“I can talk to Pedro when he gets here. As for the ages, the horse has to be between two and three before they can race professionally. I, and this is just me, but I like to start riding them a little after they turn two, then enter them into a race at age three. Ideally, they race until nine or ten, then they retire, but if they are stallions, or even mares, they can breed after they retire. And.” She looked at him intently. “They can live to twenty-five to thirty years, just like any other horse.”
He nodded, and they sat there in silence, lost in their own thoughts until they called it a night.
CHAPTER 16
Two days later,Faith and Shay walked into Cole’s office and smiled when he jumped to his feet with a grin on his face.
“Welcome back!”
“Thanks,” they answered at the same time.
“Everything work out?”
“Yes, I packed up what I wanted, left some furniture and the kitchen appliances, then listed the house with a realtor. She’s having an open house this weekend. I’ll know more after that.”
“Good, good. Now, Shay, can you work?”
“Probably. I know I can muck out stalls, but I don’t think I can lift the wheelbarrow and move that when it’s full. Only because that would cause me to use my knee more than mucking out the stalls.”
“Do you think the doctor will let you?”
“What’s she going to say or do? She’s over in Colorado Springs, while I’m here. Cole, I’m a big boy, I know my limitations. I’m here to do a job. I might be slower than before, but that won’t be for long.” He laughed. “I promise to leave the brace on until I see the doctor.”
“Okay, then you can go back to doing what you did before you were injured.”
“What do you want me to do?” Faith asked as she watched Shay walk away, without a limp, only stiffness from the brace. She looked back at Cole and frowned at his grin. “What?”
“See that stack of files?”
“Yes, what about them?”
“Those are the records of all the horses here. The one with green dots next to their name are the ones that need to be started on the track. I’ll let you read through them, get the feel for them, then work out a schedule between you and Pedro. Thank you for having him call us, by the way. Noomi and I were at our wit’s end trying to figure out what we were going to do. I’ve seen Pedro train before, and he was our number one choice, but like I said, I thought he had left the country.”
“He did, only to take his parents back to Spain, he said he bummed around there for a couple of years, but he didn’t feel any connection to the place. He was born here, in America.”
“Ah, got it. Now, he’ll be here within the next two weeks.”
“These files will take a couple of days for me to read. Do you have a separate office I can work in? I’m also going to want some sort of whiteboard mounted on the wall so we can write the horses and their stats down for everyone to see.”
“Come with me,” Cole said and stood, but he picked up the first, taller stack of files, and she picked up the rest.
Faith followed him and nodded when she entered a room that was well lit, had two entire walls covered with whiteboard, and there were two card tables and four chairs.
“We’ll have to get you and Pedro a proper desk later.”
“This will do for now, thanks.” She put the files down, and laughed when she saw a makeshift shelf on the other side of the room that held a coffee pot. “I’m good.”
“I’ll leave you to it then.” Cole set his files down, and walked out. As she made a pot of coffee and waited for it to perk, she walked around the room and found several differentcolored markers for the whiteboard, a file cabinet, supplies for the coffee, and a stack of pads of paper, and a box of pens. With a full cup of coffee, she settled in to read. As she worked, she walked between the desk and wall to make up a list of the horses and their attributes. She was in her glory, as she got to know the horses on paper. She took a week to go through every piece of information that had been written about the animals before she would go out to interact with them.
On Saturday night,as they cleaned up from their supper, Faith turned to find Shay watching her intently. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Stop, as far as I know we’ve never lied to one another before. Don’t start now.”
Shay jerked then chuckled. “Okay, you’re right. I do have something on my mind.”
“Then say it.”
