That afternoon, Gigi was back at the Dartmoors’, helping out at the stables. This was after taking a shower, of course, and getting all of the straw out of her hair. She had meant to stay away forever but then thought better of it. In fact, the only thing that had made her come back was the thought of the majestic horse from the woods and the thought that one day she might be able to ride it.

Also, her parents had made her come.

Thankfully, Colton was not there when Gigi arrived or else Gigi might have been too embarrassed to stay. She still couldn’t believe that she had spent all night in the stables. And worse than that, Colton had found her in the morning in all her bed-headed glory. She didn’t think she could ever face him again, or at least not for a day or two.

Gigi’s afternoon ride helped to clear her mind. She was still on the old, slow horse, but she was getting better after many pointers from Ryder, and the thought of one day riding the majestic horse from the woods soon made her forget all about her embarrassing morning. Ryder even let Gigi do a lap all by herself since she had been doing so well.

After a slow but successful solo lap around the lake, Gigi headed back towards the stables. She had now wasted much of the afternoon, and it was time for her to do her actual work.

Gigi was just coming back down the main road, moving at an incredibly slow pace, leading the old horse along, when she and her horse were almost run over by Mr. Dartmoor’s car. It came tearing past Gigi, brakes squealing before spinning to a stop just in front of the stables. Dust flew up from the tires in a cloud that smelled of burning rubber. The old horse, who was usually so calm, mostly because it was too old to do much else, bucked up and pulled its reins out of Gigi’s hands.

“Hold your horses!” Sam called out. Sam had seen Gigi lose hold of the horse from the stable doors and quickly came running over to help her.

But Gigi couldn’t ‘hold her horses’ as the old horse was already out of her grasp. “I can’t!” she said. She bolted after the old horse but wasn’t able to grab hold of it again.

Sam ran over and was soon able to catch the old horse and calm it down by stroking its nose and speaking softly to it.

“Sorry about that…” Gigi said, still slightly shaken by the thought that she had almost become roadkill.

“It’s not your fault,” Sam said. “It’s Mr. Dartmoor and his car. He thinks it’s the batmobile or something the way he tears around in it. He’s lucky he hasn’t run anyone over yet. That man should not be allowed to harness that much horsepower.”

Mr. Dartmoor stepped out of his ‘black beauty,’ seemingly unaware of the harm he had almost caused with his reckless driving habits. “Oh, hello there, Gigi,” he said as if he hadn’t nearly run Gigi over.

“Hello, Mr. Dartmoor,” Gigi said.

“I heard you spent the night in our stables last night,” Mr. Dartmoor said.

Gigi’s cheeks reddened. “Oh… well, you see,” she started. She didn’t want to tell Mr. Dartmoor why she had been in the stables or about the horse in the woods. She didn’t know Mr. Dartmoor well, and she wasn’t sure what he would do if he knew there was a wild horse in his woods. He seemed like the kind of person who would want such creatures locked up, and Gigi couldn’t stand the thought of something so free being put into a cage. “It’s just that… I just love horses so much. I just wanted to spend some extra time with them. You know… to get to know them better.”

“I see.” Mr. Dartmoor smiled. “Well, I appreciate your unbridled enthusiasm, Gigi, even if it is a bit extreme. I’m glad to see you’re enjoying working at our stables. Personally, I don’t see the point of having these horses around at all. I don’t think Colton likes it either.”

“He doesn’t?” Gigi asked. “But he works here.”

“That he does, but he’s been reading a bunch of didactic books recently about horses and the proper care of them. He’s got it in his head that it’s pure immoralism to keep horses locked up like they are in our stables. He wants to set them all free or some such nonsense.”

“And you don’t think horses should be free?” Gigi asked. She was suddenly very happy that she had not told Mr. Dartmoor about the wild horse from the woods.

“I don’t see any use for it. Horses are meant to work. We don’t have any work here for the horses to do so I don’t see any use in keeping them. But I don’t think they should be free either. They’d just be a menace, wandering around wherever they want to go like a freebooter. They’d be worse than deer when it came to eating plants and trampling my gardens. Mrs. Dartmoor would be furious if wild horses trampled her chartreuse perennial geraniums.”

“Then where do you think horses should be?” Gigi asked.

“They should be doing something useful. Like pulling carriages or racing in races. I’m not sure why Colton likes them so much, to be honest. Anyway, I really should be going now. I just came down here to see if Colton was down here. I thought he might be with Sam. His application just came in for the Wither’s Medical Center, and it needs to be filled out as soon as possible.”

Gigi looked over at Sam who was leading the old horse back to the stables. “No, he’s not here,” Gigi said.

“Oh, well then maybe he’s over on the running trail. Now that his hamstring is starting to heal, he’s supposed to be training for the track team this year. I’ll head over there now. Goodbye, Gigi.”

Mr. Dartmoor slid back into his car. A moment later, he was tearing off down the road, leaving Gigi in a cloud of debris. She coughed, waving the dust and car exhaust out of her face. As soon as she could see again, Gigi headed into the stables.

Sam had gotten the old horse back into its stall where it was currently munching on some oats that Sam held up for it to eat out of a bucket.

“Can I help with anything?” Gigi asked.

“We could use some water in the troughs,” Sam said.

Gigi rushed off to do as she was told.

At the old pump, Gigi began filling the large, metal bucket with water. This took a lot of work, and it made Gigi wonder why the Dartmoors, as rich as they were, did not invest in installing a spigot and hose at the stable. When the bucket was full, Gigi carted it over to the horse trough and dumped the water in. This single bucket hardly filled the trough at all, so back to the pump Gigi went to fill up a second bucket, and then a third, and then a fourth, and then a fifth. She was getting rather tired of filling the trough by this point so she hurried back with the sixth, and hopefully final, bucket so that she could be done with this job as quickly as possible. She rushed around the side of the stable and was just about at the trough with her full bucket of water when Colton came around the other side of the stable, right in front of Gigi.

“Whoa! Slow down there!” Colton said, but it was too late. Gigi couldn’t stop in time.

Gloooooussshhh

The water went everywhere. All over Gigi. All over the ground. And worst of all, all over Colton. Mortified by what she had just done, Gigi backed away from Colton. In doing so, she backed right into the horse trough.

Gigi screamed as she fell into the trough she had worked so hard to fill. Her clothes were instantly soaked. Gigi spluttered and splashed as she tried to get out of the trough with little success. Finally, Colton held out a hand to help Gigi out. Gigi took it and, after a little more splashing and almost drowning, she finally emerged from her impromptu swim.

Dripping wet, Gigi stood in front of Colton, who was also wet, but not as wet as Gigi. Gigi was humiliated, and wet... very, very wet.

“Sorry… Sam asked… and the Batmobile…” Gigi started. “I have to… I have to go.”

“Wait,” Colton said, but Gigi was already hurrying away as quickly as her wet clothes would allow with a lot of squelching and dripping.

“I just came over to ask…” Colton started, but his voice grew quieter the further away Gigi got. It was clear that no words were going to halt her.