Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
When you left your house in the morning, you had to wear layers because the weather was apt to change several times a day. Rain never lingered for long, just a passing shower or soft drizzle, leaving behind hedgerows dripping in intermittent sunlight and air so clean, you would inhale continually until you get dizzy from the influx of oxygen.
Summer evenings were the most beautiful in the Golden Vale. The light hung in the air long after supper and even at nine, the sky still glowed as a reminder that the day had not yet fully given way to darkness. On the rare evenings when the clouds stayed away, the setting sun bathed the hills in warm gold, turning the landscape into a fairy-tale land. Those were the nights I loved best, when I could steal a few extra moments on horseback, riding through fields that smelled of wildflowers, the evening chill invigorating to my senses.
“Loosen yer hands there, Fi—let her find her own rhythm.” I heard Uncle Rory’s instructions as I breezed past him. “Ye keep fightin’ her mouth, she’ll only fight ye back. Give her the head now, trust her legs to take ye through the turn.”
The wind rushed past my face, whipping my hair as I did exactly as he instructed. The rhythm of hooves thrummed through my body, a steady, powerful beat that drowned out the rest of the world. I crouched lower, urging the mare on, the adrenaline of thundering speed filling me with something close to freedom.
This was what I loved.
The horses and Uncle Rory and the power to be myself.
The stretch ahead was soft, the peat gallop giving beneath the impact of my horse’s stride. I trusted her, the way she read the ground beneath us, the way she listened to my slightest cue. My da wouldn’t approve—racing wasn’t for women, he said—but here, now, it didn’t matter. Rory knew how capable I was, and besides… breezing the horses was child’s play. Da would have me marching to confession if he knew I was riding steeplechase.
A sharp whistle from the rail called me back. I eased up, guiding the mare into a slow canter, then a walk as we reached the end of the track. My uncle stood watching, arms crossed over his broad chest, an approving grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“She’s a fine one, isn’t she?” I said, stroking her damp neck, feeling the steady rise and fall of her breath.
Rory shook his head with a chuckle. “Aye, she is. But it’s not the horse that impresses me—it’s the one in the saddle.”
A flush of pride warmed my chest, but I didn’t let it show. I’d never been allowed to help train the racehorses for real because my father didn’t think it was seemly. I swung my leg over and dropped lightly to the ground, giving the mare a well-earned pat before handing off the reins to one of the lads waiting nearby.
Climbing over the fence, I brushed off the back of my britches and joined Rory as we left the track.
Glenhaven Estates sprawled across five thousand acres, a patchwork of lush pastures, winding bridle paths and training facilities that had been meticulously developed decades ago by my grandfather, Patrick Conlan. The estate was divided into two distinct halves—one devoted to breeding thoroughbred racehorses and the other to training them.
The breeding side was Da’s domain and was comprised of multiple barns to hold the stallions, others for the broodmares and still others for the weanlings. Pastures were scattered in between it all, bordered by dark fencing. In the distance I could see the curving driveway that led to the Conlan family manor house where I lived with my parents and siblings. The imposing three-story stone structure was covered in lush ivy creeping up its gray limestone walls and a massive oak door that had welcomed generations of Conlans. Beyond it, the foaling barns sat nestled against the rise of a gentle hill, where mares and their wobbly legged babies grazed in paddocks enclosed by thick, black post-and-rail fencing with stone columns at the corners.
But this side of the farm was Rory’s domain. The setup was more utilitarian, the training barns more modern and functional, built with efficiency in mind rather than grandeur. Peat gallops wound through the fields, soft and forgiving under the pounding hooves of young racehorses in training. Several outdoor tracks surrounded the main yard, and a sprawling steeplechase course wove through a stretch of land that backed onto a dense forest.
That was my absolute favorite place to be but I had to be careful taking my gelding, Brannagh, there and only when my da was off the premises. While he begrudgingly looked the other way when Rory let me sometimes work the racehorses, I had been forbidden from setting foot or hoof on the steeplechase course. Lucky for me, Rory was good at keeping secrets too.