Читать книгу Taking the Reins - Carolyn McSparren - Страница 13

CHAPTER FIVE

“OKAY, YOU TENDERFOOTS—tenderfeet—time to take your breakfast dishes into the house, pick up your hats and gloves, and learn the fine art of stall mucking.” Charlie realized what she’d said after the words left her mouth. She gave a quick glance at Hank, but he seemed not to have caught her incredible gaffe. Calling him a tenderfoot! How could she?

She caught Jake’s eye and felt herself blushing. He’d made the connection, all right. He gave a tiny nod as though to assure her that he absolved her. For a man who ignored his own lunch, he was too aware of the nuances of other people’s behavior.

“I did you a big favor this morning,” she continued. “I’ve already fed and watered the horses. From here on you’ll do that before breakfast. Then we muck stalls. I did not do that for you.”

“I’m exempt from mucking stalls,” Mickey said cheerfully. “I don’t swing a pitchfork too good from a wheelchair.”

“Put on your doggone leg braces,” Hank snapped. “Aren’t you supposed to practice standing and walking?”

“He can’t pick up a pitchfork full of horse manure yet,” Sean said, and turned to Mickey. “Good try, kid. I didn’t get my sergeant stripes putting up with slackers. I will personally find some nasty chore you can do sitting down.”

“You’re retired, Sarge,” Mickey said with a grin. “You ain’t the boss o’ me any longer.”

“But I am,” Charlie said, and slapped the back of the wheelchair cheerfully. “While the rest of us are learning to muck horse manure out of stalls, I’ll set you up in the tack room with saddle soap and harness polish. I’ll bet you know how to put a spit shine on leather, am I right?”

Mickey groaned. “When do I get to try out that handicapped carriage the colonel was talking about yesterday?”

“After you’ve learned how to handle the reins and been approved by an instructor. Me. And you won’t be driving alone for a while.”

She glanced around the table. “Since our regular grooms are on vacation, you’ll be doing their work as well as learning to drive. You can get used to handling reins by practicing on a rein board that emulates what it feels like to drive a horse. We have three in the tack room. We’ll rotate, since I imagine some of you need more practice than others.” She smiled at Jake, who had joined them after breakfast. She hadn’t bothered to try to get him to eat breakfast with them. Lunch was another matter.

She was grateful that he acted as though nothing had happened between them last night.

“Our grooms, Maurice and DeMarcus, feed and water at seven every morning.” She slid into one of the remaining chairs around the common room table. “Then they muck stalls and help harness and put to the horses.”

“Put to what?” Sean asked.

“That’s what you call harnessing a horse,” Charlie said. “And a horse that is harnessed to a cart or carriage is called being ‘in draft.’ There are a lot of peculiar terms and traditions about carriage driving because it’s been around such a long time. Any of you ever see the big parades from England with the fancy golden carriages and all the white horses?”

Several heads nodded. Jake’s didn’t move.

“The carriages are fancier than ours, but we do the same things. The horses are already well broke and used to being in draft, but there’s not a horse in the world that won’t spook in certain circumstances.” Charlie glanced at Mary Anne and saw her twist her hands in her lap. “It’s not like driving a truck or a motorcycle. Remember, the horse wants to survive, too. The motorcycle doesn’t give a darn.”

Charlie decided to see if she could borrow a small pony and cart from one of her carriage-driving friends for Mary Anne to try. She might be less frightened behind a pony. She could progress to a horse. If they were lucky.

“Now, you’re also going to learn what it takes to run a farm like this. Yesterday I picked up twenty bags of rolled oats from the feed store, and some trace mineral blocks. They need to be unloaded from my truck. Then later, a load of bagged wood shavings is being delivered from a sawmill in Mississippi.”

“Mary Anne can’t pick up fifty-pound feed bags,” Hank said.

“I can pick up anything you can,” Mary Anne snapped.

“Sure you can,” Hank snickered.

“This is not a contest,” Charlie said. She noted that Hank’s snide remark had brought Jake’s gaze up, but he said nothing. Jake’s fuse might be long, but she suspected it would burn hot once somebody lit it. If he hadn’t had some propensity for violence, why would he have joined the army?

She continued. “The horses that are not actually on the driving roster are in pasture. That includes four Percheron mares, two of whom have foals at foot. We’ll take a look at them after lunch. One shire mare is pregnant with a late foal, the other is barren this year. So, with luck, you’ll get to see a baby born sometime soon. If we can catch her having it, that is.”

“Can’t you tell when it’s coming?” Mary Anne asked.

“Theoretically. But mares are sneaky. We’ll bring her into the foaling stall when she starts showing signs she’s close to labor, but she’ll probably wait until the darkest, stormiest night of the year when everybody’s back is turned before she drops her foal.” She nodded. “Okay, people, let’s get to it.”

* * *

MARY ANNE STACKED fifty-pound bags of feed right along with Charlie and the men. Every time she passed Hank, she tossed her head at him. He grinned and shrugged.

Midmorning a rusty three-quarter-ton truck with square bags of shavings loaded precariously on its bed pulled up outside the aisle door.

“Hey, Charlie, you got room to stack these shavings in the same place?” The middle-aged man who stuck his head out of the truck wore a straw Stetson over a face that looked as tough as if it had been professionally tanned but not stretched afterward.

“Man has more wrinkles than a Shar-Pei,” Sean whispered.

“Hush,” Charlie whispered back. Then she said in a normal voice, “Drive on down the aisle to the end as usual, Bobby.”

“We got any help? Where’s Maurice and DeMarcus?”

“On vacation. Jake and Sean here will help unload. Guys, this is Bobby Holzer. He owns the sawmill down in Slayden that bags our shavings.”

Bobby nodded and pointed to the figure beside him in the shadows. “I brung some help just in case. This here’s one of my summer helpers.” He put the truck in gear, drove down the stable aisle to the far end and parked by the storage area where the few remaining bales sat waiting for the new load to be added.

The white-blond hair of the kid who climbed from the passenger seat was partially covered by a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap. Unlike Bobby, who wore baggy bib overalls over a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the boy had on distressed jeans stretched tight over thigh muscles the size of hawsers on an aircraft carrier, while his arms and torso strained the stitching on his green polo shirt. He stood at six-six or six-seven and probably weighed well over three hundred pounds. None of it was fat. “Aidan, this is Miss Charlie Nicholson, owner and manager.” The giant nodded.

“Whoa!” Sean whispered.

Bobby smiled and winked at him. “Aidan’s starting at tackle for Mississippi State this fall. Coach sends ’em to me for the summer. Tells ’em working in the sawmill builds muscles.”

“He’s got enough already,” Sean said.

Charlie introduced Sean and Jake. Bobby shook hands. Aidan didn’t.

He looked sulky at the prospect of unloading and stacking an entire truckload of sixty-pound bales, but he hopped up on the back of the truck and worked his way to the front without comment.

“Give them a hand, please,” Charlie said to Sean and Jake. “I’m off to the tack room to teach Mickey and Mary Anne how to use the rein board.”

Jake climbed up on the tailgate and waited for the first bale.

The moment Charlie turned her back, Aidan swung it at Jake’s chest so hard he would have knocked him off the back of the truck if Sean hadn’t balanced him from the ground. His grin said he’d done it on purpose.

“Knock that off, Aidan,” Bobby said equably. “Sorry, Jake. He gets above himself sometimes. Likes to show off how strong he is.”

Aidan shrugged and lobbed the next bale high and easy. Jake fielded it and passed it down to Sean.

After that Aidan settled down, and the three men established an easy rhythm from Aidan to Jake to Sean to the shavings shed. After all the bales were off the truck, Bobby directed Aidan to finish stacking them.

As he passed Sean, Aidan asked, “Hey, man, that some kind of phony hand?”

“Nope. It’s real plastic,” Sean answered cheerfully. “A gift from the United States Army.”

By the time the stacks were complete, all three men were soaked with sweat and Aidan’s designer jeans were filthy. Bobby rose from the front step of the truck and joined them. “Hot work.”

Sean’s glance at Jake said “none of which he did.”

“Y’all got any cold sodas?” Bobby asked. “I’m flat parched.”

Aidan slouched past him toward the front of the truck. “Aw, come on, Bobby, let’s go get some lunch.”

Wiping her face with her scarf, Mary Anne came out of the tack room and strode toward them. She wore a sleeveless muscle shirt that revealed the puckered skin that ran from the side of her head to her glove. The sheen of sweat made the scars look red and raw.

She noticed Bobby and Aidan a minute before they noticed her, and wheeled back toward the tack room.

“Ooo-eee,” whispered Aidan as he watched her retreating rear in its tight jeans. “Hellooo, mama.”

She froze in midstride, turned and strode back toward them.

Jake heard Bobby catch his breath.

Aidan gaped and looked away. “No way. I don’t mess with ugly chicks.”

Jake saw Mary Anne stiffen and heard Sean groan.

“Jake—leave it,” Sean cautioned. “Jake!”

Jake ignored him and moved into Aidan.

A moment later, the big man lay flat on his back.

“Here now,” Bobby said. “Both of y’all take it easy.”

Aidan was big, but he was fast. He came off the ground in a lineman’s crouch, prepared to tear Jake in two.

“Back off, fool.” Sean stepped between the two men. Aidan brushed him out of the way.

Jake felt Sean’s hand on his arm and shook him off. He blocked the fist Aidan swung at his jaw, twisted, bent and thrust. A moment later Aidan was back on the ground, looking surprised.

“Stay down!” Sean snarled at him.

Aidan gasped. “What’d I do?”

“Apologize to the lady,” Jake whispered.

Aidan struggled to his feet. That a man twenty years older and a hundred pounds lighter could toss him around like a football seemed to hit him square in his manhood. “Listen, old man.” He lowered his voice. “Y’all gotta know that’s a freak.” A moment later, he was back on the ground with Bobby standing over him.

“Aidan, you idiot, stay down,” Bobby said. “You ain’t got the brains of a goose. Stop running your mouth before you get your teeth handed to you.”

“I warned you to stay down, goober,” Sean said pleasantly. “Now do what the man says and apologize to the little lady before he tears your arm off and feeds it to you.”

Jake glanced back at Mary Anne, who was glaring at Aidan. Sean grasped her hand with his right one and pulled her forward. As if his touch inflated her, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and snapped, “Yeah, jerk. Apologize to the ugly lady.”

From the ground, Aidan had to look up at her, but he couldn’t hold her gaze. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean nothing. Bobby says I got a big mouth.”

“Ya think?” she said, and kept her hand in Sean’s.

“You can get up, now,” Jake said. “I assume you were recruited for your size and not your GPA. Come on, Sean, we have horses to groom.” He strode off toward the wash rack.

Charlie passed him at a trot. “Bobby, what’s going on?”

“Aidan here,” Sean said, “slipped and fell.” He grinned.

“Three times,” Bobby said. “A man that big, sometimes he’s real clumsy, aren’t you, Aidan.” He gave his helper a hand up, then a gentle shove toward the truck. “Here’s the bill, Charlie. Me ’n Aidan are gonna go get some lunch.”

“Good girl,” Sean said to Mary Anne under his breath. He turned to Aidan. “You have just had a narrow escape. The major can take off the top of a man’s head with the flat of his hand.”

Bobby laughed as Aidan climbed into the truck, put it in gear and waved to them through the driver’s window as they drove away.

The moment the truck cleared the stable aisle, Mary Anne caught her breath in a sob and ran past Charlie to the common room.

“Sean?” Charlie asked.

“Ask Jake.” He followed Mary Anne.

Charlie trotted after him. “Where is he?”

“Mary Anne...”

“Leave her to me,” Charlie said. “You go find Jake.”

Sean hesitated, then nodded.

The common room was empty. Mary Anne’s bedroom door was locked again. When she pressed her ear against it, Charlie heard what sounded like sobbing. “Mary Anne? It’s Charlie. Please let me in.”

“Go ’way.”

“Not this time. I’m not Jake, but I can sit in the hall and wait as long as he did.”

She thought she might have to, but after a moment she heard the lock click. By the time she opened the door, Mary Anne lay facedown on her bed with her arms locked over her head. “I want to go back to the hospital.”

Charlie sat on the bed but didn’t touch her. “You’ll get over being afraid of the horses.”

Mary Anne rolled over and sat up. “Jake nearly got himself killed because that jock said I was ugly. I am ugly! I’m so ugly people want to vomit when they look at me.”

“That’s not true.”

Mary Anne got off the bed and began to pace the small room. “Don’t lie, Charlie. I saw that kid’s face. I saw all your faces when I took off my scarf. The first time my husband—sorry, my ex-husband—saw me in the hospital without my bandages, he ran into the bathroom and threw up.”

What could Charlie say to that? “I’m sure it was just the initial shock. Soldiers know what happens in a war zone.”

Mary Anne leaned her forehead against her window. “Charlie, he’s a civilian. An accountant, would you believe. I’d already enlisted when I met him. Bad enough I was a mechanic. Bad enough I deployed six months after we got married, but with the internet we stayed connected. We were in love! We had all these plans for when my enlistment was over. Then this happened.”

“Of course, he was devastated for you,” Charlie said. “But he didn’t stop loving you.”

Mary Anne leaned a hip against the windowsill. “He really tried. He took a part-time job close to the hospital to be with me. But the first time one of the nurses tried to teach him to change my dressings, he ran. When they let me out on a twenty-four-hour pass to be with him, he couldn’t touch me. We sat up all night crying. The next week I filed for divorce. It wasn’t his fault, Charlie, and it definitely wasn’t mine.”

“So you want to go back to the hospital to start more operations right now? I thought you wanted to take a break.”

Mary Anne flopped back down on the bed. “I did. I do. But nobody looks at me twice in the hospital.”

Charlie wrapped her arm around Mary Anne. “We won’t let you quit. And when you do have more operations, we’ll learn to change your dressings and you’ll come back here to recuperate.”

“You can’t promise that!”

“The heck I can’t. Now wash your face and let’s go groom horses.”