When Tommy shows up at the stables, he expects his tasks to involve hauling hay bales and feed sacks, but when Kate sets him to brushing down the horses, he scoffs a little. He insists he can do harder work than just making the horses look pretty, but Kate is having none of it. After a brief lesson with Duncan the Patient, she leaves Tommy to take care of him, but even Duncan has his limits with a newbie groomer and at one point gives Tommy a scolding nip on the leg for brushing him the wrong way.

Eventually, Tommy does take to it somewhat, and he finds himself having (mostly) one-sided conversations with the horses as he works. It's not like he can talk to Kate all that much, keeping things professional between them, like he promised.

But as the morning wears on, he sometimes hears a random clang of a tin bucket, or the slam of the tack room door. And sometimes he stops what he's doing and peeks around whichever horse he's working on, half-expecting to see Kate throwing things. She isn't throwing things, but sometimes she looks as if she wants to.

And then Rachat flicks an ear and an eye at him as if to ask mockingly, What did you do this time? And then Tommy actually replies, "I didn't do anything!" and pushes his head away.



Tommy's never been to the field beyond the lake. Of course he's seen it from a distance, but he's never had a reason to go out that far, just like he'd never had a reason to visit the stables until he met Kate. So out he moseys indeed, sunglasses on and his jacket slung over a shoulder in the midday warmth.

"I think I could really get used to these picnics."

He grins at her and lays his jacket down on one corner of the blanket before settling himself within reach of the food she's setting out.