Ride a Dark Horse

by Laura Moore

  Suddenly without warning, uncomfortably moist, warm breath blew against the middle of her back, as startling as a foghorn, blaring loudly in the dark. Stiffening in alarm, she stilled, her eyes widening at the bizarre sensation. She gasped, freezing in alarm.

  At Cassie’s abrupt reaction, Caleb reluctantly lifted his head. His cheekbones were stained with bright red flags of color, his brain muddled, his thoughts disjointed.

  Chest heaving, his eyes slowly focused, registering their surroundings. The thick bed of straw at their feet, the wide, blackish, kerosened planks of wood of the stall’s interior. Then finally, he met the patient, dark stare of Topper, now nuzzling inquisitively at the nape of Cassie’s neck.

  No, God, please no. Caleb dropped his head back, his eyes squeezed tight, willing the vision away. Gritting his teeth in frustration, Caleb groaned loudly.

  Neither spoke a word as Cassie readjusted her bra and hurriedly tugged the shirt back over her shoulders, wrestling the buttons back into place. Caleb, struggling to tamp down the force of his need, clenched his teeth until his molars started to ache. He kept his eyes averted, trained on the cobwebs in the corner of the stall, not daring to look at Cassie just yet.

  “Hell, Cassie,” he said finally, when his body was no longer threatening to explode. “I’m sorry. Definitely didn’t intend for that to happen. I’d told myself I was going to keep my hands off you. That I wouldn’t even kiss you again.” That I’d wait for you to kiss me. In any event not try to jump your bones in a box stall, for Christ’s sake, Caleb finished silently, his head shaking in self-disgust. He’d never been with a women before where he kept wanting to make love in the damnedest of places. Rotten timing. Cassie was turning his brain to mush, no doubt about it.

  Her eyes gazed at the stall bedding to hide the hurt his words had inflicted. He didn’t want to make love with her? Why not?

  “Yeah,” she replied, feigning a nonchalance that was utterly foreign to her. “A stall’s pretty much of a cliché, isn’t it?” She turned her back on Caleb and busied her hands adjusting Topper’s halter. Grabbing the cheek strap, she glanced quickly over her shoulder in Caleb’s general direction, refusing to make eye contact.

  “I’ve got to get this guy out for a bit before the twins show up.” She gave a small, strained smile. “Thanks for the sympathy, Caleb. I was a real mess.” With that she led the pony out, leaving Caleb alone in the gloomy box stall.

  “Cassie, wait . . .” Caleb’s arm stretched out to stop her but she was already beyond his reach.

  * * *

  She was becoming completely obsessed, she thought, disgusted with herself. What did she care if he wanted to kiss her or not? So what? Just two hours ago she’d assured her brother that she’d be far too busy to bother with the likes of Caleb Wells, and here she was, playing Caleb’s words over and over in her mind. It was past time she remembered that her life had far more serious worries than wondering why Caleb Wells had decided on a kissing moratorium.

  Was it with women in general, or just her? she wondered glumly.

  Darn it. Okay, that was it. She refused to waste any more time even thinking about him. So far he was proving to be one big sexual headache. She’d done just fine without a man in her life after her breakup with Brad. These past few weeks should have been one enormous caution sign, with blinking lights set all around it: Men were definitely more trouble than they were worth. And Caleb Wells took the prize.

  She felt as if she’d been on an emotional roller coaster since she first laid eyes on him. Enough was enough. She had better things to do.

  With that pep talk blaring like a PA system through her head, Cassie got through her exercise schedule, concentrating with fierce determination on the horses. By the time the twins arrived with Thompson to ride Pip and Topper, a gargantuan headache was pounding away at her brain. Cassie had about as much energy left in her as a sea turtle did after laying two hundred and fifty eggs.

  She was in the tack room, wiping off her saddle with a cake of glycerin soap and a damp sponge when the twins and Thompson found her. Both children were dressed in matching jodhpurs and paddock boots with hunt caps securely buckled onto their small heads. Their eyes were shining bright.

  For about half a second, Cassie hesitated, tempted to say that she was too exhausted to teach Jamie and Sophie this afternoon. Then she thought of their certain disappointment. This was their first afternoon together starting their new lives in Virginia. She couldn’t let them down.

  She mustered a tired smile. “Hi, kids. You’re right on time. Did you give Thompson a hand with your riding gear or did you make her do all the work?”

  “Oh, they were so excited to ride, they got dressed an hour early. I only had to help them with the laces on their boots.” Thompson paused, concern lacing her voice. “Cassie, dear, you look done in. Are you feeling all right?”

  Cassie nodded. “I’m okay, thanks, Thompson. Just a little tired, that’s all.” She hefted her saddle onto the rack and wiped her damp hands on the legs of her breeches before extending them for Jamie and Sophie to grab hold of. She took a deep breath, shaking off her fatigue, blocking out her headache. “Well, then, kids, let’s go out to the paddock and get Topper and Pip. We’ll brush them off, tack them, and then you can hop on.”

  As they headed outside, Cassie turned to the older woman.

  “Thompson, if you want to head back home early, I can bring Sophie and Jamie home with me. I only have a few things left to do. They can keep me company.”

  “All right, that’ll give me time to get a head start on dinner. I think we could all use an early night.”

  Cassie smiled wanly. “You can say that again.”

  She was glad she’d kept her promise. Sophie and Jamie looked so adorable astride their ponies, their thin legs struggling to grip the sides of their saddles, their bodies bouncing like large, multicolored Ping-Pong balls as they trotted around the perimeter of the ring. What little troopers they were. Cassie supposed she’d looked just as comical at their age, but fortunately the memories of her early riding years were far too blurry. All she remembered was intense happiness combined with a sense of awe that these majestic creatures would tolerate her presence on their backs. It was a feeling she’d never outgrown.

  “Okay, Sophie and Jamie, come on into the center of the ring and you can switch ponies now.” Cassie had devised a method for avoiding squabbles between the twins by strictly enforcing the fifty-fifty rule with the ponies. Each one got to ride both ponies for half the lesson. Anyone who complained forfeited the privilege of a lesson. So far only Sophie had had the temerity to defy Cassie’s rules. Once. She hadn’t liked it at all when she’d been forced to watch her brother benefit from her tantrum by having a session all to himself.

  It had been an important lesson for both children. If there was one thing Cassie couldn’t abide, it was seeing kids act like spoiled brats around horses. Horses were a gift, a responsibility, and it literally made Cassie’s stomach turn when she saw the careless manner with which so many kids and adults treated their horses. So she’d laid the law down from the first and intended to stick by it.

  But at other times, on other issues, Cassie wondered whether she was too draconian. Whenever she stopped to consider the importance of her role in raising Jamie and Sophie, Cassie felt paralyzed with apprehension. She knew she would always come up short, in her own mind at least, compared to the kind of guidance and parenting Tom and Lisa would have provided. But she loved the twins as fiercely as if they were her own and was determined to instill in them a sense of right and wrong. Tom and Lisa would have wanted that.

  Cassie watched as both children steered their ponies to the center of the ring and came to a halt in front of her. They had graduated from the longe line about two months before, but Cassie still watched their every move with an eagle eye, unwilling to risk an accident. Although she knew her children were as strong and nimble as monkeys, the thought of teaching them to canter had her heart in her mou
th. Luckily, they had a way to go before they were ready to progress to that stage.

  Cassie lightly grasped the ponies’ snaffle bits as Jamie and Sophie swung their legs over the saddles and plopped down to the ground with audible thuds. Following the routine with a familiarity that would have made an army sergeant proud, the twins circled around the front of Topper and Pip and exchanged places. Cassie gave them each a leg up and adjusted the stirrups, Jamie’s legs being a tad longer than Sophie’s.

  “Mommy, can we do around the world, today?”

  “Would you like that, Pumpkin?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Do you want to do it now or after you’ve done some trotting?”

  “Now, now!” they cried in unison. “Okay ” Cassie agreed with a smile. “Go out on the rail and we can get started.”

  Sophie and Jamie nudged the ponies with their heels and steered them back out to the periphery of the riding ring. Cassie checked to make sure they both were sitting balanced in their saddles and that Pip and Topper were walking placidly along, in the semisomnambulant state the two old ponies slipped into whenever they knew it was lesson time. Cassie shook her head in wonder, recalling how Topper had managed to dump her a few days ago. He must have really been feeling peppy that afternoon, acting like a rowdy teenager instead of the plodding old geezer he’d become.

  “All right, Jamie and Sophie, drop your stirrups.”

  The two children began the drill. As the ponies ambled lazily around the ring, Sophie and Jamie first swung their right legs over the pommel of the saddle, and next their left legs over the cantle. They always paused a minute in this position, the daring and excitement of being seated backwards in the saddle too heady to resist. Finally, their right legs joined the left, so that they were now seated sideways, their legs dangling on the righthand side of the saddle. The revolution was complete when at last their left legs swung over the pommel and the children found their stirrups.

  “Excellent job, kids! Now let’s see you move your ponies into a posting trot. Remember to check those diagonals. Up, down, up, down . . . that’s the way Jamie.”

  Cassie allowed them to trot and walk for a final fifteen minutes before she directed them once more into the center of the ring. After the twins had dismounted and brought the reins over their ponies’ heads, the group walked back to the barn.

  “After we’ve untacked Pip and Topper we’ve got a couple more jobs to do before we go on home, okay kids?”

  “Okay, Mommy.”

  Cassie helped the twins undo the girths and lift the saddles off the ponies’ backs. After they’d gotten the bridles off and placed the halters on Pip and Topper’s heads, Cassie stood back and observed while Sophie and Jamie went over their coats with soft brushes, letting the children do as much of the grooming as they physically could. A short time later they’d finished, and the ponies were back in their stalls, chomping on the treats the twins had dropped in their feed buckets. Taking a quick look to ensure the aisle was neat, with no brushes lying about, Cassie hefted the two saddles in each arm while Sophie and Jamie followed, carrying the bridles.

  “We’ll put this tack away and then go to Hot Lips’s stall. I need to groom her and then walk her for a bit.” Cassie paused as she saw Melissa approaching them from the other side of the barn. She smiled a greeting at the older woman.

  “Hi guys. I ran into Thompson as she was leaving. She told me you were having a lesson. How’d it go?” she inquired cheerfully.

  “It was fun. We got to do around the world,” Jamie pronounced world as if it were spelled with an i.

  “Wow. I loved that when I was your age. I just came by to see whether you might be interested in a snack after all that hard riding. By the way Cassie, Hank was wondering if you could drop by the office after you’re done for the day.”

  The twins reacted with their usual enthusiasm. Now that they’d ridden, the twins were just as happy to move onto life’s next great pleasure: food. Cassie gave a small smile of thanks to the older woman. She’d get the last chores done a lot quicker on her own.

  “Here, let me take those bridles from you. That’s right, just slip the leather straps over my fingers. Jamie, Sophie, I want both of you to remember not to eat so much you spoil your dinner.” The children deserted her cheerfully. Laden down with tack, Cassie stood, watching them go, struggling not to laugh at the spectacle they made. Her little Jamie was doing his level best to match the longer strides of Melissa. Stretching his legs wide with each step, his body bobbing up and down, all the while talking a blue streak, in his high child’s voice. For her part, Sophie was trying to introduce a skip into her step every few feet. The movement had her lurching from side to side. With typical good will, Melissa ignored the diminutive hip check she kept receiving from Sophie as she led the children back to her house.

  “I’ve received the entry forms for all the shows on our list. I thought while we’re at it, we might enter Limelight in some jumper classes, too. And we can take along Silverspoon and Arrow and put them in some prejumper classes, depending on how they’re coming along. Just to make sure you have a full dance card.”

  Silverspoon and Arrow were the four-year-olds she’d been working with. Limelight was another horse Caleb and Hank had high hopes for. A six-year-old dapple-grey gelding, he was one of Gaspar’s get. Smaller than Orion, Limelight favored the thoroughbred in his bloodlines. But he had a wiry agility and jumping ability that was exciting to watch. Hank had already received some offers for the gelding.

  “Sounds good,” Cassie replied equably. “We can fill some of the early ones out this week if you want.”

  “Yeah, I’d just as soon wait ’til Caleb can join us. He lit out of here an hour ago like a bat out of hell—pardon the expression, Cassie—got a call that a dog was hit by a car. One of his patients.”

  “How terrible. Did he tell you how it happened?”

  “No, he was in too much of a rush. I feel bad for Caleb, though. He’s had the practice for just over five years now and he’s really attached to the animals in his care. Treats them as if they were his own.”

  Cassie nodded in sympathy. When one of her horses was sick, she was always beside herself with worry. But at least she had the comfort of knowing that there were professionals who could be relied on to help the animals as best they could. But Caleb was one of those people, and the owners’ hopes would be pinned on him.

  16

  W hen they returned to Hay Fever Farm, Cassie waited until the children had bathed and were playing upstairs together in Jamie’s room to tell Thompson about Caleb’s patient.

  “I’m so sorry. I’d noticed the lights weren’t on in his house when you were upstairs with the children. He must be still working on the dog.” “I suppose it could take hours, depending on how badly hurt it is.”

  “Well, he’s going to be utterly wiped out when he comes home,” Thompson stated matter of factly, “I think we should have a hot meal ready for him when he returns. He’ll probably be too exhausted to fix one himself.”

  She turned to face the stove, opening the oven door to check the roast chicken she was preparing. “Why don’t you write a note, telling him we’ve saved some supper for him, and tack it on his front door?” she suggested, her head still deep in the oven’s interior.

  Cassie frowned at Thompson’s bent form, torn between amusement and exasperation at the older woman. While she knew Thompson was simply acting in a concerned, neighborly fashion, she also knew that Caleb was perfectly capable of fixing a sandwich for himself and might not appreciate Thompson’s well-meaning mothering. Realizing, too, that it was useless to argue with Thompson once she’d made up her mind, Cassie went silently to the counter where the telephone was placed and ripped a sheet of paper from the notepad. She jotted down a quick note, inviting Caleb to come and grab a bite, should he wish.

  By the time Cassie had read the twins a story, tucked them into their beds, and given them their good night kisses, she was weaving on her feet
, wiped out by the day’s events.

  There was still no sign of Caleb.

  She hoped that simply meant Caleb had finished working on the dog and decided to go out to dinner. She didn’t even want to contemplate how badly the dog might be hurt if it required this many hours of medical attention.

  She slipped downstairs to bid Thompson good night, not terribly surprised to find the older woman seated at the kitchen table, a cup of steaming hot tea and a stack of magazines at her elbow. It looked as if she were preparing herself for a long night’s vigil.

  “’Night, Thompson. I’m sorry I can’t wait up any more, but I’m exhausted. Tell Caleb if he comes that I hope the dog’s all right.”

  Thompson nodded agreeably. “I’ll just stay up for a bit longer, myself. You go off to bed now you look wiped out.”

  Cassie turned and headed back up to her room, leaving the older woman reading in the kitchen’s soft, golden light.

  When the alarm went off at five-thirty the next morning, Cassie groaned with effort as she flung her arm out to silence its shrill ring. Groggily, she lifted her head and peered with half-opened eyes in the direction of the curtained window and saw only unrelieved darkness. The sound of rain hitting the windowpane slowly registered.

  No way was she going running on a cold, rainy, miserable morning. With a deep sigh, she rolled over and buried her head in the soft pillow.

  “Well,” Thompson began as she sat down at the kitchen table with a plate of sliced fruit and toast. “I can drive them around town a bit so we all get used to our new home. Then there’s Legos, blocks, and that finger paint set they got from Alex. That’ll occupy them for a bit. Then after lunch they can play some more, perhaps bake a batch of cookies, and go over to the stable in the afternoon.”