“I can help you with that,” Lake replied cheerily.
“Sure!” I pointed at where I had moved some equipment. “Can you get the standards, the posts, and put two in the middle there. They should have the cups on them.”
Lake came in through the gap between the horizontal parts of the fence and walked briskly to do as I’d asked.
“Cups are the bits that hold the…the poles?” he asked as he hauled the wooden standards to where I pointed.
“Yeah. If you put them on the third pin holes from the bottom, that would be a good starting point for us.”
I did the cavaletti while he worked, and Ursula kept glancing at the jump Lake was putting together.
“She wants to jump so bad.” Lake chuckled when she almost stumbled on our last run over the cavaletti as she forgot to pick up her feet.
“Oh yeah.” I let her stretch her neck again for a bit, but keeping her calm was impossible.
“Come on, Ursula, show us what you got!” Lake ran back to the fence, but stayed inside.
As if she’d understood, the mare collected herself and waited for me to get on with the program. I patted her neck, gathered the reins, and turned her to a nice, collected trot, away from the jump.
“I won’t let her jump unless she stops putting pressure on my hand,” I spoke calmly.
“Makes sense. Not rewarding her for rushing.”
“Yup.”
River joined us, coming to the fence. “Hey.”
“Theo is jumping with Ursula,” Lake explained enthusiastically.
His best friend and I exchanged a fond smile. I liked these guys already. I hoped nothing would happen to spoil this.
The thought of the three months having just started made me hopeful.
I shook the thought from my mind and turned Ursula toward the little jump.
“Let’s show them what you got, girl.”
Chapter 9
Lake
Getting to hang out with River was the best. We hadn’t had much time for that in New York, because of our conflicting schedules.
The morning we spent in Joliet was some of the best times we’d had in a while.
“Are you sure that’s enough?” River asked sarcastically, one sculpted eyebrow raised.
I picked another packet of ramen off the shelf and put it in my basket. “Yes. This is enough.”
“Good.” He turned around to go look at something else. “Wouldn’t want to go overboard with this, after all. Might make him think you like him or something.”
I stopped and examined my basket. There were four different packets in there with my other purchases. There were another five back in the car.
River noticed I wasn’t following him and walked back to me. He put his hand on my arm.
“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it.” His tone was gentle, cautious even.
I was far from admitting to even myself that I could see myself getting…infatuated with Theo. I kept my gaze on the ramen and fiddled with the corner of one of the packets, not sure if I should put it back or not.
