Six
Cammie
I’d discovered the ‘Ride Back’project when I was sixteen, and had to do an essay in school about a charity that meant a lot to me.
I’d been a brat. A spoiled rich kid who knew that she could have whatever her heart desired, just not her father’s respect, so I’d spent his money like it was going out of style.
That Papa could handle. Giving me love was too much hard work. Buying me Chanel purses like they were holding a 'closing down' sale was well within his limitations.
I hadn’t given a shit about anything, hadn’t even given a crap about my grades, but then, I’d stumbled upon a charity that was only a half-hour drive from our house. When I was a kid, Mama had taken us horseback riding, but just like parental love, that had died with her.
Finding that charity had been pure happenstance. I was threatened with after-school detention for a month if I failed to hand in any other projects after weeks of completing no homework, so I’d done a rudimentary Google search, my intention to write a twenty-word essay—most of those words being the charity’s address.
Then, I’d visited the site.
That was when something had clicked with me.
The ‘Ride Back’ project was a way of getting disabled kids, vets, seniors, and at-risk teenagers onto a horse’s back. For strength and agility training, but also to help them be a part of a group. It was a form of therapy that was proactive, and horses were angels sent from above. Always understanding, always willing to listen, and far more affectionate than most people knew.
I could have done my research online for my essay, instead, I’d visited in person.
For the remaining months of that year, and all throughout Senior year, I’d gone to the stables to volunteer at least three times a week.
The horses, not even my sisters, had been what I missed the most when I was in West Orange.
So near to them, yet so far.
In the early days, when I hadn’t been under the Sinners’ protection, the urge to visit them had been strong, but I hadn’t dared risk coming to my father’s attention. Instead, I’d tried to stop missing my four-legged friends—spoiler alert, I never had—and I’d worked my butt off at the local cafe to make ends meet, pulling shifts at a nearby bar in the evenings until late. Back then, the Sinners’ MC hadn’t owned their own bar, so when they weren’t at the clubhouse, that was their local.
That was where I’d met Nyx.
That was where my life had changed, and not exactly for the better.
The only joy in this interminable situation I found myself in was the horses.
As I ran a hand over Terry’s head, the Palomino’s long lashes fluttered slightly as I whispered, “I brought my baby a treat.”
The dry, yet somehow wet, raspy, but somehow soft, mouth brushed across my palm as I held out a couple of sugar cubes. The sensation tickled, making the sore flesh there stir to life as the rigid cubes rubbed against the Band-Aids that were already starting to wrinkle and rise up from my skin.
My back pocket was loaded with treats—Band-Aids too—but not just for Terry, for all my favorites—all twenty of the horses stabled here, each one a retired racehorse the program had rescued.
On the ride over, I’d stopped off to grab some carrots, apples, and sugar cubes because I was a sucker for these beauties.
Terry neighed softly, his head butting my chest, nuzzling into me like he remembered me from before.
I wanted to think that he did, but I’d been gone a long time, and these guys had so many people on their backs.
Was it stupid to want to be special to a horse?
Was it stupid to want to be special to someone?
Teeth tugging on my bottom lip, I ran my nose along Terry’s, then murmured, “Let’s get you ready... after I hand out my goodies.”
I hadn’t meant to time it this way, because I had no problem with mucking out stalls, but I’d arrived just after the stablehands had finished up so my time here today would be a lot less stinky than usual.
I wasn’t a regular volunteer.
Father, with the obvious aim of buttering me up so I’d marry his prick of a Sovietnik without too much of a fuss,ha, had reinstated my allowance, all of which I’d plowed into the charity who needed it more than I did.