Take me Home Country Roads (Formally Unbreak My Heart)

Chapter Four: Working Hard Or Hardly Working

I climb out of bed and head to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get dressed. I can’t stop thinking about the dream I had. It was awful. My heart pounds in my ear and I didn’t hear the door open.
“You almost ready sweets?” Jason asks as he peeks his head in the door.
“Yeah.” I say wiping the tears from my cheek.
“you okay?” He asks sweetly.
“Yeah, I just had a bad dream that I can’t shake that’s all.” I sob
He walks over and pulls me close to him hugging me tight. He holds me there until I calm down and stop crying. Once I have stopped, he hands me a tissue and I wipe my eyes and then my nose.
He opens the door, and we walk out. We head into the living room and the boys are sitting there sleepily eating toast. They finish up and we head out to the back forty to the old barn. Dad assigns us jobs.
My job just happens to be to help Jesse with the old wooden fence that has needed fixin’ for the last two years. ‘I guess dad is finally knocking some of the stuff he has put off fixin finally.’ I think to myself.
We head out in the old ford with all of the log posts and rails that we should need to fix the fence. We pull up to where the fence is in the worst shape and we begin to remove all of the rotten pieces. We finally get that done and begin to rebuild.
“You’re really good at this stuff you know.” Jesse says with his sweet country twang.
“Yeah, well I was the original farmhand.” I chuckle. “Dad and I built this fence about twelve years ago.”
“We didn’t always own this part of the farm dad bought it off the neighbors about thirteen years ago.” I start.
“These post and railings are made of trees that used to cover this area.” I explain.
“We cut them down and dad decided to use them to put up this fence.” I say
“I tried to tell him that they would rot after a while, but he didn’t care.” I giggle. “He had his heart and mind set on the log fence and he damn sure got it.
“Yeah, he seems like the type that makes whatever he wants to happen, happen.” Jesse chuckles.
“He is determined, I’ll give him that.” I say
“But he is honestly the best dad a girl could ask for.” I smile.
“He has been there for me no matter what stupid thing I have done and welcomes me back each time with open arms.” I explain.
“I can tell he is that kind of man.” Jesse says. “I wish my dad would have been more like him.”
“My dad was the exact opposite if we did something stupid, he beat the snot out of us.” Jesse sighed.
“He never gave us a second chance.” Jesse said. “Always just told us we were losers and tried to kick us out.”
“My momma wouldn’t ever let him go that far until the day I turned eighteen.” Jesse says.
“I had been with this girl for a couple of years and we were active sexually, well she had told me that she was on the pill and wound up pregnant.” He starts.
“I didn’t believe her because we were on the rocks for the entire month before she found out.” He explains.
“So, she came to me and said she was pregnant and that it was mine and she wanted me to marry her.” He sighs.
“I told her I wouldn’t marry her and that we were through.” He says. “I told her I would give her money to help with the baby but that wasn’t good enough.” He mumbles.
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“She went to my house and told my mom and dad that she was pregnant and that I refused to help her out or marry her.” He huffs.
“My dad kicked my ass and told me I no longer had a home there and they kicked me out together.” Jesse exhales.
“I tried to tell my daddy that I had offered to pay for her and the baby but, he told me that paying wasn’t good enough that I should have manned up and married her like he did my mom.” Jesse growls.
“That is terrible.” I say
“Yeah.” He replies wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Now I have a daughter I barely get to see because her mom doesn’t like my living situation.” Jesse says
“What’s wrong with the living situation?” I ask slightly confused.
“Graciela, I live with eight drunken cowboys.” He looks at me like I asked the stupidest question.
“Oh, I see.” I say as it dawns on me what he means. “What if she stayed in the house with mom and dad?” I ask.
“We tried that once and she was scared and wouldn’t sleep in her own bed.” Jesse explains.
“Your mom and dad let them sleep with her and then your dads back ached for a week after that.” Jesse says.
“Oh.” Is all I can say.
“Yeah.” He says.
“what if she stayed with me and the boys?” I ask.
“She can sleep with me.” I stutter.
“The boys rarely drink and would be more than happy to have a kiddo around.” I state.
“Her mom would want to meet you and the boys and see the house and make you jump through hoops.” Jesse says.
“well, if it makes a little girl get to see her daddy more often then I’m all for it.” I say looking up realizing that we had finally finished repairing the last of the broken fence.
“You would seriously do that for a stranger?” Jesse asks.
“I would do it for the little girl.” I say. “Every little girl needs her daddy.”
“Well either way I appreciate it.” He exclaims.
“Not a problem.” I mumble with a nail in my mouth as I go to pick up the tools.
We pick up the tools and put them in the bed of the truck. I go around to the passenger side of the truck to get in. Just as I do, I instantly realize that I have made a grave mistake. My foot slides and my ass hits the ground and slips in something.
I look down and realize that I have just slid from my ass to my neck in a huge cow patty. I jump up and try to wipe it off only to realize that there is far too much and there is no way it is coming off.
“Hey, are you getting in or what?” Jesse yells out the window.
“I think I will sit in the back.” I yell back jumping over the side into the bed.
He drives us back to the old barn and comes to the side standing there smiling as he looks at my back. Trying his best to hold back the laugh he so desperately wants to let go. “Looks like the shit really stuck it to ya.” He laughs.
“Yeah.” I say between his laughs “You wanna help me out and spray it off?” I ask
“I’m sure daddy has more for us to do.” I state.
We walk up to the barn and he grabs the hose. He turns on a mid-strength stream of water. He pushes the handle on the sprayer and begins to spray me off. The water is freezing and a wince as it hits me. I begin to wiggle and jump around as the water showers my back side.
I giggle and laugh just like I did when daddy and I would go out mudding. We would come home after a long day covered in mud and spray each other down so that momma wouldn’t get upset with us for trackin mud all over her freshly mopped floors.
I sigh as the memory is as quickly gone as it had come. Just as he finishes spraying me off daddy comes around the corner looking at us with a giant smile on his face. My guess is he had the same memory as I did.
“Did you guys actually work today? or did you just play?” He asks with a huge smile on his face.
“Actually, my dumbass fell in a gosh dern cow patty, Jesse here was just kind enough to spray it off of me.” I laugh
“Leave it to my Graceful Annie to fall in the cow shit.” He laughs.
“yep, that’s me Graceful Ann.” I giggle.
“Anyway kiddo, if you two are done with the fence the nightmares stall needs mucked and the horses all need some exercise.” Dad smiles.
“Ooh, we get the easy stuff today.” I say giggling.
“You really do love me.” I smile.
“Of course, I do,” He says. “You are my favorite daughter.”
“I knew it,” I laugh
“I’m the luckiest girl in the whole damn world.” I say sarcastically. “I’m my daddy’s favorite daughter out of all of the daughters he has.”
“Wait he has more than one daughter?” Jesse asks confused.
“Nope, Just me.” I giggle.
“Oh, that was sarcasm.” He smiles
“Yep, and she is full of the shit.” Dad says.
“I have no clue in fucking hell where she gets that shit from.” Dad laughs.
“Old man you can’t even keep a straight face while saying that.” I laugh.
“Whatever you better get that behind to work before I change my mind and make you change the tractor tire.” Dad says.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” I shout as I run toward the barn that houses the horses.
We clean out nightmares stall and I start to pull him out to saddle him up and Jesse gives me a weird look. I’m not sure what the look is about but, I continue to pull him out and I get the saddle for him and put it slowly on his back. Jesse’s eyes widen and he looks somewhat nervous and shocked all at the same time.
“Um, how the hell did you do that?” He asks as I finish saddling nightmare up.
“Do what I ask?” As I pet nightmares neck.”
“That all of that.” Jesse says shocked shitless that nightmare lets me near him.
“He rears and throws a fit whenever one of us guys get near him.” He explains.
“That’s why we all hate going into his stall.” He shrugs.
“That’s easy.” I say. “He my horse.”
“Him and smokey both are.” I state
“We rescued them from the neighbors when we bought the land.” I explain.
“At first they were so scared they wouldn’t come near anyone.” I smile
“Then I went over one day and gave them some oats I had in my pocket and he must have been hungry because he came right up to me and took the oats right out of my hand.” I chuckle.
“I did that every day for a month then one day I put the baggy in my coat pocket sticking out just far enough he could see it and he and smokey followed me home.” I beam.
“I cleaned them up and put them out in the paddock.” I grin.
“Took me about a week to gain all of the trust from smokey and be able to ride her.” I say
“Took about six months for me to finally gain enough trust from him to let me put a saddle blanket on him.” I explain.
“Wow, that’s a lot of work.” Jesse says. “I probably would have just given up on him.”
“That was the problem to begin with.” I demand.
“Too many people just gave up on him.” I say sadly looking at nightmare.
“What do you mean?” Jesse asks
“The neighbors bought him as a show jumping horse, he had all the bloodlines to be the best.” I explain.
“The daughter they had bought him for was a lazy rotten brat and didn’t practice much.” I chuckle.
“He didn’t do well because of it and so they just let him out to pasture where he stayed until he followed me home that day.” I explain.
“In the winter they put out grain for him and made sure to break the water but never gave him the attention he needed.” I said.
“So basically, he was abandoned within the legal rights?” He asks
“That is exactly what happened.” I said. “They bought smokey about two years later for another daughter and she would literally whip the hell out of her.”
“The scars on the back that’s where they came from.” I say
“One day she wouldn’t do what the daughter wanted and so she whipped smokey extra hard cutting gashes into her back.” I explain “Smokey bucked her off and stomped her and they decided that she was dangerous and put her out there with nightmare.”
“Wow, why not just sale them?” Jesse asked.
“well, they advertised them and when people would ask why they were selling such amazingly bred horses they would make them out to be lazy and a huge monster which wasn’t true.” I stated.
“So, no one would buy them.” I sighed.
“It made me sad but at the time we didn’t have the extra barn and the land out here so dad said that we couldn’t take them.” I frowned
“Then when we bought the land dad warned the previous owner that if he didn’t remove them from the land within an allotted amount of time that the horses became part of the property.” I shrug.
“The owner said if you pay me two hundred more you can just have the damn things.” I tell Jesse.
“So that is what he did, but we still couldn’t get them to do much until that day with the oats and slowly they became more and more friendly.” I explained
“I knew that smokey was feisty, but I didn’t know why.” He exclaims.
“Yeah, they treated her pretty badly, but nightmare was treated far worse.” I utter as I get ready to mount his back for a ride.
“I’m not sure that is a good idea Graciela, what happens if he throws you?” He ask worried.
“Well then I get up dust off my britches and get right back on, but the chances of him doing that are very slim.” I laugh putting my foot in the stirrup and throwing my other leg over.
He does the same once he realizes that I am on and that Nightmare hasn’t thrown me off. We begin to ride at a nice steady pace as we leave the treed area to a wide-open field. I gently nudge Nightmares side and he open up into a nice trot. I allow him to trot for a little while before gently nudging him again speeding him up even more.
We are going somewhat fast but, it feels good to be back on a horse wind blowing my hair. Oh, how I missed this so much. I pull him to a stop and just look around taking in the bright crisp light that the country has. The smell is so much fresher and the light so much brighter.
After a minute I go back into a quick run. My hair blows behind me in the wind and my mind gets clearer the further I ride. My heart feels happy for the first time in years. I knew I missed my home in the country. I just didn’t know how much.
I run Nightmare a little bit longer and then I slow him to a walk. We slowly come to a stop just outside the old barn. I grab a brush and a bucket out of the barn and fill it with oats. I sit the oats down in front of him. He lazily chows on the oats as I unsaddle him and give him a good brush.
Jesse is now brushing Cal. He gives him a bucket of oats as well.  We finish brushing these two and head to the other barn where Smokey and whisper are. We saddle them up and give them a good hard run and then a nice walk back. We brush them clean up their stalls and head out.
We sit down and enjoy the lunches that mom had made for us and then we go to the paddock where Shortcake and Pam are. We saddle them up and exercise them well. We are walking back when I stop at the stream and let Shortcake get a drink.
“So, once we are done here what do you think your dad will have for us to do?” Jesse asks.
“I don’t really know.” I shrug.
“It’s been nice to be back to doing what I love though.” I say
“Looking at you out here doing these things I can’t imagine you doing anything else and being happy.” Jesse states
“Well, I wasn’t happy before I was just making it work for my ex, now I’m not even sure why I tried.” I admit.
“Because love makes us do stupid things no matter how much we don’t want to.” Jesse shrugs.
We ride back and unsaddle and brush the horses just as dad is walking out of the barn.
“The horses look happy today you guys must have worked them out good.” Dad says smiling.
“We took them out back past the back forty into the new forty and walked back.” Jesse smiles.
“She rode Nightmare, and he didn’t even hesitate to let her on him.” He chuckles.
“That horse is in love with my baby girl ever since the day she coaxed him home with those damn oats.” Dad exclaims.
“No one else can touch that asshole but she can do anything she wants with him, even a few tricks.” Dad laughs.
“I haven’t done tricks on him in a long time.” I sigh. “Since snowflake passed on.”
“I know she was the sweetest horse ever.” Dad sighs.
“Well, what more can we do for you today?” Jesse asks.
“hmm, how about the two of you jump in the truck and go get all the feed for the horses and cows.” Dad says
“Sure, no problem.” I say smiling.