by Laura Moore
“What?” Jade said. God, she was the one with the poor attention skills. Obsessed with having Hayley Cooper in her class, she’d missed Eugene Harrison’s name completely.
“Eugene Harrison? Is that who I think it is?” Owen asked.
“Can I see that?” Margot stretched her arm across the table so Jordan could pass her the list. “And in answer to your question, Owen, if you’re thinking, Holy crap, that must be Eugene and Nonie Harrison’s grandson, you’d be on the money.”
“Their son, who’s also Eugene, and his wife, Christy, moved back to Warburg last spring,” Jordan explained to Owen, who’d been in Warburg for only five years and thus was still a relative newbie when it came to knowing the genealogy of its families. “Eugene and Christy told everyone they decided to relocate for the schools, but Marla heard a different story, about something happening down in Charlotte that suddenly made Eugene a less-than-perfect bank VP. According to Marla, he was let go without a severance package.”
“Ouch. That had to hurt,” Travis said.
“Ouch, indeed. Too bad I can’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for them. Christy and Eugene have only been back for a few months, but they’ve already made it clear that all of Warburg should be kowtowing to them,” Jordan said.
“A Harrison trait.” Owen picked up the wine and refilled their glasses. “So I gather this means there are now three Eugene Harrisons in Warburg? Isn’t that terribly redundant?”
“Yeah, but it’s better than having three Nonies. That wouldn’t just be redundant, it’d be downright ugly,” Travis said. “By the way, this is a nice wine, Owen. I think Andy and Miriam are going to like it.”
“Thanks. Let’s have another toast: to the one and only Nonie.” He grinned. “If there were ever a definitive argument against cloning, Nonie would be it.”
Travis laughed. “Very true.”
“Poor Nonie,” Jordan said with a decided lack of sympathy. There was no love lost between the Radcliffes and the Harrisons.
Margot had remained silent during the exchange, as she studied Jade’s class list. Jade counted the seconds and got to three, then Margot’s cry of “Oh my God!” and her sharp blue gaze zeroed in on Jade. “I cannot believe you didn’t mention this.” Passing the folder to Travis, she said, “Take a look under the C’s.”
“What, are you talking about Hayley Cooper? She’s a sweet little girl, Margot,” Jordan said. “Remember how cute she was in the winter pageant dressed up as a snow-flake? She and Olivia stole the show.”
“Uh-oh, I have a sinking feeling that Hayley Cooper’s dad is going to be none other than Rob Cooper—your favorite police officer. And mine,” Owen added with a quick scowl. “I’m still annoyed at his sticking me with a two-hundred-dollar fine after I put my face on the line for you, Jade.”
“Rob Cooper’s probably forgotten all about Jade,” Jordan said.
Margot cocked an eyebrow in disbelief. “No way. After the stunts she pulled?”
“Rob Cooper doesn’t strike me as the type to hold grudges.”
Margot shook her head. “Sweetie, you’re too forgiving—”
“Hon, I’m gonna have to side with Jordan on this,” Travis said. “Rob’s not likely to give Jade grief. It’s been years since she crossed paths with Rob in his official capacity. And he’ll be seeing her as a teacher—not a delinquent. And parents appreciate good teachers.”
Jade decided it was time to put in her two cents’ worth. “I hope you’re right, Travis. But I’ve got to admit that if I’d had my crystal ball and seen I was going to be teaching his daughter one day, I probably wouldn’t have signed RoboCop up for the donut-of-the-month club.”
“You know, I seem to recall mentioning that that particular idea might come back to bite you,” Margot said drily.
“You did indeed, O Prissy One.”
While Margot shot Jade a narrowed-eyed glare, Jordan swiveled in the chair to face her youngest sister. “Did you just call Margot prissy? I thought that was my title.”
“Nope, Owen saved you. Since getting hitched you’ve grown increasingly un-prissy.”
“Thanks for noticing,” Jordan said, beaming.
Owen graced Jade with a wink.
Across the table, Margot raised her hand and wagged her fingers. “For the record, I would like it noted that I am not prissy. And as for Rob Cooper, he showed a great deal of restraint in his dealings with you. I will always like him for that.”
“Personally, I’ve never thought of the word prissy in association with any Radcliffe female—certainly not you three,” Travis said gallantly. “As for the matter of having both a Cooper and a Harrison in the first class you ever teach, well, it could be a whole heck of a lot worse.”
“Yes.” Owen nodded in agreement. “Jade could have half the parents in her class wanting her tarred and feathered.”
Jade barely managed to avoid spitting out her wine. “Gee, thanks for pointing that out, guys. Listen, I’ll be fine, truly. I’m taking the Doris Day approach.” At the four blank looks she received, she huffed impatiently, “Come on, as in, ‘Que Sera Sera’? You all seriously have to get up to speed with your pop references.”
Across the table, Travis’s shoulders were shaking with laughter as he brought his wine to his lips. Good, she thought. One family member distracted, three to go. “So, Owen, do you think Jimmy Stewart was in agony every time Doris started singing?”
Owen cocked a dark brow at her obvious ploy to change the subject but obliged her nonetheless, saying, “I wouldn’t dare speak for Jimmy Stewart, but The Man Who Knew Too Much was definitely not my favorite Hitchcock. Give me Rear Window any day.”
“Grace Kelly was divine in Rear Window,” Jordan said, rising from the table and beginning to clear the dessert plates.
“A goddess,” Margot said solemnly as she stood to help, placing the empty glasses on a wooden tray. “Do you remember the actress who gave Jimmy his massages and who helped Grace sneak into Raymond Burr’s apartment? What was her name again?” she asked.
While they searched their collective memory banks for Thelma Ritter’s name, Jade breathed a sigh of relief at no longer having to worry about Rob Cooper. She wouldn’t have to think about him again for another twenty minutes, until she began composing her letter to her new students. A reprieve that could last even longer if she volunteered to do the dishes. Dishwashing had never looked so good.
It was 8:30 P.M. on Tuesday night, exactly two and a half hours since Hayley’s birthday cake—decorated by Rob’s mom with a prancing chocolate-and-vanilla-frosted pony and Happy 7th Birthday, Hayley—had been consumed, along with tubs of ice cream and bagfuls of Gummi worms, and a shell-shocked Rob was wondering if this horde of girls was ever going to calm down or if the house was ever going to look the same.
Every piece of furniture in the living room had been pushed against the wall—eight girls were as strong as an army of ants—in order to clear a space for a dance floor so the girls could practice dance moves to Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and Justin Bieber.
How in hell had they memorized all these inane lyrics? More puzzling still, when had Hayley learned them? And which one of these future American Idol contestants had had the bright idea to raid the kitchen for spoons to serve as mikes, the better to belt out the tunes? Was all this stuff programmed into their DNA?
Upstairs, his bedroom had undergone a similar transformation. Before they’d decided to turn into musical divas, the girls had been going at it like WWE stars. His bed had been turned into a trampoline and then a wrestling arena, his pillows used as assault weapons.
Not even the second-floor bathroom was left inviolate. He’d already had to take the plunger to the bathroom toilet—to shrieks of high-drama disgust and exaggerated gagging noises.
“They looked so cute and harmless when they arrived,” he said, trying not to check his watch again. He realized he might start whimpering if the watch hands didn’t start inching closer to nine o’clock, the hour when he could
send the little demons—oops, darlings—to the family room with their sleeping bags and backpacks. He no longer held out much hope that they’d sleep, but at least they’d be contained.
“Little girls, cute and harmless? Ha, that’s a good one.” Emma had come by to lend a hand after teaching her aerobics class. “They’re much more terrifying than boys. And this is just the beginning, Rob. Wait until high school. You’ll be missing the days of watching them gyrate to Miley and Company. Oh, and speaking of high school, guess who I spotted this morning?”
“Who?” he asked, jumping back from his post by the door to avoid being run over as two girls streaked by. He caught the words costume change before they thundered up the stairs.
“Jade Radcliffe. She was at Braverman’s picking up an order. I don’t think she saw me—not sure she would have recognized me anyway, as I was a year behind her in school—but she looked great.”
The two or three memories Rob had of Jade Radcliffe didn’t mesh with “looking great.” In one of his mental snapshots, she was passed out in the back of his patrol car and reeking of vomit and Jägermeister after he’d broken up an underage party. In another, she was shrouded in an overlarge hoodie and had just dumped a bucket of filthy water—a putrid mix of day-old vomit and soap—over his boots and police uniform. He’d spent minutes yelling at the pointy tip of her hood as her bony shoulders shook—whether from terror or mirth he’d never ascertained. The last time he’d seen her was at the Den, when he’d busted her with her fake college ID. Her hair had been chopped to an inch from her skull and bleached yellow-white. He remembered her face, how fear had leeched it of color until it was almost as pale as her hair. Her lips had been pressed into a thin, quivery line and heavy mascara had lined her vivid green eyes. No, looking great was not how he ever remembered Jade Radcliffe.
He frowned, annoyed at the realization that Jade had the same exotic eye color as the woman with whom he’d spent the night in Norfolk. His brow cleared as he recalled how very different the woman’s eyes had been, sparkling with intelligence, shining with pleasure.
Emma was still talking. “I guess Jade’s back working at Rosewood Farm.”
“Yeah, she’s teaching kids how to ride.”
“How’d you know that?” In the next breath, Emma used the I-don’t-take-anybody’s-crap tone she’d learned from growing up with three older brothers. “Katie. That side table is not a dance stage. Get down now. Now, Katie.”
And Katie Girard, who’d previously played deaf to all adult admonishment, dropped to the floor.
“Good job, Em. Thanks.” Had Katie broken that table, Rob would have been tempted to handcuff her. Becky had bought the table the first year of their marriage.
“You’re welcome. So when did you hear about Jade teaching riding?”
“I went to Steadman’s Saddle Shop to ask whether they knew of any good riding instructors. Adam Steadman told me she’s giving lessons.”
“Wow. So are you going to sign Hayley up?”
“With her? No.”
She raised her dark brow inquiringly. “No?”
“There are other riding teachers in Warburg.”
Emma shrugged. “Sure there are. But I bet Hayley would really like Jade. I always thought she was the coolest girl in high school.”
“Popular, you mean.”
“Hardly,” Emma scoffed. “Blair Hood, Courtney Joseph, and Amanda Coles made it their personal mission to treat Jade like a pariah. And they tried to get everyone else in school to as well. The rumors they spread about her, the nasty tricks they pulled on her, were really shitty, Rob. And still Jade managed to be cooler than any of them. God, there was this period where she changed her hair color about every other week. It was wild.”
The admiration in Emma’s voice had him glancing at her in surprise. He supposed he’d been too absorbed in his life with Becky and their baby girl to pay attention to the goings-on in his kid sister’s high school—unless one of the students happened to cross his path while he was in uniform, as Jade Radcliffe had. He was about to question her further when an earsplitting shriek rent the air, followed by a crash that had them both glancing up at the ceiling.
“My turn.” He sighed, already moving toward the stairs.
It was going to be a long night. But Hayley had a huge grin on her face as she and Jenny Ferris did the bump while they warbled along with Miley, singing “Hoedown Throwdown.”
He’d do almost anything to see that smile on his daughter’s face, even allow his house to be wrecked by a band of female imps.
IF A person wanted to shop for a horse, the man to turn to was Ned Connelly. Not that Jade’s brother-in-law Travis or even Margot or Jordan weren’t excellent judges of horseflesh, but looking over a horse from teeth to tail, making sure the animal was 100 percent sound and would suit the job for which it was being bought, put a twinkle in Ned’s eyes like nothing else could. It didn’t even matter to him that they were shopping for ponies rather than broodmares or studs to improve Rosewood Farm’s bloodlines. Ned was as happy as the kids buckled in the backseat of the Rover.
Jade had drafted Kate, Max, and Olivia to come and help pick out the ponies. She’d been watching them ride since they could walk; seeing how they did on unknown ponies would give her a good sense of whether the ponies would be proper school ponies. A school pony had certain requirements. It had to be kind and patient, willing to let a novice learn on its back with good grace. While most ponies had their quirks, Jade intended to vet the four she was buying as carefully as possible to avoid bringing home any ponies from hell. She’d seen the like plenty of times: the ponies that intentionally brushed up against jump standards in order to knock a kid off the saddle, the ones that bolted into the middle of the riding ring for an impromptu roll in the dirt, never mind that a saddle and child were still attached to their backs, or the others that engaged in a constant tug-of-war with the reins. She’d even once seen a kid literally slide down a pony’s neck, doing a slow-motion face dive into the dirt.
Of course, an argument could be made for learning how to ride the tough cases—both horses and ponies—but Jade believed that for young riders it was better to have them first develop the skills and coordination necessary to good riding. Then they could tackle the more temperamental mounts.
Dressed in jodhpurs and paddock boots, Kate and Max, with Olivia sandwiched between them, squirmed with excitement at the prospect of trying out the ponies Jade had made appointments to see.
Jade was feeling pretty excited too. She felt lucky to have three young riders of different abilities and size to test the ponies—though even six-year-old Olivia was no novice. Fearless and determined to ride as well as her older brother and sister, she’d begun cantering at age five.
Jade knew that by the end of this day the kids would have learned a ton about riding and ponies. What better way to keep the traditions her family embraced alive in the youngest generation? And how great that the three kids who’d shown her how much fun it was to teach were helping her pick out the school ponies! Having Ned Connelly join them today was the proverbial icing on the cake. Ned had been her and Jordan and Margot’s first teacher and would be sharing his decades of knowledge with all four of them today.
The very day Jade had returned to Rosewood, Ned started calling around to breeders and owners. They’d picked Windy Hill Ponies for their first visit; this was the farm where Jordan and he had found Archer, the pony the kids rode along with Doc Holliday, who at age twenty-four still won ribbons in children’s hunter classes.
Located about thirty minutes north of Warburg, Windy Hill bred its own ponies but also acted as selling agents for owners who’d outgrown their mounts—a sad eventuality for most pony owners. The farm’s manager, Ralph Whittaker, had told Jade and Ned that he had a number of sound, seasoned campaigners that could be ridden as school ponies, taken out on the hunt field for a morning’s ride, and also do a competitive turn in the show ring—reasons enough for Ned to be nearly as excit
ed as Kate, Max, Olivia, and Jade herself.
From the backseat, Max piped up. “Aunt Jade, are we bringing the ponies home today?”
“No, Max, today we’re going to try to find some we really like. If that happens, I’ll come back for another visit to see whether they’re just as nice the second time, because some ponies can be nice one day and then super-cranky another. We want ponies that are as fun to be around as Doc and Archer.” Noting the three disappointed faces reflected in the rearview mirror, she added, “Don’t worry, guys, Doc and Archer will have new barn mates very soon.”
“And as soon as they do, we get to start riding them, so they’ll be super-good for the kids who are going to be taking lessons with you.” At eight, Max liked to plan in a big way. He’d probably be ready to run a company by age twelve.
“That’s right. You all are going to be very busy.”
“I hope Carly Ferris and her sister, Jenny, sign up for lessons with you, Aunt Jade. Carly and Jenny are nice,” Kate said.
Jenny Ferris. She was one of Jade’s future second-grade students. What a relief to know that there was one kid in her class who was non-headache material; if Kate liked her, that was recommendation enough.
“We’ll have to see. Mr. and Mrs. Ferris may have other after-school activities lined up for them.”
“No, Jenny really wants to ride.” Olivia’s voice rang with conviction. “She and Hayley are always asking me stuff about riding.”
And that would be Hayley Cooper. It occurred to Jade that she could get a full report from her nieces and nephew on a number of the kids in her class, a report that would reveal far more than anything she’d read in the first-grade teacher’s evaluations.
She flicked the indicator, taking the exit off Route 15 and heading west. “So what do you guys think of Hayley Cooper? You were in the winter pageant with her, right, Liv?”
