Free Destiny by chance: A Contemporary Romance Fiction Novel by Margaret Ferguson Page A

brother.
    He looked down to recount the money since he couldn’t seem to focus.  For the fifth time, he counted it again, telling himself not to look up or he’d have to count it over.  “Eighteen hundred eighty dollars,” he said to himself, then wrote it down on his accounting form.
    “Wow,” Destiny said, startling him.  “Do the concessions always do that well?”
    Bill looked up suddenly.  She stood before him, holding a bowl of sanitizing water and a cloth.  “Um… catfish nights are always good.” Bill smiled awkwardly.  “It’s our best seller.”
    “Then I definitely need to be here in time next week.”
    “Yeah,” he struggled with what to say.
    “Is there anything else you need me to do?” she asked.
    “No.  No,” he stammered.  “But thank you.”
    Destiny smiled.  “See you next week.”
    “I look forward to it,” Bill said as she turned and walked away.  He watched her and Lisa walk toward the back door.  He dropped his head to the refrigerator beside him and banged his head slowly.  “You are way out of practice, my friend.  Way out of practice.”

Chapter 12
    Destiny parked in the same space she had two nights before.  There was a slight chill in the air, but it was still and quiet, except for the occasional rooster crowing or the lambs calling for their mamas.  The mist hung heavy in the air over the meadows and the ponds on the property.  Destiny was usually the first person to arrive on the weekends.  She loved riding early.  Other riders often began dragging in about ten or eleven.  Once the time changed, she could start riding even earlier and undisturbed, for longer.  She bridled and saddled Daisy, a beautiful chestnut mare with a star on her forehead.
    On her very first visit to the stable, Charlie and Jessie had shown her around the property.  She knew instantly that this was where she wanted to ride.  Not only were they kind, but it felt like… home.  Raised on a small ranch outside of San Antonio, she was taught to handle horses.  She’d been riding almost since she was old enough to walk.  Until they moved to the city, she lived on a farm.  They owned a few milk cows, a couple of hogs, and dozens of goats and chickens.  And horses. 
    Charlie could sense her familiarity with and love for horses immediately.  When they arrived at the stable, he had taken her stall by stall to meet them.  Destiny had asked which one she would be riding, and he told her it was up to the horse.  She teased him about being a horse whisperer.  Charlie had laughed and said it was nothing like that.  Destiny knew what it was like to love a horse, truly love a horse, the way some people loved their dogs or maybe even their cats.  So, she played it his way, walking stall to stall, taking a moment to talk to the horses.  It was at the second to last stall that she stopped when the small mare turned from her feed bucket and whinnied softly, snorted and moved to her.
    Destiny had held out her hand for the horse to sniff; then the mare gently nibbled on her hand with her muzzle.  Slowly, Destiny raised the mare’s chin as it sniffed up her arm, arriving at her face.  She had been chosen.  And she had ridden Daisy every weekend since, for the past eighteen months.  It was her favorite part of the week.  When they rode, it was just the two of them.  There was no past she was trying to forget, no worries about school, no worries about life.  It was just them.  She would ride for hours some days.  Some days Destiny would lead the way, some days she let Daisy lead the way.  They had traveled every pathway, every meadow, every deer trail on the farm. 
    Destiny walked to the mare’s stall, bridle in hand, ready for their morning ride.  “Hey, Girl,” she smiled, first stroking her muzzle and forehead, then her forelock and behind her ears.  The mare leaned into the scratch, welcoming it and begging for more with her motions.  Destiny laughed.  Slowly she