by Laura Moore
Olivia nodded her bright blond head. “Hayley and I were snowflakes. She was really good. But I felt kinda bad for her, ’cause at the dress rehearsal lots of mommies were helping with the sets and costumes and makeup and stuff and Bobbi Neese asked Hayley where her mommy was and Hayley said she was dead and then she left quickly. Then I had to pee and, when I went into the girls’ bathroom, she was there. She was crying. It was so sad.”
Jade swallowed. She didn’t like to think of a little girl crying for her dead mother. It brought back too many memories. “I hope you did your best to make her feel better, Liv.”
“I asked her if she wanted to play jacks until it was our turn to snow. Hayley can go all the way up to fivesies. I can too now, but I could only do threesies back then. I don’t like Bobbi Neese. She’s mean. I think she knew Hayley’s mommy was up in heaven, but she asked Hayley anyway.”
“That’s crummy,” Max said. “Don’t you think so, Ned?”
“I sure do.”
Jade felt Ned give her a sidelong glance, and consciously she relaxed her fingers on the steering wheel.
“You’ll want to turn right at Overhill Road, Miss Jade. Then it’s about a quarter of a mile farther on the left.”
“Thanks, Ned,” she said, pleased her voice was steady. Lots of kids lost their parents and had to deal with the hurt. There was no reason to get choked up over it, she told herself.
From the middle of the backseat, Olivia leaned forward and tapped Jade’s shoulder. “Hayley Cooper really likes horses. Maybe she’ll want to take lessons at our farm too. She and Jenny Ferris play together lots.”
It was unlikely that Rob Cooper’s daughter would ever take riding lessons with her, but there was no point in explaining the whys and wherefores to Olivia. “I guess we’ll have to see whether she signs up, won’t we?”
“How about we concentrate on finding some good ponies today so that there are lessons to give,” Ned suggested. “Because I’m pretty confident the rest will work itself out just fine after that.”
“Yeah, let’s do what Ned says.” Max bumped the back of his reddish-brown head against the leather upholstery in an enthusiastic nod. “Let’s find some good ponies for Aunt Jade.”
“And Rosewood,” Kate added.
“And me,” Olivia giggled.
“Why for you too, Liv?” Max asked.
“ ’Cause I need more ponies to love.”
No ponies had ever been as thoroughly inspected as the ones at Windy Hill, Jade decided. Ned and she had gone over them from the tips of their pointy ears to their swishy tails and then down to their tiny hooves. Legs were checked for swelling, heat, or stiffness; hooves for cracks, abscesses, or any sensitivity. Eyes and noses had to be clear. And, as it was high summer, the ponies’ coats needed to be gleaming with health.
Of course, this was only the beginning of the inspection. She and Ned closely watched the ponies Ralph Whittaker showed them, noting how their ears worked around the children—if they remained cocked forward or pinned back with their tails swishing in warning. Did any of the ponies shift restlessly as the kids moved around them, perhaps picking up a rear hoof? Did any appear head-shy, making it next to impossible for a child to learn how to slip on a bridle or attach a halter? Any pony that showed even the slightest annoyance around Kate, Max, and Olivia was immediately scratched from Jade’s list.
Once in the exercise ring, the ponies were scrutinized just as carefully. It was great that she had three different riders to watch, in addition to Ralph’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Jessica, who hopped on each pony as well. For today’s visit, Jade decided that she’d let the kids do the riding. If any were fine enough to warrant a second visit, then she’d get in the saddle herself, never mind that her booted feet would be hanging well below the barrels of the ponies’ bellies.
Luckily, the ponies Ned and she were most interested in were large, the biggest measuring 14.1 hands, for not only would that allow her to ride them should they require some fine-tuning, but as a financial investment they would offer a greater return. Larger ponies wouldn’t be outgrown too quickly by her young students.
“This lot looks very fine,” Ned said quietly.
Jade gave a little nod, watching the four young riders circle them on the rail of the exercise ring. Olivia was posting to the trot of an all-white pony named Dickens; Kate, astride a flashy bay named Maggie Mae, had just picked up the canter; and Max was circling in a two-point position on a chestnut named Hopscotch. Jessica was on another chestnut, this one a mare called Sweet Virginia, who had four matching socks and a stripe down her face, and was taking a three-foot double-oxer jump like a dream.
Ralph had been in the horse-dealing business for years and had known Ned for almost as many, so he was pretty mellow about the somewhat unorthodox method of showing the ponies to them. Nor did he mind when Jade called the kids into the center of the ring to have them switch mounts so that she could see whether with the change of riders the ponies performed any differently.
Jade asked the kids to ride in single file, as they would in a lesson. Then she had them pass one another, switching the order of the ponies to test whether any got antsy being in the middle or having to bring up the rear of the line.
They’d walked, trotted, and cantered in both directions, taking the ponies over a variety of jumps. Olivia stuck to cavalettis—rails laid on the ground—and a low crossbar; Kate and Max took them over an in-and-out, a coop, and a brick-wall jump; and the highest fences were reserved for Jessica. By the end of an hour, they’d thoroughly sampled the ponies’ abilities.
Sweet Virginia—her barn name was Ginny—was clearly the star of the afternoon, and Ralph had priced her accordingly. Three thousand dollars was a hefty price for a school pony. Jade’s first instinct was to cross the chestnut mare off her list. But then Ned—his gaze trained on Sweet Virginia cantering up to the in-and-out, with Kate sitting slightly forward as she followed the pony’s takeoff over jump—adjusted the brim of his straw fedora and said quietly, “That little mare looks awfully neat and correct. The kids could take her to shows along with Doc and Archer.” The observation made investing in the mare a different proposition altogether. Jade would be buying her for the family.
Ned had also liked the white pony, Dickens, right off the bat. “I could see Neddy and Will riding him in the short-stirrup classes.” Jade wasn’t surprised that Ned was already considering what his namesake and Margot and Travis’s son would be needing in terms of a pony before Will, at least, could even walk. Ned was the sort of person who took the long view. “And Georgiana would look as pretty as a picture on Maggie.”
And, that quickly, they had three ponies tagged as worthy of Rosewood Farm.
Olivia provided the fourth. Hopscotch was her favorite. After taking the chestnut over some cavalettis, she trotted over to the center of the ring with her eyes shining. “Hopscotch is a good pony, Aunt Jade; we should get him.”
“What do you like best about him, Liv? Was he smooth over the rails for you?”
Olivia’s black helmet bobbed as she nodded. “Yeah, but that’s not the only reason. Hopscotch acts like he’s having fun when you’re riding him.”
“Good to know. Why don’t you see how he does a figure eight before you cool him down?”
Olivia was too young to realize the importance of her observation, but, along with a general soundness and barn manners, a pony’s attitude was one of the top criteria. As Jade watched Hopscotch cut through the middle of the ring with his ears pricked forward, his trot chipper and perky, she, too, saw that he’d be great for a child to learn on—easygoing and forgiving. In that respect he was like Doc Holliday, her old pony that Kate, Max, and Olivia had inherited. Jade could still remember jumping her first crossbar with Doc, digging her fingers into his thick black mane as he hopped over it. That jump had seemed so big, yet Ned had explained that she could trust Doc to carry her over anything, because he just loved to jump; she had, and he’d been a wonderful pony, e
ven helping her win the Warburg Hunt Cup in their last competition together.
Waiting until Ralph Whittaker had moved out of earshot to help Olivia dismount from Hopscotch’s back, Jade said, “So, Ned, it seems like I have four potential prospects to come back and try out this week.”
“Give Joe Bromley a call and ask him to drive up here and check them out to make sure we haven’t missed anything. If you like the way they go for you, and Joe gives them a clean bill of health, I don’t see any problem with buying all four of them. There’s an advantage to the ponies knowing one another. The hierarchy’s already been established.”
“Good point. And I’d like to get the ponies settled at Rosewood as soon as possible.” Especially since she had a couple of other things on her to-do list, such as setting up her second-grade classroom and planning lessons and activities for the first week of school.
Finding a private eye might take a wee bit of time too. It was good that Jesse and Doug were done putting the finishing touches on Bramble Cottage and that Jordan had given her the green light to move her things into it. Being in her own place and not worrying about anyone overhearing her conversations when she began calling private investigators would make the process a whole lot easier.
And she was going to be so busy over these next couple of weeks, it was a good thing she didn’t have the telephone number of the man from the Norfolk hotel. She should stop thinking about him and wondering what it would be like to be with him again and whether he could really be as sexy and as deliciously talented as her memories of the stormy night she’d spent in his arms. It was pointless to regret not having exchanged numbers—let alone names—with him. Even if he lived within a forty-mile radius of Warburg, she didn’t have time to think about a guy. Or burn up the sheets with one. So what if he was the only man she’d met who made her want to test the faithfulness of her memories.
Sleep deprivation, Rob learned, could have different side effects. The morning after Hayley’s party, Rob could only be grateful that birthdays happened once a year. The way he felt now, he would need every single one of the 364 days before Hayley’s next one to recover from the shrieks, squeals, tears, and all-around high drama produced by eight little girls over the course of an interminable night.
During the night he’d spent with the woman in Norfolk, he’d hardly closed his eyes either, caught up in the wild craving for the green-eyed vixen with the enchantress’s body lying beneath him or rocking above him. Why succumb to sleep when he could taste and touch and stroke her inside and out? The next day he’d been wrung out—in every sense of the word—but he’d also been energized. And happy. He’d found himself smiling at memories he hadn’t even realized he’d hoarded: of her slim body arching like a finely drawn bow in wordless offering; of the soft shudders of pleasure falling from her lush parted lips; of the sleek welcome of her body tightening around him, cream and satin. Memories that could make a man feel like a million bucks.
This morning, neither the sympathetic looks from the moms and dads who picked up their daughters with tacit apologies for the fact that upon the stroke of midnight their little princesses had transformed into unholy melodrama queens, nor the ingestion of a full pot of wickedly strong black coffee improved Rob’s sleep-deprived grouchiness.
As a result, within four hours of his shift, his tally of parking violations reached a record high. But the tickets he wrote and stuck under windshield wipers were justified.
It was the end of summer, with tourists flocking to Warburg to stroll down its leafy streets and brick-laid sidewalks, shop at its pretty boutiques, and enjoy its restaurants and coffee bars. The drivers who operated under the assumption that parking rules and meter limits applied only to others were, thanks to Rob, being given a little reality check.
So, too, were the drivers who didn’t bother to ease off the gas pedal where the local highway became Main Street and the speed limit reflected the population density. That’s the spot where Rob elected to set up his speed trap.
His tolerance for the bullshit stories drivers concocted and that he’d already heard dozens of times—“Gosh, I never saw the twenty-five-miles-an-hour sign,” or “My aunt’s in the hospital,” or “It’s that time of the month, Officer, and I really needed to get home,” or “Your radar gun must be broken, I never speed”—was, in direct proportion to his parking-ticket quota, at an all-time low. But it was Nonie Harrison, one of Warburg’s leading snobs, who took the day’s prize for most obnoxious, unrepentant speeder.
She hadn’t even bothered to touch the brakes as she flew past him, his radar gun blipping at a red-hot forty-three mph, eighteen miles above the posted limit. When he pulled her over with a flash of his lights and squawk of his siren, she’d actually looked affronted and then infuriated when he asked for her license and registration.
“This is too silly, Officer Cooper. I’m on my way to town on official business.”
Even if Edmund Schantz, Warburg’s mayor, were not taking his annual vacation on North Carolina’s Outer Banks as he did every August, Nonie Harrison’s story wouldn’t have flown. No “official business” warranted breaking the law and speeding in a residential area.
He ignored her comment, silently waiting for her to comply.
Nonie Harrison narrowed her eyes. Then, with an impatient “hmmph,” she leaned over and opened the glove compartment, drawing out the registration card. From her purse she pulled out a wallet and handed her Virginia driver’s license and the registration to him.
“Thank you.” He took his sweet time walking back to the patrol car to run a check on her license and car. Standard operating procedure with self-important speeders: make them cool their tires.
According to the computer records, Mrs. Harrison’s tires were in sore need of some cooling down. She must have had some “official business” last March too. Craig Lewis, another officer on the force, had clocked her doing fifty in a thirty-five-miles-an-hour zone.
Conceivably, Rob might have let her off with a stern warning, but the fact that she’d gotten caught speeding twice in six months changed things. The existence of a previous ticket indicated her disregard for these particular rules of the road. Her lack of concern was somewhat surprising, as Virginia now had some of the highest penalties for speeding in the nation. Well, he thought, since the first ticket hadn’t made an adequate impression, perhaps the second, heftier fine and the additional points tacked onto her license would make her think about easing her leaden foot off the accelerator.
He walked back to the late-model silver Mercedes. Waiting had put Mrs. Harrison in a visible snit. She didn’t bother to conceal her anger as she took back her registration and license. “As I told you, Officer Cooper, the only reason I was driving a little fast was because I had official business in town—important business.”
“Most people would consider going eighteen miles above the speed limit more than a little.” Interesting. She didn’t even have the sense to look embarrassed. Curiosity compelled him. “What kind of official business do you believe could justify speeding in a twenty-five-miles-an-hour area, Mrs. Harrison?” Maybe, just maybe, she’d intercepted a death threat against the president.
She smiled as she launched into her explanation, as if it were all she needed to go on her merry, self-absorbed way. “I’m going to see Ted Guerra at Warburg Elementary—who clearly doesn’t know the first thing about being a school principal.”
He frowned. Rob knew Ted Guerra. Liked him too. Guerra was the kind of principal who tried to foster a sense of community in the school and among the kids, the kind who went to pains to know every student by name and spend time in the classrooms as well. Last year, Ted had eaten lunch in Hayley’s class a number of times. Rob remembered how excited she’d been when Ted had come and read aloud I Just Forgot to her class; for weeks afterward, it had been one of her favorite bedtime stories.
So whatever Nonie Harrison’s reason for frothing at the mouth, it had nothing to do with Ted Guerra’s qualities as a
principal. It had to do with what Mrs. Nonie Harrison, of Warburg and Palm Beach, wanted. Something Ted must have failed to deliver. Whatever it was, Rob knew she was the type of person who would make sure Ted paid for it.
He decided to do Ted a favor. By the time Nonie Harrison drove away (and if she knew what was good for her, it wouldn’t be an inch over the speed limit), she’d have found a brand-new person to dislike. Rob was more than happy to take on the role.
At the moment, though, Nonie Harrison was nodding, obviously interpreting his frown as a sign that he shared her outrage that Ted Guerra didn’t run his school exactly as she liked. “If I’d been in town for the school-board-meeting vote, I’d have made Ted Guerra understand what an insult it was to hire Jade Radcliffe—even as a substitute. You can be sure hell will freeze over before I allow my grandson to be placed under her supervision.”
Jade Radcliffe? Christ, suddenly her name was popping up all over the place. He didn’t know where she fit into all of this, but he knew enough not to trust Nonie Harrison’s version.
He watched her right hand move to the ignition.
His voice stopped her. “Mrs. Harrison, you were driving at forty-three miles an hour in a twenty-five-miles-per-hour zone. Moreover, our computer records show you were issued a speeding ticket last spring.”
“But—”
He ignored her interruption, filling out the speeding ticket as he continued, “Driving twenty miles an hour over the posted speed constitutes reckless driving in the Commonwealth of Virginia and is punishable by a fine and four points on your license.” Carefully, he tore off the ticket and passed it to her.
The amount of the fine had her gasping in shock. “A thousand dollars—why, this is outrageous!”
“No, ma’am. It’s the law. For your sake, as well as the community’s, I hope you’ll drive a little more responsibly now. If you don’t, your third ticket will be even more costly and could also result in the suspension of your driver’s license. So, if I were you, I’d pay real close attention to speed limits from now on. You have a good day.”