The Farm Hand Read online

  THE FARM HAND

  Katie Cole

  Copyright © 2019 Katie Cole

  This edition published 2019

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  Jacket Design by Kate Hall

  Interior Design by Kate Hall

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Isabel

  Isa is finally finished with University. It’s been a long time coming, but she’s really and truly done. Her apartment is packed, her belongings on a truck headed to the house she grew up in, and she has nothing left to do but go home. Her parents have decided that it’s time for her to learn everything about the family business now that she has her degree. Not the horse side, riding and cleaning stalls, which she’s well-versed in, but the connections and sales and paperwork.

  She sighs as she climbs into her Volkswagen Beetle, an old teal monstrosity that sputters to life faithfully. She should sell it and get something newer, but her parents gave her this to fix up when she was eighteen, and, for the most part, it’s survived the four years since.

  Before driving home, she’s supposed to meet Ursi for an early supper at the American restaurant near campus in Münster, Germany. With the kitschy decor and fried scent, Isa likes to imagine that she’s sitting in a bar in New York or Los Angeles when she’s there. It’s not like she’ll ever be able to spend more than a few days in the States, so this is as close as she’ll have. A tiny restaurant in Münster.

  “Isaaa!” Ursula screams, her blonde ponytail bouncing around as she jogs up to Isa’s car. Isa pulls the parking break and climbs out, pulling her friend in for a tight hug. Tears prick at her eyes. No, she’s not going to cry. Arnsberg isn’t far from Münster, not by a long shot, so she can come visit whenever she wants. Ursi can even take the train, although Isa will have to pick her up from the station, as no buses come all the way out to the farm.

  Ursi leads her into the restaurant, their arms intertwined. Ever since Ursi showed up at Münster, they’ve been inseparable. This will be the first time they’ve been apart, really apart, in three years.

  “This is so exciting!” Ursi says after they’ve ordered. “You’re finished, and you’ll be working for real now!”

  Isa smiles halfheartedly. It’s not that she doesn’t want to stay at her parents’ renowned horse farm, it’s just that she doesn’t feel ready. Because once she’s taken over, she’ll be in Germany the rest of her life but for small work-related trips. Trapped.

  “Hey,” Ursi says, putting her hand over Isa’s on the ugly tablecloth. Even the terrible decor doesn’t cheer Isa up today. “It will be fine. You’re going to do great. Besides, aren’t your parents renting out the guest apartment? Maybe a sexy man will stay and you can get to know him.” Her winks are exaggerated, finally forcing a laugh out of Isa.

  Isa imagines it for a moment, a summer romance to help her through her woes, then shakes the thought away. She doesn’t want romance. She wants to travel, to see the world before it’s too late.

  “It’s going to be fine, Isa,” Ursi says after a moment of silence. “You’ll see. And I’ll come visit you all the time. You can teach me to ride horses.”

  Isa nods, but she can’t bring herself to crack a smile. It’s going to be fine, she repeats over and over again.

  They eat their burgers in near silence, Ursi easily sensing Isa’s foul mood. When they’re finished, Isa pays. She’s a real adult now, with a real job, so it’s only right.

  Except moving back in with her parents and being stuck in that house for the rest of her life doesn’t feel so much like freedom.

  They part ways after Isa drives Ursi back to the apartment they’ve shared for two years, and Ursi gets on the autobahn, the needle on the speedometer climbing up as high as it can, although, in her vintage car, that isn’t all that fast. The greenery and hills sooth her, and, before she knows it, she’s pulling into the long drive, the ancient stone house-slash-barn looming ahead of her. It’s been in her family since the Middle Ages, although it’s grown in size significantly over the past two hundred years or so, ever since their farm became one of the top breeding facilities in the nation.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Adam

  Dee eyes the horses warily, although there’s no possible way they could get to her from their stalls. Adam taps his leg gently to get her attention, and the blue merle Australian Shepherd turns her head up at him. He’s just as wary about being on a horse farm, but for different reasons. He hasn’t so much as touched a horse since leaving New York just before Christmas.

  “Your apartment is above the stable,” the middle-aged man, tall and fit, says in accented English. He’d picked Adam up from the train station this morning, and they’d made sparse conversation. In his few months in Germany, Adam has picked up quite a bit of German, but not enough to have a real conversation with someone. The whole time he’s been here, he’s mainly spoken to order food or check in to rooms. This is the final leg of his journey, a month-long stint where he’ll work on a horse farm in exchange for a tiny apartment.

  The balding man, Vinny, leads him up an ancient stone staircase. Adam has learned that a lot of the buildings in this country are made of stone, and he can’t help but wonder how many generations of footsteps have walked up these steps, through these buildings.

  The apartment is nicer than he expects, a studio with actual amenities. There’s even wifi here, an unexpected perk. Dee, accustomed to the constant moving, curls up on the rug and shuts her eyes, not even bothering to act like she cares about Vinny’s presence. She’d been just a puppy when Adam got her, belonging to a friend of a friend of his parents. His mom had gotten her as a graduation gift for Adam, and she’s been with him through everything. Now, she’s fully grown and the best behaved dog he’s ever seen.

  “Danke,” Adam says with a smile. He sets his bag on the dresser, leaving it as Vinny goes over every aspect of the apartment, explaining that there is no air conditioning, that the hot water takes a few minutes to work, that he shouldn’t open the windows because of bugs. Unlike an American home, there are no screens on the windows to keep bugs out of an open window. And in the springtime of the Westfalen region, there are bound to be plenty of bugs.

  Dee doesn’t react to the mini tour. The long train ride must have really worn her out, especially because she’d been required to wear the dreaded muzzle. Still, for half the ride, the young girl next to him hadn’t even realized she was there. The other half, the child had pet her.

  After the apartment tour, Vinny leads Adam downstairs to the barn. “Stay,” Adam tells Dee when she lifts her head, ears pricked forward. He feels bad about it, but he doesn’t know how she’ll respond to the horses since she hasn’t been around them in a while. Five months, in fact. Five months since he’d left his sister at their parents’ farm without looking back.

  The barn has i
ndoor stalls as well as outward-facing stalls, all made of wood inside intricate metal frames. All the houses he’s seen in Germany are ancient, and apparently some barns are, too. Adam wonders just how long these stalls have been here. The craftsmanship is like nothing he’s ever seen in barns in America.

  “My wife’s family has owned this farm for five hundred sixty-two years,” Vinny says as Adam’s fingers trace over some of the intricate metalwork. “We have managed it for thirty years, and our daughter, Isabel, will be taking over soon. You will clean out the stalls and feed the horses. If needed, you will brush and tack horses for Jen, the trainer.”

  Adam nods seriously. These are fairly standard terms. He remembers giving a nearly identical tour for the hands his parents would hire during his teen years.

  “How many horses are on the property?” Adam asks, shoving his hands in his pockets as they stand at the giant barn door that leads behind the house, revealing rolling hills filled with perfect fences and even more perfect horses.

  Vinny frowns, considering. “We currently have fifty horses on the property. Some of these are boarding and training, but most are for our specialty breeding programs.”

  Adam lets out a low whistle. Fifty horses is a lot, even for most American horse ranches he’s been to, although he’s used to nearly a hundred head of Quarter Horses during foaling season.

  The rumble of a car causes them both to turn simultaneously, and Adam catches a smile on Vinny’s face.

  “That will be Isabel.” He hesitates, then looks Adam up and town. His mouth twists into a small frown. “You should leave her alone.”

  So overprotective fathers are an international thing. Adam gives a tight smile. “No problem,” he says.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Isabel

  Isa goes straight to her room when she arrives. Mom’s car isn’t here, and Dad is bound to be in the barn all day. Her room would be just how she left it if not for the stacks and stacks of boxes, most filled with books and clothes. The majority of her living supplies she’d left in the apartment—it’s not like she’ll need it here.

  Instead of unpacking, she lies on her bed, covering her face with her arm to block the waning sunlight. Is it really that late already?

  Within moments, she’s asleep.

  ***

  It’s early when she wakes, before dawn. The light streaming in through her window is pale blue, and she sits up, rubbing her eyes.

  Back home for one night and she’s back on farm time.

  She showers quickly and makes breakfast, leaving two of the remaining boiled eggs on the table under their knit warmers for her parents. The bacon and toast she covers on their own plates. Mom and Dad won’t be up for at least another hour, and she wants to get back to the thing she loves most.

  The instant she walks through the kitchen door into the barn, the warm, earthy smell of horses tells her she’s home. Really home.

  A dapple gray mare nickers at her lightly, and she rubs her thumb over her baby-soft nose. “Hello, Daisy,” she mumbles to the horse. Her horse. Throughout her time at University, she’s only had a couple of opportunities to come out, so Daisy has hardly seen her. Now, though, she can ride every day, just like she used to.

  She looks down the aisles of the stable. Nobody else is up. And they won’t be for a while. Since Dad has a new tenant in the barn’s apartment, her parents don’t have to be up so early to take care of the animals. She’ll be alone—or as close to it as possible—for a long while.

  She feeds Daisy a scoop of grain before going to the tack room and grabbing one of the grooming buckets, which contains a series of brushes and sprays. Daisy happily munches on her grain, and Isa gets to work brushing her.

  It’s clear within moments that Daisy has been brushed recently. When Isa checks the bottoms of her hooves to find them clean, she realizes it must have been last night. Had Dad groomed her in preparation for her return? She smiles and returns the brushes to the tack room. It’s been a while since she’s ridden, so she brings a halter and lead rope with her.

  In secondary school, Isa had spent her afternoons learning everything there was to learn about the sport of Reining, a prominent western riding event that involves a series of complex tricks. By the time she’d gone off to University, she’d been riding without tack at all, as Daisy had always hated wearing the bit in her mouth and having a tight girth around her. One of Isa’s riding videos had even gone viral when she was sixteen.

  Her heart races with anticipation as she leads Daisy into the indoor arena. All the jumps have been moved to the outside of the ring, and Isa scrambles onto Daisy’s back. The medium-sized mare just stands there, ears turned back to listen to Isa.

  Isa pats Daisy on the neck, then squeezes her legs. Daisy moves forward into an easygoing lope, and Isa’s body moves in sync. It’s almost like she was never gone. The cool morning air moves over her, and she closes her eyes. Sometimes, this place feels like a prison, but at this moment, she feels free.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Adam

  The sounds of hooves cantering on soft earth wakes Adam before his alarm. He sits up and stares out the window, but all the horses outside appear to be either grazing or sleeping. After a moment of processing and waking up, his mind finally places the sound beneath him.

  Someone is in the arena.

  Adam scrambles out of bed, turning off his alarm so it doesn’t go off and give him away. He gets dressed as quickly as possible, zipping his jeans and pulling on one of half a dozen black t-shirts. Dee follows him downstairs—with Vinny’s permission, he’d introduced her to the horses last night while he cleaned, and she’d totally ignored them.

  He almost trips down the pitch-black staircase, but he’s too afraid to turn the light on and spook the horse that must have gotten loose in the arena. Jen, the trainer, isn’t supposed to be in until seven, which is hours away. Dee beats him to the bottom, and he has to weave through the feeding room to get to the giant arena that sits on the ground below his apartment.

  When he gets there, he freezes. This couldn’t possibly be real.

  The gray mare Vinny had asked him to brush yesterday is in the arena. She isn’t wearing any tack, but she’s loping across the dark earth, a rider atop her shining back. None of the lights are on, and Adam has to blink a few times to figure out if he’s hallucinating or dreaming.

  But there’s no way he could dream up this creature.

  The girl atop the mare is lithe and graceful, her posture straight but not stiff. She moves with her horse, and Adam can’t trace the commands she must be using to prompt a dime turn or a sliding stop. Her long dark hair flows behind her like a flag, and she holds her hands out to her sides, almost like she’s flying as her horse sprints to the end of the arena, sliding to another stop before it can reach the wall. When the horse flips around and launches forward, the girl’s eyes shine, alight with excitement as she flies across the arena once again.

  When she takes the horse into a spin, though, he knows the exact moment that her eyes catch him standing, awestruck, in the sidelines. Her horse stops instantly, her sides heaving with breath but ears pricked with interest.

  After a moment of blatantly staring at her, Adam says, “You must be Isabel.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Isabel

  The young man standing in front of her is like a mirage, his dark clothing, hair, and beard hiding him in the shadows. Still, when she notices him standing there, she notices other things too, like the way his muscles strain against the fabric of his shirt, or the way he smiles at her as she asks Daisy to walk to him. Up close, he’s even more attractive, and her eyes trace over the veins that line his thick arms. When she looks up to his face, he’s still smiling at her, his eyes twinkling even in the dark.

  “Isa,” she says in response. Her parents are the only ones who call her Isabel, and they only use that when they’re speaking about her.

  “Isa,” he says, trying it out, but he says it like “Is-uh.” A
very American pronunciation that makes her cringe.

  She shakes her head and says it again, much slower. “Isa. Like Eess-uh.”

  He says it again, correctly this time. He’d spoken in English when he first walked in, and she tilts her head.

  “Are you American?” she asks, sticking to her native German. She can speak English very well, but this is a test.

  “Yes,” he replies, switching to German. “I’m from New York.” Switching back to English, he says, “I don’t know the word for ‘Upstate.’”

  She smiles. Well, at least he knows more than the last American she met, a fellow University student who flunked out because he’d refused to speak the language at all. He’d been alright in bed, but his overall attitude about her language had made him unworthy of her continued attention.

  “Do you ride horses?” she says, a little slower. If he’s trying, she doesn’t want to discourage him.

  He nods. “I used to compete. Reining, like you.” The only word he says in English is “reining,” and she corrects him. He tests the word, zügelnd, on his tongue, then smiles up at her. “Impressive,” she says, then turns Daisy around and leaves him to stare after her.

  She doesn’t have time for some American man, no matter how much he’s trying to speak the language or how attractive he is, like a movie star. At least the dog lying at his feet is cute.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Adam

  Zügelnd. He memorizes the word, testing it over and over the way he does with every new word he learns. While he mucks out the stalls throughout the morning, Adam also tests himself on different words. Pferd is easy. It means horse.

  The one word he avoids practicing is Isa. Because if he thinks her name, he’ll be repeating it all day. So instead, he cleans up stalls while the horses are out in the corral attached to the rear stall doors. When he gets to the stalls that are open to the front of the barn, he has to lead the horses individually to the pasture Vinny had instructed. This stuff is easy. In fact, it reminds him a lot of being back home, of taking care of his parents’ farm. Well, his sister’s farm. The thought sends ice coursing through him, and he has to avoid thinking about the slip of paper at the back of his wallet.