Danger Deception Devotion The Firsts

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  This wasn’t about overpowering him, because overpowering a twelve-hundred-pound animal wasn’t even logical. This was all about gaining trust, getting him to recognize that whatever problems or distractions were going on out there, she would protect him. Only then was change going to happen. And only through her calm, steady approach. Only one of two things happened in a ring: Either the rider took on the erratic, high-strung behavior of the horse, or the horse would eventually calm to the powerful energy of the rider. It was about who was stronger, as well as hard work. Staying focused, balanced and well away from Storm’s hooves was a challenge, Margaret had to admit. A challenge she was enjoying every minute of, because it took her mind from her problems, from going to that dark, lonely place where she’d lived in silence for the past six months.

  On the second day, when she was covered in sweat and her thin t-shirt felt glued to her back, and every inch of her was covered in dust and grime from head to toe, and she swore her teeth were filled with so much grit that she’d be eating it for dinner, Storm turned and faced her, licking his lips. She took that one tiny gesture. Because, for Storm, it was a huge step toward trust. The third day was when magic truly happened. When she tossed hay into the trough for Angel and then into the round ring where she kept Storm, he stepped forward calmly, his head down, and the dynamic presence that he scared everyone with was dimmed. “Good boy,” she said, patting his side, and he let her. She quietly left him to eat, taking that huge victory with her, knowing when to quit and walk away.

  Margaret had just cleaned up the corral and was pushing a wheelbarrow of manure around the side of the shed when she heard the unmistakable purr of Joe’s monster truck. Her tan t-shirt was coated in grime, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. When the dark blue truck appeared, it sent her heart skittering again. Instead of being neighborly and friendly, she scowled as Joe slid out. She looked this time but didn’t see a blonde, and she let out a sigh of relief. Ryan climbed out of the passenger side, and Storm, who was in the riding ring, started whinnying and stomping his hooves, snorting. The whites of his eyes flared with an attitude she hadn’t seen during the time he had been with her.

  “Hadn’t heard from you. I thought you were going to call,” Joe said. He slammed his door and walked straight to her in his sexy, he-man way. All she could see was how he was with Sara, and it hurt.

  “I don’t have a phone,” she said.

  He stopped as if she’d tossed a pail of ice water on him. “You don’t have a phone, seriously?” he said, scratching his head.

  Margaret shrugged. “Hey, Ryan,” she said before lifting the wheelbarrow and continuing away from them toward the manure pile around the side of the corral, closer to the line of trees. She dumped it and looked up at Joe, who was following her with a puzzled look.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t have a phone when I brought Storm over?” he said. “I asked you…”

  “No, you told me to call you. I recall I didn’t answer,” she said, cutting him off. She lifted the handles of the wheelbarrow and turned to walk away, but Joe grabbed her arm just above the elbow.

  “Is there a problem?” he said. Margaret stared at the warm, rough hand that held her, and he dropped it. “Look, we just came to find out how it’s going with Storm. Maybe this is a waste of time....”

  “Storm has done very well,” she said, gesturing to him and noticing his skittish behavior. “This is the first time he’s reacted this way since being here. We’re working on trust, building it slowly between us. This is a step back, what I’m seeing here.” She moved away from Joe.

  “Well, that’s great. Could we see what you’re doing?”

  There weren’t very many rules Margaret lived by, but having anyone watch her, judging the few capabilities she had, wasn’t going to happen, not here, and definitely not with Joe. “I’m not comfortable with that yet. I work alone. I’m building trust with Storm, and I can’t do that with someone watching over me. For one, look at how he’s reacting now with you two here.” Margaret glanced at Ryan, who was standing in the grassy field between the corral and round ring, watching Storm. “Would you mind if Ryan stayed?”

  Joe crossed his arms. “I suppose that would be okay. You have something in mind?”

  “Joe, can I ask you something?” she said. She took in his unshaven face and large nose, which made him look entirely too dangerous to her, even though she had pined for him as a kid. She glanced at his shoulders, which were wide and solid like a quarterback’s, and then finally turned her back on him completely.

  “What are you doing?” He actually started laughing at her, stepping in front of her and resting both hands on her shoulders. “I can’t talk to you if you’re going to keep turning your back on me or running the other way. Stand still, will you?”

  “I’m sorry I can’t look at you…. I mean, I’m not used to having people around.” This really wasn’t going well, and she considered sticking her head in a hole and hiding.

  “I’m not going to bite,” he said. “Unless you ask really nicely, that is.”

  Her face burned, and she gaped at the devil who grinned before her. She brushed his arm away and shut her eyes, he was laughing at her again.

  “You’re a nervous thing, aren’t you?” he said.

  “What…? No! Listen, you’re distracting me. I wanted to ask you about Ryan. Did something happen recently between him and Storm? I mean, from what I understand, you’ve had Storm for what, ten years? This is a recent problem that’s come up, so it makes me think something happened. This isn’t about people with horse problems, it’s about a horse with people problems. Horses only feel guarded if there’s a reason.” She didn’t want to say that horses reacted to the pressure of people’s elevated emotional energy. She sensed that a problem had been building and building for a long time. Until she got to the root of what that problem was, she had no hope of connecting Ryan with his horse.

  Joe appeared to consider what she said, then gave a dismissive wave, as if she didn’t know what she was talking about. “I think you’re reading too much into it. I’ll leave Ryan and be back later for him, since you don’t have a phone,” he said before turning toward the corral and calling out to his son. “Ryan, I’m you leaving you here! I’ll come back later to pick you up.”

  He left without another word to Margaret, and judging by his sharp reaction, she wondered if she’d hit a very sensitive nerve.

  Chapter Six

  “Please come to my birthday party! I really want you there,” Ryan asked with bright, innocent eyes—eyes far different from the morose ones he saved exclusively for his dad. Margaret hadn’t seen Joe since the day he left Ryan and came back three hours later, honking his horn and driving away without even a wave for Margaret. That had been three days ago.

  “Ryan, I can’t. I don’t do so well around people. I’m just not comfortable. Besides, your dad’s giving you this party. I don’t think he’d want me there.” Margaret hung up Storm’s halter and left him in the large, fenced-off field to graze with Angel, who was calm and balancing against Storm’s fiery personality. Margaret rested her forearms on top of the fence.

  “Please, Margaret? I don’t have very many friends, and I really want you there. Besides, you’re wrong—Dad does like you.” Ryan was squirming beside her, shuffling from one booted foot to the other. She didn’t miss the hopeful look on his face.

  “You didn’t tell me your dad had a girlfriend. Sara, is it?” she asked. She knew darn well it was, as the woman’s name was burned into her brain. Spending time, even five minutes at Ryan’s birthday, watching Sara and Joe fall all over each other like two love-starved puppies, was about as appealing as a root canal.

  “I wouldn’t exactly say she’s Dad’s girlfriend,” Ryan replied.

  Well, that got her attention. She scratched her elbow and watched something in the boy’s eyes that had her backing up. “Oh no, you’re not trying to matchmake, are you, set me up with your dad?”

  �
�You two would be great together!” he said. “Look how you’ve helped Storm! He’s so calm with you, and Dad listens to you.”

  “No, he doesn’t. Your dad doesn’t like me. He never did,” she barked, shocked at what Ryan had said even though she silently wished for just that. She would die before ever admitting it to herself, let alone telling anyone. “Why, Ryan? What’s wrong with Sara? I mean, your dad looked really happy with her,” she said. As she spoke, she saw the loss and disappointment in Ryan and started to connect some things, like a roadmap of secrets, and Storm was the key. “How long has your dad been dating Sara?”

  “About a month, I guess. Not long. He had a couple girlfriends at one time.”

  Margaret pushed away from the corral and stared at the scraped blue mountain bike Ryan had rode over on. She’d dealt with this kind of stuff in her residency, having to mask her judgment during difficult conversations. She must have been slipping, because right now she wanted nothing more than to go over and kick Joe somewhere that’d make him think twice about engaging in such things. She loathed guys like that.

  “So your dad dated two women at once. That must have been awkward for you.”

  Ryan actually smirked. “Only when I slipped up and called one the wrong name. Dad gave me one of those looks that let me know I was in big trouble, but she knew. I think it was Patti, or maybe it was Peggy. Can’t remember—there’ve been so many. Dad never saw her again.”

  “You did that deliberately, didn’t you?” she said.

  He shrugged, and she noticed the sadness return.

  “How many women have there been?” She tried to keep her voice light, but what she was hearing gave her a whole different view of Joe, and not in a good way.

  “I don’t know, really. I lost count. After Dad got his computer, he signed up for online dating about three years ago. I’d see him on the computer after dinner at night, chatting with women. He’d meet them for coffee, have them out for dinner, even took me with him a few times into town. There was one named Julie—I liked her, but she was last year, a schoolteacher and a good cook, too. She was pretty, like you, but Dad got this weird look in his eye after she spent the night one time, and I knew she wouldn’t be back,” Ryan replied with a forlorn look.

  Margaret wondered what kind of stupid expression was on her face, because she couldn’t believe Ryan had called her pretty. She had to blink a couple times and swallow. Margaret had never been pretty. She’d been awkward, too tall as a teen, but she’d never once considered herself pretty. She cleared her throat. “Why don’t you like Sara?”

  He gave her a look as if she had sprouted a second head. “She’s not real! Everything is fake about her, and I don’t think she tells the truth. I know she doesn’t like me, though. She pretends with Dad, always hanging on his arm, completely useless. She’d never do what you do, scoop up manure. She hates the dirt, and when we were at her place in town, she shrieked when I almost sat on her white couch.”

  Margaret smiled. “Were your pants dirty?” She laughed and couldn’t shake that picture from her head.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t check, but Dad got after me. She stays over sometimes and makes a lot of noise in Dad’s room, carrying on. She giggles a lot. It’s annoying.”

  Margaret watched the hopeful look on Ryan’s face and gazed out at the peaceful sight of Storm munching happily with Angel. “Okay, I’ll come,” she said.

  “You will, really? You won’t regret it. It’s going to be a great party now.” Ryan threw his arms around her neck and hugged her, then bounced up and down.

  Margaret then realized the enormity of what she’d just agreed to. Panic, dread, and every fear imaginable had her breaking out in a cold sweat, but she saw the hopeful look on Ryan’s face, and she knew she couldn’t let him down.

  Chapter Seven

  What do you get a fourteen-year-old boy? Margaret asked herself. She certainly hadn’t considered all the ramifications of her decision to go to Ryan’s party. First she had to drive to town, which she had avoided since returning. Although Post Falls was large enough, the chances of running into anyone she might recognize were high, and she worried the entire way into town to the hardware store, her foot shaking on the gas pedal. She eventually spied a great pocket knife that had tons of gadgets and hoped Ryan didn’t already have one.

  She recognized the redheaded balding guy behind the counter from school. It was Rick, one of Joe’s old friends. He’d stared at her when she asked to see the knife, and he had even asked her name, but thankfully, when she told him, it hadn’t seemed to register. By the time she got home, she didn’t have much time to get ready, as the barbeque started at five. She hadn’t done any work at all that day with Storm because she’d been worrying about the party. And what did one wear to a party for a fourteen-year-old, anyway? She wasn’t going to know anyone there—well, except Ryan, Joe and that blond bimbo who would be hanging off his arm.

  She settled on a nice pair of blue jeans and a green shirt, but nothing would dim her debilitating fear of going over to Joe’s. She didn’t know who was going to be there. Would there be kids, adults and how many? She wondered how painful the night would be, and the more she thought about it, the more she was sweating.

  She drove her car, but this time she pulled close to the shoulder and left it parked on the side of the road. There was a path beside the entrance that wasn’t as muddy, and she made her way up the driveway—a walk that didn’t take as long as she hoped. She could hear voices and laughter, a definite party atmosphere. She walked into the open, grassy yard, where a picnic table and several plastic chairs were sitting, and about a dozen adults and that many more kids all stopped and stared. If it wasn’t for the fact that she’d disappoint Ryan, she’d have turned around and run all the way back to her car, probably never leaving her property again.

  “Margaret, you’re here!” Ryan called out. He jogged over to her, wearing a black baseball cap and a bright orange shirt. The sun was still out, the sky blue with thin clouds here and there. All in all, it was a pleasant evening.

  She reached out and touched his arm. “Hey, yeah, wouldn’t miss it. How does it feel to be fourteen? Oh, here. Before I forget, I got you something.” She yanked out the wrapped knife and then cringed at the red bow she’d attached. How stupid was that for a boy?

  To his credit, he didn’t roll his eyes, but she could tell he wasn’t impressed by the size of the frilly decoration.

  “Open it,” she said.

  He started to pull the tape, but Joe shouted to him, “Hey, Ryan, you know better. Put it with the other gifts until after.”

  “Sorry, Joe. That was my fault,” Margaret stuttered, gazing awkwardly at the strangers and clasping her hands together for lack of anything better to do with them.

  Ryan raced to a round plastic table outside the house, which had a few gifts stacked, and placed hers in the pile.

  Joe nestled a beer between thumb and forefinger, took a swig, then waved at Margaret while he poked the guy barbequing beside him. The guy was tall, good looking, with broad shoulders, and he looked as good as Joe in a pair of blue jeans. He had short red hair, freckles and wore an Idaho Vandals t-shirt. Everyone there was in blue jeans, but then, in this part of the country, no one wore anything else. Good thing she had realized that before putting on something really stupid, like a skirt or, God forbid, a sundress.

  This was the hardest thing she could remember ever having done—next to walking in and facing the hospital board to be fired, that is, which was one of her worst nightmares. It burned a hole in her stomach now as the memory of the experience flashed through her head. With her underarms damp, beads of sweat rolling down her back, she dug deep and took that next step, walking into this close group of people who didn’t know her at all and made her feel about as welcome as a carpenter ant in a cedar house.

  “Oh, Madeline, you made it?” It was Sara, who stepped out of Joe’s small one-story house, which had blue shutters and a deck that wrapped aroun
d the front. She wore a dark pair of shorts, showing off slim, tanned legs, and a ruffled blue shirt. Her long blond hair was pinned up, with curls cascading down her back, and she looked to be in her early twenties.

  Margaret cringed. Having someone forget your name was bad, but having it happen in front of a dozen strangers was worse. “Hi,” she said.

  The few lawn chairs on the grass were all taken by the women, clumped together in a circle, and all were staring at her. The men were standing, all with beers, and quick mental math let Margaret know she was the only single person here. Not good. No wonder the women stared. The men obviously knew better—more codes and rules she was sure to break. This was truly awful. Sara strode right to Joe, sliding her arm possessively up his. He leaned down and kissed her, and she linked their arms.

  “Madeline, would you like a beer?” Sara asked. “Joe, aren’t you going to introduce her to everyone?”

  “Hi, Madeline,” one of the women said. “My name’s Nancy. I’m Vern’s wife. He’s that handsome guy barbequing with Joe.” Nancy was sitting with the group of women. She wore a yellow shirt and had short, dark hair. She smiled brightly and waved.

  “My name’s Margaret,” she said, and it came out sounding a little raspy. Nancy winced and pressed her hand to her chest, glancing sharply at Sara.