GRACE
Blake only let me have one day with the guys, but I guess that was okay since they had to work the next day anyway. Plus, I had Thomas Kingston coming to watch me ride.
With the help of Scott, I arrived early. Thank God. Ty had wanted to see how late he could make me.
I was already in the arena, warming up, when Thomas and Blake approached the fence. By the time I had finished my laps, Stefan Rossi was standing with them. Great. Now it was going to feel weird with everyone watching.
“Good morning,” I said as I made my way over to them.
“Good morning, Grace. You’ve met Stefan. He wanted to watch your session. I hope you don’t mind.” Thomas’ accent was a little thicker than Liam’s, with an English twist to it.
“I don’t mind at all,” I lied. “You should have joined the session. Blake really knows how to put people through their paces.” I laughed, trying to ease some of my tension.
“Isn’t that the truth.” Stefan smiled.
“But where would be the fun in watching you squirm?” Liam called as he approached the group. If any more people watched me ride, I was going to be sick. I could ride in front of a crowd of strangers, but a group of people I knew had me in knots. I really wanted to impress them. With any luck, the Kingstons could put in a good word with a team I applied for.
Okay. I’ve got this.
“Let’s go. Do you remember the pattern from the other day with you starting at the red bar?” Blake asked as she entered the arena with me.
“Sure.”
“Okay. Let me lower some of these and you can start with that pattern.”
We started off light and then pushed it hard at the end of the hour. Both Storm and I were drenched in sweat. We maxed out the jumps, and I was so damn proud of myself and Storm for his hard work. I was going to give him a good bubble bath after we finished.
“That was really good, Grace. Nice job today.” Stefan patted the gray gelding’s shoulder.
His praise felt amazing. It was nice to have someone say something other than critique to me. No one on my other team would have said that much. They would have started off with the compliment but then told me something that needed improvement.
“Thanks, but it was all Storm.” I stroked my horse’s neck.
“No, Grace. We can see you have a lot of talent. Don’t let anyone tell you different.” Thomas shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun. “Do you have any more news on what happened with your old trainer?”
My heart sank. I hadn’t heard anything. Not even a word from Brian, my old teammate who had let me compete on his horses. Before he left, he told me he would be in touch when he was settled, and we could discuss me joining him, but he never called.
“I haven’t heard anything new.” I couldn’t hide my frown.
They knew everything about what happened. Or at least I knew that Thomas and Liam did since Blake had told them. I wasn’t sure how much was shared with Stefan. The more people who knew I was dumped by a coach who basically robbed me and left me high and dry, the more embarrassed I became.
“Do you still have your contract you signed with Charlie?” Thomas asked.
I tilted my head at Thomas. I hadn’t realized he even knew my old trainer’s name. I hated to admit I was pretty awful about keeping my paperwork and contracts in order, but I was sure I still had it in an email. I had signed the last contract almost a year ago, and a copy was emailed to us annually when we were due to sign again for the next season.
I nodded. “I think I can find it.”
“Good. When you do, will you let me see it? I want to have Mikel comb through it. Maybe there is a way we can help.”
“You’d do that for me?” I fought the tears starting to blur my vision. The Kingstons were practically strangers and yet they were willing to put me up at their ranch, let Blake divide her duties to train me, and now they were trying to help me figure out if I had any recourse with my old coach.
“Of course, Grace. No one deserves what happened to you.” Stefan set a hand on my knee. “We don’t take that lightly here. We will help you in any way we can.”
“And the first step is to look over that contract. We need to know if there were any loopholes Charlie inadvertently put in there,” Thomas said.
“I’ll look for it right after I finish today and get it to you.” I was afraid to get my hopes up, but it would be so nice if they could find something that would nail Charlie in the balls. What he did wasn’t right. He screwed over my whole team. I might not be close to them all, but no one deserved to have to pick up the pieces like we did.
“Sounds good.” Thomas smiled. “I’m looking forward to seeing another one of your sessions.” With a wave, Thomas and Stefan left me with Liam and Blake.
“I think that went well.” Liam smiled and smacked my thigh.
I took my foot out of the stirrup and shoved him with my boot.