by Linda Mayes
CHAPTER 4
When Grace got off work, she went by Maggie’s shop to see if she was ready to close up yet. Maggie told her she was meeting a friend at the diner for dinner in a bit and would get a ride home. Grace wondered who this friend was, but didn’t feel like she and Maggie had gotten quite close enough yet for her to pry. She just told her to have a good time and she would see her at home.
When Grace got to the ranch, Louise told her the kids were out at the stables. She found them all there with John. They were gathered around, watching him hook up a little pony cart to two miniature horses.
“That is so cool,” she said about the cart. They hadn’t noticed she was there until she spoke.
Macy looked up. “It is, isn’t it? Can we stay and take a ride, Mama? Just a short one?”
Grace looked at the cart and back at the kids. “I don’t know if Lucy and Brock are old enough to be out on that alone.”
“Oh please, Mama!” Brock and Lucy begged.
Luke heard and reassured her, “Don’t worry, Miss Grace, I’ll be watching them. Tweedle and Dee are the slowest old ponies in the county, and they just walk ‘em around the pasture.”
“Please, Mama!” Lucy said in her whiniest voice.
Grace rolled her eyes and gave in. “Okay, once around, but you listen to Luke!”
“We will, Mama!” they all cried. John finished hooking it all up, and with Macy and John Jr. in front and Patty and Lucy in back, Brock helped Luke lead the ponies to the pasture.
Grace looked at John and teased, “You’re spoiling them, now they’ll want a pony.”
“Every kid needs a pony,” he said with a grin. “You ready to ride out and see the new Mama?”
“Yep.”
John whistled and Satan stuck his head out the front of his stall. “Wanna go for a ride boy?” he asked the horse. Grace laughed as Satan nodded his head up and down and whinnied as if answering the question.
John saddled the horse and they rode out to where they had found the horse in labor on their first ride together. She was standing under the tree this time, her chestnut coat shining in the sun. She was about six feet tall when she stood, and the prettiest horse Grace had ever seen. “She’s gorgeous!” Grace said.
John looked at her a little too long as he said, “Yes, she is.”
Grace could feel her face flush and changed the subject abruptly. “Where’s the baby? Was it a boy or girl? I forgot to ask.”
John looked around and then pointed over at a big stump a few feet from the tree the mother horse stood under. “There he is.”
The colt was standing on skinny legs that looked too tiny to hold his weight. “He’s so thin. Is he okay?”
John got down from Satan’s back and helped Grace to the ground as well. “He probably wasn’t getting enough nutrition while he was in his mother’s belly. I think the cord was compressed before he came out. He’s eating well now, and I’m feeding him some special feed with a lot of protein in it. I think he’ll be alright.”
“Good. He’s cute.”
“Do you want to pet him?” John asked.
“I’d love to.”
John took her by the hand and led her around behind where the mama horse stood. The colt shied a bit as they approached, but John spoke to him softly and held a handful of feed out in his direction. The baby sniffed and took a step forward, and then one back. He did that a few times before his belly finally won out and he came all the way over to get the feed out of John’s hand.
“Go ahead,” John told Grace when the colt came near.
Grace stretched out her hand and touched his mane softly. She talked to him while he ate and stroked his coat. He was browner in color than his mother, and his mane was the blond color of her own hair. When he finished eating, he ran back over to his mother, tripping once over his long, spindly legs. Grace sat down on the stump and looked around her. “It’s so beautiful here.”
John looked around too and nodded. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” He changed the subject. “So, how was work?”
“It was good. I’m learning a lot from Charlie.”
John made that face again. “What do you have against Charlie?”
“I guess my face gives me away, huh? I just don’t care for the guy. Everyone in town thinks, ‘Poor, tragic Charlie.’ I think he shouldn’t have had his wife and baby running errands. He should have done them himself and the tragedy would have never happened.”
“Charlie said that you and Celeste dated in high school?”
John looked like he was about to ask why Charlie was talking about him, but seemed to change his mind. “Yes, for a while, before she decided she wanted to be with Charlie.”
“Did you still have feelings for her, when she died?”
John shook his head. “High school was ages ago. By the time Celeste died, I had been married for quite a few years.”
“It’s hard to get over your first love sometimes.”
“Who was yours?” John asked.
“My first love? My father, I suppose.”
John laughed. “I should have guessed that one. Who was the first one that you weren’t related to?”
Grace smiled. “My ex-husband, Conrad.”
“Did you meet in high school?”
“No, college. I didn’t date much in high school.”
“Why?”
“Busy trying to get good grades and please my mother, I guess. My father had taken off by then and she and I weren’t very close. I tried everything I could to get her to notice me. I should have dated more though, because none of it worked.”
“The way Maggie has gone on about you since she came back to town, I would have thought you two were peas in a pod,” he said with a smile.
“Not hardly. I’m afraid I don’t know the Maggie that you all seem to know.”
“That’s too bad. Maggie’s a good lady.”
Grace nodded. “She is a good person, I don’t deny that. She’s just not the warmest person in the world, and that’s hard on a kid. She does seem to be warming up to us lately, though. I guess people can change, if they want to.”
“People can definitely change. I found that out the day my wife told me she hated it here and couldn’t stand it another day.”
“Sounds like the day I found out my husband had gotten fired from his job two months earlier, and hadn’t bothered to tell me.”
John laughed. “Well, we’ll have to get together one day and have ourselves a pity party.”
Grace laughed too, “That’ll be hard, because now I’m just thanking God and Greyhound he’s gone.”
“We’ve got that in common too. Ready to get back?”
“Yes. Let’s go make sure those kids are keeping out of trouble.”
