Embracing Today, a firefighter romance: (The Trading Yesterday Series, #3), Kahlen Aymes [essential reading txt] 📗

I wanted to buy a house, but for now, I was living in the upstairs apartment of an old man who lived a few blocks from the station. The apartment was a bit shabby, but the rent was cheap, and I helped my landlord with odd jobs. Harlan Dobbs had become sort of a pseudo granddad to me in a short time. All in all, life was good, even if I did miss the hell out of Missy and Dylan.

“Yeah! My friends all want one!”

“Me, too! Did you get one for me?” I asked happily.

Dylan laughed heartily. “It’s not your birthday, Uncle Ben! Geez!”

“It’s not? How come Remi got one, then? It’s not her birthday, either!” I teased.

“Yeah, but we always get presents on each other’s birthdays, now. Her’s is from the loser team, though.” He’d lowered his voice on the last part.

“Wow! That’s still awesome, though! How do I get a gig like that?”

Remi was Jensen’s stepdaughter. It was an unconventional situation and the two kids, while not brother and sister, were being raised together.

“I guess you gotta get a dad with connections!” Dylan laughed. My heart filled with joy at the sound of happiness that bubbled from him. His little life had started out so badly, he really deserved this.

“Come on, Dylan!” A little girl’s voice could be heard closer than the rest of the background laughs and general commotion. “Jensey said it’s time to eat, now. Hurry, cuz I want cake.”

“Is that Remi?”

“Yup! I hafta go, Uncle Ben. We’re gonna eat and then Dad and Uncle Chase are gonna airplane us!”

To me that sounded like a recipe for vomit. I’d seen what “airplane-ing” entailed the last time I visited them in Atlanta. The kids laid flat on the outstretched arms of the men who then proceeded to zoom them up, down and around like planes all the while the kids made airplane noises amid abundant squeals and giggles.

“Okay, but don’t forget to open my present, and then Facetime me tomorrow to tell me how you like it.”

“I will, Uncle Ben!”

“Don’t eat so much you puke playing that game, Dylan.”

“I won’t!”

I was driving up the lane toward the Landry house and that big barn to the left that housed the horses. I slowed my truck to a stop.

“Tell Remi and the others I said hello. I’m getting a vacation in a few weeks and I want you all to come up here and visit. We’ll go to Yellowstone!”

“Can we ride horses?” he asked excitedly. “Please, please, pleeeezzzze!”

I smiled, as I stepped from the truck and onto the gravel driveway, by boots crunching on it. Ironically, the horses whinnied loudly. There were several dude ranches in Wyoming and neighboring states, but maybe now that I knew Marin, she’d let me bring the kids out to see her horses. “I’ll see what I can do! You just start bugging your dad and Chase to bring you guys out here to see me!”

“I will! That will be so awesome!”

“Dyyyllllaaaannn!” I could hear my sister calling her son in the background. “I have your plate ready!”

“I gotta go, cuz we’re eatin’ kinda late since the game went extra innings!”

“Yeah, you go on buddy. Happy Birthday! Love you.”

Dylan lowered his voice again. “Uncle Ben, tough guys aren’t supposed to get all gushy like that. It’s not manly and stuff,” he berated me, wryly. “I’m trying my best to be cool.”

I found it adorable and laughed out loud. Someday he might not mind so much. “Okay, see ya, later. Have fun! Hit a homer for me!”

“Okay! Bye!”

I shut the phone off and threw it through the open window onto the seat of the truck, then turned toward the barn. The horses were surely hungry; it had been more than twelve hours since I’d fed them. When I walked through the open door on one end of the barn, a couple of them eyed me warily, but most of them started whinnying and moving around inside their stalls. The odor of horse manure, alfalfa and leather assaulted my nostrils. It wasn’t too unpleasant, and I liked working with my hands.

There was a huge black stallion and a few geldings on one side of the barn and then the mares were stalled on the other. One deep red one with a black mane and socks up to her knees looked uncomfortably pregnant and about ready to foal. She looked at me with soulful, dark brown eyes and I put my hand out to rub her nose and then down her neck. “Hey, how you doing momma? You’re ready to pop, aren’t you?” She neighed softly and nudged my shoulder with her nose. “Poor girl.” Taking care of the horses was new to me, but I liked it, and I hoped Marin would give me the opportunity to see the little foal when it was born.

The stalls all had sliding doors open to separate fenced pastures on either side of the barn allowing the horses to come and go as they pleased all day, access the big water trough and wander or run around. They were all back inside their stalls looking at me expectantly for their meal, some getting more rambunctious as their anxiousness increased.

I was met with a chorus of horse impatience and I smiled. “Okay! Okay! Just a minute!” I said with a smile, upping my pace a bit. At one end of the barn were two entire stalls devoted to feed storage. Several bags of oats filled one and the other was stuffed with bales of alfalfa. I started opening a couple of the bales to divide among the horses. Luckily, I was able to google how much should be fed per day or I would have been completely unprepared. Apparently, if the stringy green stuff the horses seemed to love wasn’t dry enough or if they got too much, it would cause bloat, which could be fatal.

I used both hands to pull it apart and added about ten pounds of the stringy