Free The Gatekeeper's Sons (The Gatekeeper's Trilogy) by Eva Pohler Page B

jeans and boots. Therese felt a wave of jealousy at Jen’s beauty but shrugged it off as soon as Jen called to her in her friendly voice, “Hey there! You’re finally here!”
    When Therese opened her car door, Clifford sprang out to meet Jen. The goat bleated its objections, and Clifford cowered away from it.
    “Hey there, boy!” Jen pet Clifford when he greeted her with his front paws on her legs. Then Clifford ambled down to his favorite hangout: the stream at the back of the property, which was full of trout.
    Therese turned to Carol. “Thanks for the ride.”
    “Sure. Call me if you want a ride home. First I’m running into Durango to get a few more groceries, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
    Therese stepped out of the car, but before she closed the door, Carol asked, “You sure you don’t want me to run you by the cemetery later? You still haven’t visited your parents’ graves. It’s been over a month since we buried them.”
    “I’m sure. I’m not ready to do that yet.” She wished her aunt wouldn’t have brought this up now. She’d been close to happy and excited, but now she was filled with dread.
    “Okay. Bye, sweetheart.”
    Therese closed the car door and tur ned to her friend. “It’s nice to be out of the house. Thanks for inviting me.”
    “Hey, listen. My mom was wonde ring if you want a job. The two brothers she hired this spring had a death in the family. She hired a new temp a week ago, but she still needs one more hand, just until she can find someone more permanent. Up to it?”
    Therese shrugged. It would be a lot of hard work, which could be both good and bad. “Would she need me every day?”
    “Pretty much. She pays ten an hour.” Jen led her across the gravel drive past the barn toward the partially sheltered pen where the dozen horses hung out.
    “I don’t know. If she can’t find anyone else, maybe.” Then to Clifford, who had come back to check on her, she said, “No boy, not in the pen. You know better.”
    “Please say yes. We could hang out.”
    “How early in the morning?”
    “Okay, you wouldn’t have to do the early morning stuff.”
    They reached the pen and the General greeted her with a sniff. He stretched his long gray neck over the fence for what he knew would be a soft stroke. He was the biggest of the horses, a huge gray stallion. Jen and her brothers sometimes called him the elephant. “Hey, General,” Therese said, rubbing the side of his face.
    “We bring the horses in at nine for grooming before they start their first trail ride of the day. My brothers and the new handler are in there finishing up now. We’ll need help with the grooming and tack so they’re ready to go by eleven. You could leave after that.”
    “So nine to eleven? That’s not bad. Let me think about it.” She could use some of her own mad money, and twenty dollars a day for just a couple of hours of her time seemed like a good deal, and a good distraction. She loved grooming the horses.
    Jen added, “After my mom’s trail rides, we exercise them hard before dinner, when we turn them out to pasture again till dark. We could use another rider then, too, from like four to five. Not necessarily every day. Just when you can.”
    One of Jen’s two brothers appeared in the middle of the pen from behind the shelter. He was the tallest and oldest of the Holt kids and had blond hair like his sister, which he kept short around his face like a bowl. He graduated last May and would be attending college in the fall. “Hey, Therese.”
    “Hi Pete.”
    “Oh, hey, Therese!” the other brother, who would be a freshman this year, called as he popped up from behind a horse. He wore the same blond bowl on his head as his brother, but the freckles that peppered his cheeks were more prominent.
    “Hi Bobby.”
    “Sorry about your parents,” Pete, the older one, said.
    “Yeah. Thanks.” She bit the inside of her bottom lip.
    Then Bobby asked, “Hey, have you met