Jake leaned against the door frame admiring the sight before him. His cousin Heather was bent over currently working on mucking out the horse stalls, but it wasn't that the girl he once viewed as a spoiled child was working that he enjoyed, it was the outline of her rear clad in overalls. She'd developed well from a bratty pre-teen who thought that she had learned everything there was to life from The Babysitters Club books and everything about horses from Black Stallion novels to well, at least she knew that mucking stalls wasn't fun but if it wasn't done the horses could suffer serious damage to their hooves.
For the last six years she'd been spending her summers here at Jack's farm, the first one was her parent's hope that she would burn out on wishing for a pony of her own every chance she got. They were wrong, it only increased her desires to the point that she was making regular trips back to the farm. At first she traded the labor for time out riding the horses and learning how to break them herself but that had evolved into a paycheck as the years went by and her responsibilities went up. This past year after graduating high school she had moved out to the farm to take over managing the brood mares, a task he was more than willing to hand over.
At the end of this upcoming summer her plans were to start school at the local community college with an aim to move on to the big regional agricultural university afterwards. The move to take a year to build up a cash supply had seemed a touch odd to her parents but they weren't complaining, something about glad to have the teenage hormones out of the house. Well that and with her brother hitting high school they seemed stressed out enough. That always gave Jack a bit of a chuckle, the best thing he'd found to do with teenagers was to give them an opportunity to work towards a goal, in this case another year of working a horse farm would look good on her application to the university. Some kids weren't cut out for the city and her parents didn't understand that was his opinion, but he wasn't about to complain at how things turned out and neither did Marie.
Jake pushed off the side of the door and walked down the dirt floor, looking into each empty stall as he walked. Early summer was a good time, the broodmares had all born their foals and all of the horses save any that came down ill, were out in the pastures eating food he didn't have to pay for. He could do without the heat wave this year but it wasn't all bad, for example the humidity made t-shirts stick to Marie's rather ample chest. Poor woman had chosen a life of horses despite risking getting a black eye from a bouncing rack every time she worked her mount into a trot, not that he ever complained of the view. Damn, that was the one issue with having Heather around the place was the amount of action went down to whenever the girl was out in town. Thus she got the bulk of run to town errands while he and Marie made due with getting a quickie wherever they could.
He came to the other side of the barn and stepped outside, turning to head over to the practice ring where Marie was working with her latest mount, Doc, a blanket Appaloosa gelding that she had picked up over the winter. He had the physical ability to be a good barrels horse but the real trick was getting through his head to go around the barrels and not through them. Both rider and horse were soaked in sweat, obviously they'd been at this for quite some time. He crossed his arms and placed them upon the top rail of the fence and leaned in to watch the duo.
Marie patted the side of Doc's neck as she walked him around the ring to let him cool off, that would be the end of today's lessons. She didn't want to push him too hard, he wasn't half bad once he decided to go around the barrels and had plenty enough burst to get to the next barrel. A smile was given towards Jake, she allowed her eyes a few moments to drift over him and linger a little at the faint outline in his jeans. Not that she didn't like Heather, quite the opposite, but she did miss the days of being able to throw off their clothes wherever the mood stuck them and go for a literal roll in the hay. Clean hay of course, that one time they'd made the mistake of being too trusting meant they found out the farmer hadn't kept his field clear of brambles by her finding the first one with her ass. She still had a scar to prove it too.
Thankfully it was Friday afternoon, Heather usually headed out to catch a movie and otherwise just enjoy being a teen with a little cash out in town. They weren't overly concerned with what she did there, small town so most things weren't really secrets, as Heather had found out the first time she played spin the bottle and Jake found out about her making out with James Finmore's son. Marie had to give the poor girl 'The Talk' afterwards, especially since it turned out the poor girl's mother never bothered. It seemed each year she found a new reason to dislike Heather's parents and now that Heather was living with them full time she'd delightfully found out they avoided contacting Jake or Marie. The real question at the moment though, was what she planned to do to her dear Jake once the tail lights of the old truck disappeared down the road.
Marie shook her head lightly to get out of the daydream daze, better to have a clear head around a thousand pounds of animal who wasn't always careful where they put their foot. She hefted the saddle and blanket in one motion, whoever had come up with lightweight synthetic saddles was a saint in her opinion, set them on the fence and went about brushing his coat. It was just a light brush down, due to the heat she was planning to give him a bath afterwards and admire his coloring while it looked nice because knowing this guy he'd find the first patch of mud that was available and roll around in it afterwards. Oh well, such were the pleasures of owning and training horses and truth be told she wouldn't trade it for the world. Well, except for those times when a horse decided to be a jerk, maybe then she'd allowed the thought to cross her mind once or twice not that she thought Jake would be willing to move on.
Heather finished throwing the last of the winter's deep bedded litter into the wheelbarrow and sighed in relief, that dreaded chore was finally done. Once she dumped this load of litter into the compost heap to let the nitrogen dissipate she wouldn't have to worry about taking care of stalls on a regular basis for a few months. She took out a handkerchief and wiped her sweat soaked brow and was seriously tempted to pull off her shirt, the overalls would cover most of what the shirt covered anyways. The shirt stayed put but she thought about it just the same, the thought that family would see her in that state didn't bother her so much mostly just because things always seemed quite relaxed here.