No Horse Wanted (2 page)

I glanced around the master bedroom. The
eight-week-old, black and white Persian kitten was nowhere in
sight. I hurried back to the closet and opened the sliding door.
Salt sauntered out and wound through my legs, purring. I scooped
him up and closed the closet again, heading downstairs.

The house was hopeless. I’d searched my dad’s
office, my folks’ room, and Mom’s sewing room where she made quilts
and other handmade crafts to sell. No sign of anything to do with
my car. Where could the papers be?

Okay, I’d stop looking for those and go back
to hunting for the car. I left Salt on the couch in the living
room. He promptly jumped to the back and stalked to the cream
drapes that covered the huge picture window. An extra black paw
stole around the edge of one drape and batted at Salt. Pepper, the
other kitten, was in his favorite hiding place on the windowsill.
Leaving the kittens to shadowbox, I hurried out into the golden
afternoon.

I was on a mission and I’d find my car, no
matter what!

In the barn, I looked down the long row of
stalls that bordered the indoor riding arena. The stalls opened
onto a wide aisle. Off to my right, a wall separated the stalls
from the ring, which was about two hundred feet long and
seventy-five feet wide. Sometimes Jack and his buddies practiced
football plays inside. There were eight stalls, although we only
had three horses right now.

Felicia took her Appaloosa gelding with her
to Washington State University in Pullman. She’d fussed more about
finding the perfect stable to board him than she did about her
stuff for the dorm room. I’d done most of the shopping so the place
would be livable, or she’d have a sleeping bag on her bed and her
clothes in suitcases since she wouldn’t have any hangers for the
closet. Of course, as long as her horse was happy, she wouldn’t
have cared. The whole family loved the indoor arena, except me. I’d
voted for a swimming pool—not that anyone listened.

The first box stall held Jack’s huge, white
Thoroughbred, Nitroglycerin. I shuddered and gave him a wide berth
when he pinned his ears and gave me that wicked once-over from pale
blue eyes. Jack told me that people used to think blue or
glass-eyed horses were blind. I wasn’t that dumb. I just knew Nitro
was evil. I’d been sure of it even before he ran away with me the
last time Mom insisted I come riding with her and Felicia.

Next to Nitro was my mother’s purebred
Arabian mare. She was tiny in comparison to Nitro, fifteen hands to
his eighteen.
Ibn Scheherazade
was a dainty chestnut with a
long flaxen mane and tail. She answered to Singer at home because
she pranced and danced across the finish line at hard endurance
contests, just like Mom’s sewing machine stitched material.

Singer’s head came up, and she listened
intently to the soft thuds overhead in the hayloft. I recognized
the thumping of little cat feet. Obviously, the two half-grown
kittens, Ginger and Cinnamon, were playing tag again. When I found
Salt and Pepper abandoned near the train tracks in Marysville, Mom
told me that two kittens in the house were enough and my older cats
had to go to the barn because the newest ones needed to be
bottle-fed every couple hours. Luckily, it was August so I could
get up all night long to do it and not have to worry about school
the next day.

Singer snorted and jumped to the back of her
stall as the noise continued in the loft. She looked like a horse
statue come to life, but she wasn’t as smart as Mom claimed. Dad’s
Quarter horse, Buster, took up the third stall. He searched his
manger for any crumbs left from lunch. I always found it hard to
believe that this was the same horse that exploded into the arena
when it was time to rope a calf since he was such a hog-body at
home.

Jack came out of the tack room, all cowboyed
up in his jeans, western shirt, and boots. “Thought I heard
someone. What’s going on, Robin?”

“Not much,” I said, eyeing him. Would he tell
me where to find my car?

He grinned at me, a tall, dark-haired,
younger version of Dad. “So, are you here to help me with chores,
Princess?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I’ll do the cats,
the chickens, and the rest. You do the horses.”

“All right!” He pumped an arm in the air. “It
won’t do you any good. I’m still not telling you about your big
present.”

I’d been charming secrets out of him for
years, and he always lost this kind of battle. I just smiled up at
him. “Want to bet?”

Chapter Two

Thursday, September
12th, 6:20 p.m.

When we finished chores and climbed the
stairs to the inside back porch that my mom called the “mud room,”
I kicked off my shoes while Jack pulled off his boots. It wasn’t
worth our teenage lives to track barn muck into the house. I looked
through the glass window of the door and saw Felicia setting the
kitchen table for dinner. Mom stirred something at the stove.

I could already hear Felicia chattering about
some class she was taking and what she’d told her teacher and he’d
told her. Like anybody cared, I thought. Of course, I wouldn’t say
so. My older sister honestly believed we couldn’t live without the
psycho-babble she loved so much.

As soon as I opened the door, she darted
across the room to hug me.
Oh, come on!

The two of us had a huge fight about her
hogging the bathroom and using up my tube of mascara the day she
left and now we were supposed to be best buds.
Give me a
break!

“I’ve missed you guys so much.” Felicia
whirled away from me and flung herself on Jack. He scooped her up
in a big hug.

“How’s Vinnie?” Jack demanded. “Does he like
the barn? His paddock? Did you find somewhere to buy him organic
carrots?”

“I knew it,” Felicia crowed. “You miss him
more than you do me. You’re weird, all right.”

“Great diagnosis,” I said. “Is that what
you’re going to tell all your patients when you’re a shrink?”

“Only the strange ones,” Felicia said, with a
toss of her strawberry blonde hair.

“Good to know.” I headed for the bathroom to
wash up.

Dinner was on the table at six thirty
exactly, one of my dad’s rules. He freaked when one of my track or
cross-country meets ran overtime or started late so we had to eat
at a different time. Mom claimed his hang-up about appointments was
just a personality flaw and nothing to get in a dither about. Of
course, she was the one who said no animals, no TV, no iPods, or
cell phones at the table. We had to talk to each other like
civilized people, or she’d make us wish we had. I lived with two
total control freaks for parents and Felicia and Jack were pretty
much the same way.

Mom made all my favorites for supper,
spaghetti with meat sauce, Caesar salad, and garlic bread. I didn’t
have to ask about dessert. She’d have ordered in a cake from the
local bakery, chocolate with custard filling, and there’d be
chocolate ice cream in the freezer. A pile of brightly wrapped
presents covered the top of the breakfast bar.

When I’d looked out in the drive before
dinner, I didn’t see my car anywhere, but it had to be somewhere.
Either that or Mom and Dad arranged for me to go with them to pick
it up later. It was all I could do to sit still while Felicia
talked about her freshman year at college and Jack shared what
happened at football practice that afternoon. Mom told us about a
sale at the local crafts store and how she’d loaded up on material
for a new quilt. Dad had two new clients, so he was all that, too!
Could these people eat any slower?

Finally, they finished and I jumped up to
clear away the dishes. Mom put away the leftovers. Jack and Dad
arranged my gifts on the table, and Felicia hurried off to her room
to bring back a couple more. I had a great family, really I did.
And I should be more appreciative of them. My best friend’s dad had
walked out on her birthday last June—some gift. Mine would never do
that, not in a million years.

“Leave the dishes for me, Robbie,” Dad said.
“Come open your presents.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” I hustled
to the kitchen table, pausing to hug him on the way. “There’s
nearly as much stuff here as I get for Christmas. You guys
rock!”

Laughing, Mom and Felicia leaned against
each other at the far end of the table, looking more like sisters
than mother and daughter. They both had bright blue eyes,
strawberry-blonde hair and wore the same kind of cowgirl clothes,
jeans, western shirts, and Ropers. Little wonder that my sister
went off to cow college in Pullman. She’d probably bring home some
farmer guy for a new boyfriend.

She’d dumped her last one when he suggested
she sell Vinnie to pay tuition. Nobody came between her and that
purebred, seventeen-hand, buckskin Appaloosa. She’d gotten him for
her sixteenth birthday. Well, actually Mom couldn’t find ‘the
perfect horse’ for her. So, Mom cut a picture out of a horse
magazine, stuck it on a toothpick, and put it in the middle of
Felicia’s cake.

The two of them shopped for the next month,
visiting horse sales, breeders, and shows, rodeos until they found
Vinnie and brought him home. My parents did the same thing when
Jack turned sixteen, a picture on a toothpick in the middle of his
cake. He and Dad bonded on the quest to find Nitro. Personally, I
could think of better places to spend money, like the outlet mall
over on the reservation by Marysville.

I reached for the large pink envelope on top
of the boxes of presents. This one could be the papers for my car.
It had to be. I peeled back the flap. It was the spine of a
greeting card. Okay, the card could have the car title inside. But,
it didn’t.

Hand-painted, the front showed a rainbow
group of horses, a buckskin Appy, a solid bay, a snow-white one,
and a chestnut dashing across a green field. I recognized all of
them, Vinnie, Buster, Nitro, and Singer. Behind them, looking down
from the clouds was a shadowy pony, a faded strawberry roan. Tears
stung at the memory of my first horse, but I didn’t let them fall.
“This is amazing, Jack.”

“I knew you’d love it.” He grinned at me.
“I’ve been working on it for the past month.”

“It’s definitely a keeper.” I’d add it to
the bulletin board in my room. Even if I didn’t much care for
horses, I loved my brother’s artwork. Jack’s poem inside wished me
a happy day and sixteenth year, but it wasn’t sappy. And the fifty
dollar bill—oh yeah, I could go places with it.

I’m not a real touchy-feely person like
Felicia, but I hugged Jack, anyway. “This is the best.”

Another grin. “And you’re just getting
started.”

My car, my car, my car!

Where was it? When would I find out about
it?

I opened one present after another. Dad gave
me raingear. What was he thinking? Even when I ran in the rain, I
didn’t wear heavy vinyl. I’d die of heat prostration. From Mom, I
got a new blue jean jacket, two flannel shirts, and three pairs of
jeans.
Come on, give me a break
. Okay, so I lived on a farm.
It didn’t mean that it was my thing and I’d dress like Ellie Mae
off the
Beverly Hillbillies
. Of course, nobody listened when
I suggested moving into town, a real one, not Marysville.

Next box. This one was from my mom and my
sister. I peeled back the paper and found a carton labeled
Ropers
. No way! They hadn’t bought me boots like theirs, had
they? Yes, icky big brown lace-up ones. I hoped my disgust didn’t
show. These looked like I’d be in the Army before I graduated.
Well, they were expensive. I’d get the receipt from Mom and return
them for something I would actually wear.

Two gifts remained. The first was a package
of horse books, and I almost groaned. What would it take to get
them off my back? I didn’t do horses, and I definitely didn’t read
about them. However, the entire family was so hooked on them they
just couldn’t let things go. Last summer, I barely got to hang out
with my best friend until she agreed to go to horse camp with me.
Vicky loved horses, so she had a blast while it was a real
endurance contest for me. Well, I’d pass the books onto her. She’d
savor every page.

My parents had a thing about me being home
alone when they went to work—talk about control freaks. I’d been
fifteen, not a baby. And I’d have been okay by myself for a few
hours while Felicia was at the counseling center learning what
therapists do and Jack did his lifeguard thing at the pool.
Instead, I wound up grooming, saddling and feeding horses, and
taking little kids back and forth to the restroom. I told Rocky,
the instructor and owner of Shamrock Stables, that she should
change the name. It shouldn’t be called “Pony Camp,” but “Pee-Pee
Camp.” She laughed her butt off and gave me a coffee card for being
a good sport.

With the way I avoided Mom’s endurance
rides, Dad’s calf roping, Jack’s gaming and Felicia’s three-day
eventing, I’d thought they’d get the message that I wasn’t into
horses. But, no. One of them was always hassling me.
Come ride
with me on the Centennial Trail. Buster needs to muscle up. I made
an apple crisp for dessert tonight. Come visit the horses with me
while I feed them these apple peels. Vinnie needs braids for this
weekend. Come talk to me while I sew his mane
.

Nag, nag, nag. I was so sick of it!

The last gift came from Jack and Dad. I
opened it up and stared at the leather bridle and green striped
saddle blanket. My stomach knotted. “What is this? A mistake?”

“It’s a family tradition,” Felicia crowed
and ran around to hug me. “I thought you’d figured it out when I
came home to go with you and Mom.”

“Figured out what?” A sinking dread swept
over me. “You guys can’t be serious.”

“And when you came down to help in the barn
tonight,” Jack gave me a brotherly shove, “I knew that you’d see
the stall I fixed up or the remodeling in the tack room.”