owner
wanted her ready as a reiner for the shows this summer. I was also
riding Crush, an old chestnut roping horse that needed miles put on
to get back into shape. And my newest student was Rosy. She was a
two year old Percheron, black as the night itself. She was going to
start under harness Sunday when I had a bit more time to
play.

“Ok. I’ll be here just after lunch. I
have to watch my nephew tomorrow morning.” I grimaced with her and
we laughed. Her five year old nephew was a holy terror. Shay had
once compared babysitting him to trying to keep a tornado from
destroying whatever it landed on. She had thought bringing him to
the barns one day to see the horses might be a good idea until he
had disappeared. We had searched high and low for a good hour and
Shaynna had been close to tears, thinking the worst had happened.
Thankfully, he had simply fallen asleep in the straw bales with
some baby kittens he had found. It was the last time she had
brought him out.

We finished brushing the horses and
bedded them down for the night. We stopped at the cafeteria to grab
an iced tea from the pop machine, then headed out to Shay’s car so
she could put her saddle in the back seat. She wanted to oil it
before the show.

Shaynna screamed as someone jumped from
behind the main door, picked her up and crushed her against the
outside of the building.

“Shawn!” She giggled and he planted a
few quick kisses on her lips. “You scared the crap out of
me!”

Shawn laughed. He pulled her away from
the building and hooked his arm around her waist.

The two of them had been dating for two
years now, ever since he had started hauling his horse in to rope
twice a week.

He looked more like a sixteen year old
than a nineteen year old. His orange hair, freckles and dark blue
eyes nullified any resemblance his 6 foot 2 inch two hundred and
thirty pound frame had to an adult’s.

They looked like such an odd couple at
the best of times. Right now a stranger would never have thought it
possible they were an item. Shaynna stood in her breeches and half
chaps snuggling against his red t-shirt, her hand hooked into the
belt loop of his wranglers. His white straw cowboy hat hid both
their faces as he leaned in for another kiss.

“I thought you weren’t coming in
tonight!” Shaynna’s face flushed.

“I got out of work early so I was able
to make it in after all.” Shawn reached behind one of the benches
in front of the building and pulled out a beautiful pink long
stemmed rose.

She beamed at him, her face the same
color as the rose.

“Ugh.” I smiled. “Too much mushiness
for me. I’ll see you tomorrow, Shay!”

She laughed. “Thought you were staying
to help with the chute.”

“I am.” I smiled at them. “If you
promise to keep the mushiness to a minimum.”

“No promises,” laughed Shay.

We headed back into the arena. Shay and
I went to the chute and loaded the first steer while Shawn went to
get his horse Doc. The next couple of hours flew by as everyone
took turns heeling and heading. Then we all headed up to the lounge
area.

Shaynna sat down beside me at one of
the tables and looked on lovingly as Shawn went to get us all a
beer from the fridge.

Her smile faltered a bit and her
eyebrows revealed a bit of a frown. “Your secret admirer is on his
way.”

I groaned, not bothering to look and
see who it was.

“Hi, Hayden.”

“Hey, Dave.”

He sat across from me, beside
Shawn.

“Aren’t you a little young to be having
a beer?” he asked Shay.

“Aren’t you a little old to be hitting
on Hayden?” she snapped at him

Shawn choked on his swallow of
beer.

I took a long drink from my
bottle.

Dave ignored her and turned back to me.
“So I was thinking that we could go to the movies tomorrow
night.”

I was glad I was already busy and
didn’t have to make up an excuse. I was a terrible liar. “Some of
the girls and I already have a movie night planned.
Sorry.”

“Oh. Well, we could meet up
afterwards.”

“It’s an all nighter. We’re going to
Tara’s.” I took another swallow of beer and looked at him. He was
handsome. He had deep brown eyes and dark brown hair that went
extremely well with his dark complexion. The fact that he was
thirty two didn’t even really bother me. It was his attitude that
turned me right off. Women were trophies. He had thought it safe
when I was dating his friend to treat me like one of his and tell
me of all his conquests, but it was backfiring on him now. But I
had to give it to him. He was one persistent man. Persistent to the
point of being harassing if he’d had too much to drink. On more
than one occasion he had shown up at the same club or dance, gotten
right pickled and tried to bodily haul me out with him. Thankfully,
I never went out alone and usually had a few guys in the group.
Shawn was not his biggest fan. But instead of telling him his
personality sucked, I went on to give him the same excuse as every
other time. I was way too nice.

“Dave, I told you. It would be too
weird if we hooked up after I was with Chris for so
long.”

He shrugged and left it at that. Until
the next time, I knew.

He chugged his beer and got up to get
another.

I breathed a sigh of relief when he
didn’t come back to our table.

“What a jackass,” muttered
Shawn.

I smiled. “Yeah. That, he
is.”

I finished my beer and got up. “Well,
I’d better head home. I’ll see you tomorrow, Shay.”

“See you!”

I hopped into the truck and headed
home.

When I got there, a note from my
parents on the kitchen counter let me know that they had gone out
with some friends and would be home late.

I started thinking about my plans to
get my own apartment this summer. It definitely was going to be a
big change from living at home. My best friend, Tara, had offered
that I move in with her and her boyfriend, Ben. It would have been
a lot cheaper to share costs, but the reason I wanted out of my
parent’s place was so I could be alone. Tara and I had been friends
for quite a few years. She had moved here at the beginning of grade
ten, I had been in grade nine.

I remembered how I had been sitting out
in the school yard during lunch hour. I had my art pad and was
working on a drawing of a horse jumping over a fence.

“You like horses?”

I had jumped at the voice coming from
behind me. I nodded shyly at the blond girl.

“I have a mare. Her name is Foxy. Do
you jump?”

“No. I rein. I have a little bay named
Dodge.”

“Nice! I rein too. I just moved here.
Foxy should get here this weekend. I’m keeping her at the arena
just north of town.”

I smiled. “That’s where I keep
Dodge.”

We had immediately hit it off and had
been best friends ever since.

I headed up to my room, turned the
radio on, and settled at my desk to work on my most recent drawing
of a horse. After staring at my paper for a good ten minutes I
turned the page on my art pad. My pencil came to rest on the paper
as I tried to figure out what I wanted to draw. I started with one
tree, then another, until soon a forest was appearing on my page.
Through that forest ran a trail and at the end of the trail was a
hill.

I stopped. I had never drawn from
memory before. I put the pencil back on the paper on top of the
hill. Yet here my memory failed. I remembered his eyes so blue they
could have been filled with the sky. The rest was a
blank.

Had he been handsome? I’m pretty sure
he hadn’t been naked! I would have remembered that! So what had he
been wearing?

The intensity of his stare was
impossible to get right. I sat and stared at my page a bit longer
and decided I wasn’t going to remember any more details tonight. I
slipped into my sweats and a t-shirt and went to bed.

*****

He lay with his arms behind his head
and looked up into the darkening sky. A frog croaked to his left.
He tensed at the sound then chuckled to himself. What was wrong
with him, he wondered. He had stood at the top of the hill and
looked down on the girl, unable to move. It was her eyes. They were
unbelievable. It was like they had been peering into his very
being. He had been caught in her gaze. Trapped. The urge to go down
to her had been overwhelming. But she had blinked and he had been
able to regain control of himself, to get off the path and out of
sight.

He had heard that it could be like
that. Getting thrown off balance by a look. He groaned at the
memory. The urge to go to her. To look deeply into those
mesmerizing eyes and watch their reaction if he were to press his
lips against hers.

A heavy feeling settled on his chest
and he stretched to get rid of it. Maybe he should have gone to see
her. What if she didn’t come back?

A growl made its way up his throat and
he shook his head. She’d be back. If that look had had anywhere
near the impact on her as it had on him, she would be
back.

Stick to the plan, he thought to
himself. If it could really be considered a plan.

*****

I woke up Saturday morning around seven
thirty just like every morning. I could smell coffee brewing
downstairs which meant my dad was up.

“Morning, Hayden”

“Morning, Dad.” I popped some raisin
bread into the toaster. “How was poker night?” I asked as I poured
myself a cup of coffee and stirred in some sugar and
cream.

“Not bad. Steve cleaned up as usual,”
he chuckled. “But your mom surprised us and actually won a few
hands!”

My mom poked her head into the kitchen
and grinned. “I told you. I always knew how to play. I was just
letting you guys win!” She gave my dad a playful shove with her hip
as she walked by him.

My toast popped up and I quickly moved
them to the counter before they could burn my fingers.

“I’m going to the arena for the day.
Dale is having a lesson this morning and I want to work on lead
changes with Lena. She’s giving a bit of trouble with the left one
and I’m hoping he can give me a hand. Then Shaynna is going to meet
me out there and we’re going to the bridge for a
picnic.”

Dad nodded. “Sounds good. Will you be
home for supper?”

I shook my head. “We’re all going to
Tara’s tonight to watch movies. If it gets too late I’ll just crash
there.”

“Ok, honey. Have fun. Let us know if
you decide to spend the night there.”

I nodded and started throwing a lunch
into a bag. “Will do, Mom.”

The arrangement I had with my parents
was a great one. My rent was cheap and as long as they knew where I
was, they really didn’t care too much what I was doing. Some of my
friends thought it funny that I would phone and let them know if my
plans had changed, but I thought it was the least I could do. They
did let me stay with them after all, their way of ensuring I wasn’t
a totally starving student.

I ran upstairs and jumped into my
wranglers and a khaki green tank top then headed out the
door.

“Bye, mom. Bye, dad.”

“Hayden, your cell phone!” My dad
tossed it to me. I clipped it to my belt.

“See ya!”

I checked the clock on my dash as I
started my truck. Nine o’clock.

“Perfect timing.”

I rolled up to the arena ten minutes
later. John, the barn’s manager, was having coffee in the cafeteria
with the two stable hands, Carl and Steve.

“Hey, guys!”

“Hey, Hayden.” John smiled. He was a
short, thick man in his sixties with a full head of white
hair.

“John, do you mind if I put my lunch in
the fridge?”

“Nope. Go ahead.”

“Thanks. Is Dale here yet?”

“Not yet. But he said something about
having the lesson outside if it was nice. Tara and Ben are already
out there.”

“Ok. See you later!” I headed to the
barn and made my way to Dodge’s stall. I took down the note I had
left for John asking him to keep Dodge in this morning.