Free Sheltering Rain by Jojo Moyes Page A

prematurely weather-beaten skin. Thom, although too quiet, seemed to understand Sabine’s frustration and resentment, and would occasionally puncture it with gentle mockery. She had already stopped noticing his arm, which was covered to the wrist by jackets and jumpers. He was someone to talk to.
    â€œSo I waited till bloody half past ten until I was sure the old man had finished with the bathroom, and then there was no hot water left at all. Nothing. I was so cold by the time I got out of the bath that my feet were blue. Really. And my teeth were chattering.”
    Hanging over the stable door, she kicked at a bucket, sending a small wave over its battered edge. Thom, raking down the clean straw that had been piled up along one wall, stopped and raised an eyebrow, and she climbed down, glancing unconsciously over at the Duke as she did so.
    â€œThere’s no hair dryer, so my hair’s gone all flat. And my sheets are damp. Really damp. Like when I get in the bed, you have to peel the top sheet and the bottom sheet apart. And they smell of mold.”
    â€œHow can you tell?”
    â€œHow can I tell what?”
    â€œThat they smell of mold. Yesterday you told me that the whole house smelled of mold. The sheets might actually smell quite nice.”
    â€œYou can see it. Green spots.”
    Thom guffawed, still raking his straw.
    â€œIt’s probably the pattern on the sheets. I’ll bet you’ve got eyesight like your mother.”
    Sabine stared at him, letting go of the door.
    â€œHow do you know about my mother’s eyesight?”
    Thom paused, and then rested his rake against the wall. He bent and removed the bucket from under Sabine’s foot, waiting for her to move out of the way before he sluiced the water across the yard.
    â€œYou’re all blind. Your whole family. Everyone knows. I’m surprised you don’t wear glasses.”
    Thom was like that; she’d think she had the measure of him, talk to him like he was a mate. And then every now and then he’d throw in some piece of information, about her mother, or his own past, and she’d find herself silenced, trying to make this new piece of information fit into the recognizable whole.
    The things she knew about him (some gleaned from him, some from Mrs. H, who was a veritable broadcasting network when not in her grandmother’s presence) were that he was thirty-five, that he had spent some years in England working for a racing yard, that he had returned under some kind of a cloud, and that he had lost his arm through riding. That had not come from him—easygoing as he was, she didn’t yet feel brave enough to quiz him about his amputation—but Mrs. H had told her, “I always thought the horses would be the death of him. He has no fear, you see. No fear. His father was the same.” She didn’t know the full story, as she didn’t like to burden her sister—his poor mother—but it was something to do with when he used to ride over the sticks.
    â€œSticks?” Sabine had said, picturing some kind of picket fence. Had he impaled himself?
    â€œFences. He was a jump jockey. It’s a damned sight more dangerous than on the flat, I’ll tell you that for nothing.”
    Everything here revolved around horses, thought Sabine grimly. They were all bloody obsessed, to the point where they thought nothing of losing bits of their own bodies. She had so far managed to put off riding the gray horse in the back field, telling her grandmother that she had a backache. But she knew from her grandmother’s impatient expression, the way she had already fished out an old pair of riding boots and a hat and left them pointedly outside her bedroom door, that she was living on borrowed time.
    Sabine didn’t want to ride. The thought of it made her feel sick. She had managed to persuade her mother that she should give it up years ago, after the weekly drive to the stables had