Divine Mortals Read Online Free

high, nausea swept instantly through me, my palms turned clammy. I stood, removing my earphones and stuffing my iPod into the pocket of my shorts. The day was already sweltering, I could see heat waves rippling off of the iron roof of the machinery shed.
    Pop strode ahead of me, the lope of a fit man used to years of working the land, I almost had to jog to keep up with him. Skipping down the stairs away from the sanctuary of the porch I pulled my hair from its ponytail, shaking it loose as I went, I was starting to get a headache.
    Pop had already reached one of the high sided pens and was peering between the rails waiting patiently for me to catch up.
    Beaut stood in the center of the pen happily munching on a pile of hay, his coat was a deep glistening black, he was both absolutely stunning and completely terrifying. It was easy to forget just how big horses were and I felt a prick of fear as I took him in. I swallowed this down, fear wouldn’t hurt me, it might actually make for a welcome distraction, a new emotion to keep the others I currently had at bay.
    “What do you think?” Pop asked, turning a large smile my way.
    “He’s beautiful,” I admitted, at least I could give my honest feelings about that, “Let me guess, Beaut? As in Black Beauty, not real original Pop.”
    He laughed.
    “No we aren’t really about the imagination here, more practicality, your Nan came up with that when he was born, we were just going to call him Blacky.”
    “Really? Well in that case Beaut is one hundred times better”.
    A loud bang came from the shed behind us, Pop turned to look.
    “Come and meet the hands Ava,” he gestured to me, “it looks like all three of them are in at the moment.”
    I turned back towards the pen that held Beaut and then again towards Pop, who without waiting to hear my reply, was already on his way towards the noises in the shed. I followed reluctantly, I wasn’t really ready to start meeting new people just yet, but it didn’t seem possible to get out of it with Pop almost at the shed already and the alternative being a few hundred pounds of horse flesh.
    “Ava this is Jed,” Grandpop motioned to the first man who was sweating over the tractor he worked on.
    “He manages these other two.” Pop continued, gesturing vaguely to the other two men in the shed.
    “Hello.” I mumbled, sounding shy even to my own ears. I had never been very good at meeting new people.
    “Nice to meet you honey,” he tipped his hat, I suppressed a smile, I thought that only happened in western movies.
    Jed had a kind face, it was lined and tanned to a deep brown, hard baked and leathery looking. I guessed him to be in his late forties, he was tall and wiry, the veins standing out on his arms in the heat. He looked like the kind of guy who had been working outside his entire life.
    “Perfect timing,” he smiled, continuing, “We need a new musterer.”
    “Oh,” I returned his smile, “You may be waiting a while then, I can’t ride.”
    Jed feigned shock at this and another voice spoke up from the other side of the tractor.
    “Are you sure she’s your granddaughter then Fred?”
    “And that’s Shaun,” Pop gestured towards the second man who was now chuckling at his own joke, I smiled towards him, giving him a small wave.
    “Hey,”
    “Hi,” Shaun smiled broadly, he was not much younger than Jed, and obviously a man of humor, deep laugh lines surrounded his mouth and eyes. Like Jed he was weathered and leathery, although Shaun was slightly overweight. While Jed and Shaun shared the same skin they obviously didn’t share the same diet.
    “Nice to meet you.” I murmured,
    “You too.” He echoed, his eyes were as kind as his voice and I couldn’t help but instantly like this happy round man.
    “So you’ll be needing some riding lessons then?” he continued, giving me a wink.
    “Ahhh…” I laughed, “We’ll see, perhaps I’d do better with a motorbike.”
    Shaun boomed out a laugh,