Free Eternal Vows (Hideaway (Kimani)) by Rochelle Alers Page A

hosting a yearly open house had begun to exhibit new spring foals for sale and/or breeding purposes. Then Sheldon went one step further when he served food and included music. That year he sold three retired Thoroughbreds he’d put out to stud. Several of the owners met, deciding to hold the event every two years instead of yearly, and that each farm would adopt a specific theme. The owners and their trainers now met prior to the open houses to negotiate the buying and selling of horseflesh.
    It felt good to walk, something Peyton didn’t do enough of and would begin now that she had a natural spa in which to exercise. Most of the farm’s ten thousand acres had paved roads and footpaths. There was also the pool for swimming laps. The schoolhouse had been expanded to include a gym for the children to play and work out.
    She reached the dining hall, pushing open the door. There were six men standing around the inside. The tension in the large space was so strong it was palpable. “What’s going on, Lee?” she asked one of the grooms. He’d wound an elastic hair tie around shoulder-length dreads under a baseball cap.
    Turning, his eyes widened when he saw Peyton. “Oh, good morning, Doc. It looks as if there’s not going to be any hot food for breakfast or lunch. The cooks claim they’re too busy cooking for the open house.”
    Breakfasts and lunches were always set up as a buffet, while dinners were sit-down with white tablecloths, flowers, and place setting with wineglasses and water goblets. Sheldon claimed he wanted to expose the farm’s children to the fine dining missing in family-style chain restaurants.
    Peyton often wondered what her life would’ve been like if she’d been raised on the horse farm. Would she have become a veterinarian? And if not, then what? Would she, like a few of the recent high-school graduates, get into their cars and drive as far away from the only lifestyle they’d known for seventeen or eighteen years?
    Before the establishment of the Blackstone Farms Day School all of the children boarded the school bus that would take them into town to the local schools and drop them off at the end of the school day. Their friends were farm children; they learned to drive tractors and other farm vehicles before reaching double digits, but there were also drawbacks to living in a self-contained community.
    Many complained about the lack of privacy. There were cameras everywhere, monitoring their coming and going. For the few seeking to form relationships they found themselves hampered either by the discerning eyes of adults, but also by the discomfort of having to see an ex every day if or when a relationship ended. Some stayed after graduating and many more left the farm. Lee Washington had become one of those who’d stayed.
    “What about waffles?” Peyton asked. She occasionally made her own Belgian waffles, topping them with fresh seasonal fruit.
    “No waffles, no toast, no nothing,” Lee spat out. He pointed to the flyer taped to the inside of the door. “There are cold cereals, yogurt, milk, juice and fresh fruit for breakfast and salad and sandwiches for lunch. They didn’t do this two years ago. What the hell do they think we are? We’re farm folks, not farm animals,” he continued, grumbling angrily.
    “It’s only two meals, Lee,” she said when she wanted to tell the muscular young man he could forego his usually fat- and calorie-laden breakfast and lunch for one day. She noticed most of the men fortified themselves with eggs, bacon, sausage, grits, home fries, corned beef hash and pancakes for breakfast at least five days a week. The exception was the jockeys who ordered egg whites, turkey bacon or sausage along with a lot of fruit and vegetables. Jockeys ideally weighed between 100 and 150 pounds in addition to being in excellent physical condition. Blackstone Farms’ jockeys had set their own maximum benchmark at 130 pounds.
    “I bet the other farms don’t starve their