How We Were | ✔️ (Complete)

37. Gunnar

"So Beth..." I said, as casually as I could when we hit a natural pause in the conversation. "Electra Beaudry."

She narrowed her eyes. "I really like how you honeyed me up with all the horse talk before you dropped the bomb there."

"Come on Beth, friends gossip. It's what they do."

"Except we're not really friends, Layla."

God, she was so blunt. No wonder she and Jake got along.

"We'll trade secrets. How about that?" I asked.

She pursed her lips and I could tell she was tempted so I spoke before she had a chance to change her mind. "I kissed him."

"That's the stupidest secret ever."

"You don't even know who I kissed."

"Nor do I particularly care."

I twirled my hair around my index finger. "Well, what kind of secrets were you hoping for?"

Hesitant, she nibbled on her lower lip. "Can we talk about your daddy?"

"My daddy?"

"Jake and I worshiped him when we were little. We legit stalked the shit out of him whenever he used to come around."

Well, this was a surprise. "What do you mean come around? Daddy? Here to Canyon?"

"Yeah, you know, way back when Ahiga Seganey was alive, and after that..." Beth shrugged. "Dunno, maybe he was visiting Daniel Harris? Anyway, he was always real nice to us, even took us out riding when he had the time."

That was daddy alright, a people person, generous to a fault, the kind of man always on the ready to give a stranger the shirt off his back.

I frowned. "How often?"

"I dunno, fairly often. Maybe like once a month? Though there was a period when he was coming down here every weekend. I remember because Jake and I used to wait down by the gates after school."

The frown grew deeper. "Where was I?"

"How the heck would I know that?"

Fair enough. "What do you want to know about daddy?"

She refused to meet my eyes. "I can pretty much recite all the interviews he gave from memory... I want to know his Big Secret."

"Oh, that." 

I smiled. I could see daddy as clear as day, his dirty blond hair tousled with sweat and dust from riding. Whenever reporters would ask for his riding secrets, he'd remove his Stetson and give his head a good scratch. Then he'd smile that lady killer, aw-shucks smile, all bright white teeth and twinkling eyes. "Well, I'd tell ya," he'd say, "but then I'd have ta kill ya."

Here's the thing though, it was all a media trick, something that his road manager came up with. But I wouldn't tell that to anybody, not then, not now, not ever. In reality, daddy believed you either had it or you didn't, and that no amount of practice would get you there unless you were born with it. "It," of course, being the ability to form a spiritual connection to a horse. So maybe he was pragmatically esoteric in his riding philosophies?

Not wanting to disappoint Beth, I gave her something else, something I observed on my own. "To be the best, you have to love riding and horses more than anything else in the world." 

"I do."

"Enough to give up everything? Your parents?"

Beth scowled. "Of course not. What kind of question is that?"