Horse Crazy Read online

  "I'm Leslie, the barn manager. Derrick will be out soon to get the lesson started, but first, who would like to go on a tour of the facility with me?" Lots of hands went up, most of them from the kids, but adults were intent on going too, it seemed, and Kristen grabbed my hand.

  "Mom! Can I go too?" she asked me, nearly crushing my hand between hers.

  "Of course."

  "Will you come too?"

  I shook my head. "No, thanks. I'll see it another time. You go enjoy yourself and keep out of trouble."

  "Promise I will!" She darted off the bleachers with most of the people that had been on them. I watched her go until she disappeared around the side of a barn before digging my phone out of my purse and checking my emails.

  It wasn't more than five minutes later when I heard someone sit down beside me. I ignored them since I was intent on reading an email from my ex-wife about how I'd ruined her life and stolen her best years. It was the same usual crap from her that I didn't ever let Kristen know about.

  "Hey."

  He had a sexy voice with just the right amount of country in it to make me turn my attention from the email over to him. He was around my age, soft wrinkles around his eyes giving away his years. A baseball cap over his face hid the color, but I could see his smile just fine from the shadow beneath the brim. I smiled back, my own much more hesitant than the wide grin he was giving me.

  "Hi," I replied, not wanting to be rude but not accustomed to being spoken to all that much either. I kept to myself and knew from the way his gaze went over me that he wasn't simply saying hey to be friendly, though there might have been plenty of that as well.

  "Do you have a kid in the group?" he asked me.

  I nodded. "A girl. Kristen. You?"

  He shook his head. "Nope."

  I was instantly suspicious of a grown man that would come to watch a bunch of teenagers ride around on horses when he didn't have one himself. "So... then why are you here?" I probed.

  His smile never faltered. "Did you go through the barn? There's a beautiful gray mare there. She's new."

  "The dark rose gray?" I remembered my daughter calling a horse that, and from the way he winked at me I figured I'd guessed right. I hadn't forgotten that he'd evaded my question, though. "Do you often come to watch teenagers when you don't have one?" I asked him flat out, letting my implication show in my tone.

  His cheeks darkened and his smile slipped a bit. "Uh..."

  "Derrick! Um. Mr. Masters!"

  I turned at the sound of Kristen's voice to see who she was addressing and was surprised to see her running toward me. She fit herself between me and the man beside me, but instead of turning to talk to me, I was looking at the back of Kristen's hair as she spoke to the man I had been talking to.

  "Mr. Masters?" I asked him over my daughter's shoulder.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  I felt a bit foolish but let it go easily enough. "Melody Daniels, and this is my daughter, Kristen."

  "I've read your book and seen videos of your clinics online. I'm a huge fan!" Kristen said as she bounced on the bleacher.

  Mr. Masters, Derrick, as I decided to call him in my head, moved his attention from me to Kristen seamlessly. "Have you, now? Which video was your favorite?"

  "The one where you got the Arabian colt to cross over the bridge. That was seriously cool. Will you teach us how to do that today? I would seriously love to learn. I bet it's hard. But you made it look so easy. You're just awesome. Can I have your autograph?" Kristen prattled on, hardly pausing to take a breath.

  Derrick looked up at me, and I gave him a little shrug. Kristen was my kid and I adored her, but I was glad I never had to be on the receiving end of one of her crazy fan moments. Still, it was more than a little cute to see her so worked up about something she apparently loved.

  "We won't be learning that today, it was a bit hard. And I'll sign whatever you want after the lesson, which should be starting right about now. Want to come down with me?" Derrick asked her as he got to his feet.

  Kristen jumped up as well, and I gave her a little wave as she took off again toward an arena where the kids were gathered with Leslie.

  "It was nice to meet you, Melody," Derrick said once Kristen was out of earshot.

  I smiled up at him. "You too. And thanks for being patient with her. You're a bit of an idol to her."

  His cheeks darkened again, and he looked away from me. "Never been someone's idol before. How's it work?" I shrugged. I didn't have an answer for him as I'd never experienced it either. "Are you staying for the lesson?" he asked me.

  "I am."

  Derrick smiled at me and started walking backwards off the bleachers. "Good. I'll find you after."

  I had no idea what for, as I had already paid in full for the lesson package, but I nodded anyway. "I'll be here."

  He gave me a little wave before turning toward the group, and I watched him go, unable to help but notice how the ratty jeans he was wearing fit over his butt.

  "He is so cute," I heard one of the women behind me say with a sigh.

  I smiled to myself. He was attractive and he'd come up to talk to me, and he had stayed even after I'd basically called him a perv. Having positive male attention was a strange new experience for me, and I was finding that I liked it a lot.

  The first lesson was an introduction, and I could see that Kristen was disappointed that they hadn't gone off to climb mountains to race or something more extreme like that. But I was glad he'd started the kids off slow, especially when one kid had tried to get on the horse he'd been given to brush when he thought no one was looking. Teenagers could, and likely would, test an adult's patience. Kristen pushed her boundaries all the time and from what I could see, aside from being a fangirl to Derrick, she was one of the better behaved teens in the group, which, in its own way, was a bit sad since it meant that the rest of them were being little devils. I got to be the envy of the other moms again, though, when Derrick personally walked Kristen up to me in the bleachers at the end of the lesson.

  "You're filthy and smiling so I guess you had fun, huh?" I teased Kristen when she bounded up to me.

  "Oh yeah." We shared a quick grin before I rose to greet Derrick.

  "Thank you," I said as he joined us.

  His smile was back in full force. "Sure thing. Will you be here next week?"

  I nodded. "Kristen will."

  "But will you?" he pressed.

  I heard Kristen gasp from behind me and tilted my chin a bit as I considered him. "Yes." Up to that point, I hadn't really decided, and part of me had really been thinking that I would just drop Kristen off and go back home to read a book. But with Derrick asking me and looking like my answer could make or break his afternoon, I couldn't say no to an expression like that.

  "Are you busy tonight?" Derrick asked me as I started heading down the bleachers with Kristen right behind me. I could tell she had questions. She hummed when she wanted to say something but wasn't supposed to, and right now I was listening to some pop song hummed under her breath.

  I stopped and looked at him from my place on the ground beside the bleachers. He was still standing on them and came down as well, which put us at eye level. He must have been at least six-five because my heels made me about that tall. If he was surprised by the similarity in our height, or by having a woman be as tall as him, he didn't say any of the stupid comments I was expecting.

  "Are you asking me out?" I asked him. His eyes were green. I could see that now, and they were nearly the same color as an emerald pendant I'd bought myself when the divorce was finalized. It was sad that I'd wanted a celebration present to mark the end of a marriage to someone I'd really cared about once. But my ex had really shown herself to be a horrible person in the wake of our split.

  He gave me a crooked smile, showing me where one of his teeth was cracked. I wondered how that had happened and if Kristen had years of dental work to look forward to if she continued riding. I certainly hoped not. "Maybe," he admitted
.

  I smiled as well. It hid some of my nervousness. This situation was new to me, and I wasn't quite sure how it was supposed to happen. I hadn't been asked out since high school and didn't remember even the basics. "You don't even know if I'm married, Mr. Masters."

  His smile slipped a bit. "Are you?"

  "She's not," Kristen answered for me.

  Derrick's grin turned cocky. "Then please? Go out with me?"

  "Sure," I said, surprising myself by my willingness to try something new.

  "Seven tonight? There's a bar not too far down the road."

  I nodded and took Kristen's hand. "I'll be ready. My address is on my daughter's application for lessons. Bye now, Derrick."

  "See you tonight, Melody."

  I tried not to stumble as Kristen and I walked back to my car. All right, so I had a date. I could handle that. Couldn't I? I really wished that I didn't feel like a teenage girl right about then as I got into the car and Kristen slid in next to me.

  "Oh em gee, Mom!" she shrieked as I pulled away from the barn and started heading home.

  "Yeah. Oh em gee." I scrunched up my face, hating the way Kristen's vocabulary sounded coming from me. From the roll of her eyes, I was sure she'd heard the weirdness too. "You have homework to do when we get home," I told her sternly. I was trying to think past the nerves in my stomach to make sense of what had just happened. So, I had a date. People dated all the time. I didn't, but I knew that other people did.

  "No, I don't."

  "Read a book, then."

  She made a face, but apparently her annoyance was short-lived, as she started tapping on her knee. "What are you going to wear?"

  I shrugged. I hadn't thought that far ahead.

  "Do you think you'll tell him?"

  Her voice had gone soft, and I frowned as I glanced over at her. "I don't know, boo. I hadn't really considered that at all. But right now it's just a date, and that's not something people bring up on the first date."

  She nodded, and I was glad to have the topic dropped because, really, I didn't know when I should tell someone that I was different than the other women they'd dated. It wasn't something that had ever come up before, and though I wanted to pretend that part of my life wasn't a big deal, I knew most people on the planet would care about what I'd gone through. Or, at the very least, a man would want to know that the woman they had asked out used to have a different set of anatomy. It was crude, but that was where my mind was when I pulled up to our little house in the perfect little town I'd thought would be the answer to everything and parked in the daffodil-lined driveway.

  "You look scared," Kristen said as I turned off the car.

  I tried to go for a smile, but it didn't really work, so I figured she was old enough to hear the truth. "I am, baby."

  She scrunched her face. "Why?"

  I turned in the seat and picked a piece of hay out of her hair. "Because I don't know what the right thing is here. Going on a date, as a woman, is a completely new experience for me. And coming here was supposed to be our big beginning. What if I tell him and he turns out to be a horrible person and makes our lives miserable here? We just moved. I don't want to pack up again. You don't deserve that, and I'm lazy." We shared a smile and I kissed her on the forehead.

  "Well, if he's a jerk you should kick him in the balls."

  I laughed and shook my head. "Why would I do that?"

  Kristen shrugged and popped out of the car. "That's what you used to tell me to do if some boy gave me trouble. It worked for me when I was ten."

  I hadn't known anything about that. "Do I want to know what happened?"

  Her smile grew. "Probably not. But he did ask me out. Boys are weird."

  That was something we could both absolutely agree on.

  *~*~*

  Half an hour before Derrick was supposed to show up, I was still standing in front of my closet wondering what the hell I was supposed to wear. Clearly it wasn't just the silicon body suit I had on that would give me a hint of the curves I desperately wanted. But should I go for a skirt and a blouse? A dress? I'd considered, briefly, simply wearing the red one I'd had on because, wow, it was delicious, but no. A date meant changing my clothes, and there was my dilemma.

  What did women wear for dates in this tiny town? I closed my eyes and randomly put my hand on something. I peeked and decided that I needed a redo. By the third time, I chose to stick with what I'd grabbed, and when the doorbell rang, I was pulling up the zipper on a lovely cream-colored dress that had a ring of handmade lace around the hem. It was one of the most expensive things I owned, and I loved it. I chose flats over heels, mostly because I didn't want to bring attention to my height while we were out, and walked down the stairs to where Derrick and Kristen were talking. I felt like I had when I had gone to prom, and that nervous fear was not exactly welcome tonight.

  "Aw! You look so pretty!" Kristen said, giving me a smile and fluffing out the back of my hair.

  "Thanks, baby." I caught Derrick looking at my butt when I bent over to kiss Kristen on her cheek. I didn't mind. "You be good. Stay inside. Call me if you need anything."

  Kristen rolled her eyes. "We just moved here. I need another week or two to get into trouble."

  "I mean it."

  "Yeah, yeah. Bye, Mom!"

  I followed Derrick outside while Kristen was still waving to us, and he opened the door of an old truck for me to get in. It was well restored and smelled of leather polish. I liked that he took care of it since the model was a good fifty years old or more and deserved a bit of love.

  "You really do look nice," Derrick told me as he started up the truck and pulled away from the house.

  "Thank you."

  "I'm glad you decided to come out with me."

  I smiled at him. "Me too."

  Minutes later, we were in front of a bar, and though my first date nerves had quickly left, what remained was a feeling of dread. These were the kinds of places a girl like me tended to avoid, and I'd read horror stories online about what guys that frequented bars like this thought of a trans woman. But I smiled anyway and got out of the truck when Derrick came to get my door.

  "You're really tall," he commented with a smile.

  My own smile faltered a bit. "Uh. Good genes, I guess." I gave him a little shrug and added a giggle for good measure.

  "I like it. This way, when I kiss you, I don't have to hurt my neck."

  I smirked. "You think you're getting a kiss already?"

  "Maybe." He gave me a wink and took my hand to lead me into the bar. I liked that he was confident, that he'd asked me out without knowing if I was with someone or not, that he already thought he'd be kissing me. It made him cute and cocky, and I knew that I could use a bit of that in my life at times. He led me through the crowded bar over to a couple of stools. Eighties rock music blared around us, and he ordered a beer when the bartender came up to us.

  "What're you drinkin', hun?" she asked me.

  My mind went blank for a moment. What was a girl supposed to order? Because that beer Derrick ordered sounded really good. "Cosmo," I ventured. She nodded to us both, and I turned to watch the people dancing while Derrick started swaying beside me. "Do you come here a lot?" I asked him.

  "Are you asking whether or not this is my normal spot to bring girls?" he countered.

  My uneasy smile turned into a full on grin and I laughed. "I hadn't thought of it, but now I want to know."

  "No."

  "To which question?" I asked him, my voice hardly audible over the loud music.

  He turned to me, and though I was sitting, he began taking my hands as if he meant to dance with me. While I enjoyed the feel of his calloused fingertips against my hands, he rocked his hips in time with the music. "I like coming here. The music is nice and there aren't too many other places to get some local Colorado beers. But no, I don't bring a lot of women here. A few, over the years, but no one recently."

  "Then why me?" I asked him, wondering why he thought I
'd like it here.

  He smiled and let go of me long enough to pull off his baseball cap. His hair was black and spiky, but only because it was so short and not due to copious amounts of gel, which I appreciated. "Thought you might like it. Want to go somewhere else?"

  He looked uncertain for the first time that evening, and I shook my head. "No. Here's good."

  Our drinks came and I sipped what I figured was a cosmo. I needed to remember that I didn't like them, and after one sip I was eyeing Derrick's drink enviously. I should have ordered a beer. I didn't know why I'd thought I couldn't look like a lady drinking from an amber bottle instead of a frou-frou glass. I put my drink down and took a sip of his beer while his back was turned. It was as crisp and hoppy as I'd expected.

  "Want to dance?" he asked me when he turned back around.

  I'd dreamed of dancing with a guy, but that was something I figured might happen some point years down the line at Kristen's wedding, not on a first date with a cute guy whose butt looked awesome in a pair of jeans. I nodded, eagerly getting off the stool and glad I'd worn flats. He put some money down on the bar, and we made our way into the mess of people already on the well-worn dance floor. I let the music come over me and put my hands up as I started to dance. Without asking, Derrick put his hands on either side of my waist. The music pumped around us, and though there were people, they didn't run into us like I'd feared.

  An hour later, needing some water, and unable to stop laughing, Derrick and I headed back to the stools. We were holding hands. I should have seen it coming, given how forward he'd already been, but I didn't expect to find his mouth attached to mine while I was trying to sit down. He tasted like that yummy beer, and I put my arms behind his neck as he pulled me towards him at the edge of the stool. His hands went to my hips, and I opened my thighs for him, giving him room to come closer.