"Wanna race home?” Gerry asked.
“Gerry, that’s a bad habit to allow horses but…” I dug my heels into my muscled-up Appaloosa Mo and was gone before I finished my sentence. Stirring up a cloud of dust behind me, I could hear Gerry and his horse Doc gaining on me and before long, he had raced past me and left me in a cloud. I rode up on the side of the road, out of the stirred-up white dust and realized that I wasn’t that far behind my husband and his beautiful, beefy Quarter Horse. I loved watching them run and I rarely got to see it from this view; from behind.
I thought I would let him win one and I pulled up next to him, looking casual as our horses ran stride for stride back to the barn, Tommy and Dovie on our heels. As the barn came into sight, of course the horses wanted to run faster, but I pulled Mojave up to a canter and Gerry raced by me, eventually pulling up well before reaching the point of no return on a barn-soured horse.
I came alongside him as he let his horse stand and he asked, looking disgusted, “Did you let me win, Mare?”
“You always win, Gerry,” I smiled, and he shook his head. Not once in all our races had he ever won, even when we traded horses. It wasn't about skill, but I think it was getting to him.
“How can I ever win?” he asked.
“By taking me roughly in the barn?” I answered as my horse circled his. Gerry stopped moving and looked at me hard, thinking it over, no doubt. The problem was, we had cowboys and a few of them were probably in the barn.
“Are you trying to lure me with your purple prose?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Take me roughly somewhere, Gerry.” I slid off my horse as Noah, the head horseman strode over to me out of the barn, taking my reins. My dog Dovie was on my heels as I walked toward the house. And so was Gerry.
Copyright 2022 © All rights reserved. Excerpt from Resurrection: The Dark Chambers of Gerry Frey’s Heart by Mare Loch.
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