Storms Over Blackpeak Read Online Free PDF Page B

got to get him out, eh, Windy mate?’
    ‘What are you looking for?’ Cally asked, as Ash checked the rear hoof.
    ‘Nothing, really.’ Keeping close to Windy’s hindquarters, Ash moved around to his other side. ‘I’m just getting him used to me. He hasn’t been handled much for a while. Dad backed him last year, but he wants to bring him on slowly.’ Straightening, he grinned. ‘It’s my job to see how much of his training stuck.’
    Cally nodded. She had no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded very impressive.
    ‘Do you ride?’
    Cally smiled at the idea of herself on a horse. She had had the full set of My Little Ponies — did that count? ‘No,’ she told him.
    ‘You don’t like it?’
    ‘I’ve never tried.’
    ‘Never?’ Ash sounded shocked. ‘What, not even once?’
    Pondering the theoretically possible alternative universe in which a Lizzie-like mother had driven her to riding lessons in their gleaming SUV, Cally shook her head, smile deepening. ‘Not even once.’ For starters, her mother would have had to get off night shift.
    There was a silence. Appearing deep in thought, Ash lifted the saddle from the rail and placed it gently on Windy’s back. A brief shudder passed through the horse, but he stood quietly while Ash buckled the girth.
    ‘You know,’ Ash said, ‘riding can be pretty handy out here.’ He paused. ‘I could teach you, if you like.’ He picked up the bridle he’d hung on the post.
    ‘Really?’ She stared at him, stunned. ‘You could — I mean, you’d do that?’
    ‘Sure.’ He shrugged. ‘Why not?’
    Turning his full attention back to the horse, Ash spoke briefly and inaudibly into Windy’s ear before feeding him the bit. Smoothly, he slipped the bridle over the horse’s ears. Windy flattened them, snorted, champed at the metal in his mouth, and then appeared to decide it was all okay. Ash patted his neck.
    ‘It’s going to be pretty quiet here for the next few months,’ he said, looking over at Cally. ‘I could do with a winter project.’
    Well, it would make a change to have a guy like Ash try to teach her something. Usually it was the other way round. Maths, physics, chemistry — all through high school, she’d been an unpaid tutor of all those subjects and more to guys with great smiles who could carry a rugby ball better than a decimal point.
    Thoughtfully, she watched Ash secure Windy’s reins to the saddle and clip what looked like a very long lead to the bridle.
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘A lunge rein.’
    ‘What does it do?’
    Ash grinned. ‘It saves a few bones.’
    Cally frowned, mystified, as Ash led Windy back into the paddock. After the horse had obediently run — and walked, and jogged — circles around Ash at the end of the rein for fifteen minutes or so, Ash returned Windy to the yard, hitched his halter to the rail, and began to tack him down.
    ‘You’re not …’ Her brow furrowed further. ‘You’re not getting on?’
    ‘Not today.’ Ash glanced up at her with a smile. ‘But I think it’s about time you did.’
     
    Half an hour later, Cally found herself on horseback and heading up a dirt track into the hills, her mount securely tethered to Ash’s saddlebow. Behind her, she could still hear Windy, left alone, making noisy protest laps of the paddock. The chaos of dogs that had erupted when Ash opened their runs had settled into an orderly pack alongside, and although the rocky ground she could see passing below her still looked a long way down, Cally was getting over the idea that she was going to fall off for no reason. She did, however, feel more than usually clumsy and — well, burdensome. Watching Ash up ahead, she tightened her stomach, unclenched her shoulders, and tried to imitate the fluid way he occupied the saddle. From the moment he’d swung up there, he’d looked every inch Carr Fergusson’s son.
    Ash glanced back. ‘You’re a natural.’
    Yeah, right. Cally tried to remember if anyone had ever