Taking the Reins

by Carolyn McSparren

  “Jake, can I see them? Mama Cat won’t even know I’m there.”

  “I doubt that,” Jake said. “Come on.”

  Ten minutes later she clattered back down the stairs. “They are so cute! I’ve got to go tell Vittorio and Granddaddy.” She flew out the patio door.

  “How’s Mama dealing with the attention?” Charlie asked.

  “Seems to enjoy it. If we’re careful, she may even learn to like human beings, although I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “So long as the babies do,” Mary Anne said.

  Sarah was back in fewer than five minutes. “Granddaddy says I can have one.” She tossed her hair. “I bet I can keep all five. Can I go see them again?”

  “Jake,” Charlie said, “you don’t have to do this.”

  “Yeah, I do. You’re right that if they’re going to be socialized, they have to start having human interaction sometime. Might as well be when they’re too young to get away.” He followed Sarah.

  Mama had shoved and clawed the counterpane into precisely the shape she wanted for her nest. A couple of the kittens had managed to make their way over one of the mountain peaks she’d created and were mewing plaintively, unable to get back to her.

  “I want them all,” Sarah whispered.

  He used the side of the bathtub to pull himself to his feet and Sarah followed him out the bathroom door. As soon as they were in the hall, she said, “I’ve wanted a kitten my whole life, but my daddy was allergic. Please, please, please say I can have these.”

  “Sarah, your mother and grandfather may not like the idea of five small cats in the house. Do you have any idea how much damage those little guys can do with their claws and teeth?”

  She tossed her head. “I’ll keep them in my room, and we can buy a big tower scratching post. I’ll clean their litter box twice a day.”

  Like that would last. “You may have to pick one. Two at the most. Your family can certainly find good homes for the others.”

  She smiled at him coyly, but she didn’t answer.

  Jake realized with a jolt that she knew she was being seductive. She was fourteen and perfectly willing and able to use her feminine wiles to get her way with a fortysomething male.

  “You are such an old sweetie,” she said as she started down the stairs. “I used to think you were scary, but you’re not. I’ll bet you can persuade my mother to let me go to the swim party this weekend.”

  He stopped three steps from the bottom. “What party?”

  “Oh, it’s just a little get-together with some of the kids in my new school. No biggie.” She flitted into the common room and was instantly immersed in chatter about the kittens.

  Jake stared after her. He had been soundly bushwhacked by a fourteen-year-old girl, and he had no idea what to do about it.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FINALLY A COOL front came through and dropped the temperature and humidity to something approaching bearable. The morning was fresh and the breeze pleasant.

  “Everybody, pair up,” Charlie said. “This morning we’re going to drive in tandem, then this afternoon, we’re going to hitch up Pindar and Aries and practice driving a pair. I’ll take Sean with me. Jake, you take Mickey. That leaves Mary Anne and Hank.”

  “Can’t we drive Terror instead of one of the draft horses?” Mary Anne asked.

  “Not this morning. You can drive Terror after lunch when the others are working the team.”

  “Who’ll drive with me?”

  “Time for your solo run, I think.”

  Mary Anne’s eyes widened. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t drive that little pipsqueak?” Sean said. “He gives you any trouble, pick him up and toss him on his little pony tush.”

  “Can’t Sean come with me this afternoon?” she begged.

  “Okay, either he will or I will.” Charlie pointed at her. “Promise you’ll do all the driving.”

  Mary Anne nodded. She didn’t look happy.

  After the horses were harnessed, Charlie said, “This morning we’re going to play follow the leader. Sean and I will lead. We’re going way into the back of the property past the lake. There are some little hills and copses back there. We don’t keep it cut, because we don’t need it at the moment for the horses. We’ll drive slowly, but you’ll have to pay attention. There are a couple of streams to ford and some obstacles requiring tight turns and good reinsmanship.”

  “Could we have a picnic?” Mary Anne asked. “Since it’s so pretty.”

  “Sure, why not? I’ll ask Vittorio to fix us some sandwiches and sodas to take with us. Jake and Sean, get a couple of the big tarpaulins off the marathon carts. We can sit on those. Hop to it, people.” She clapped her hands.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday,” Charlie said to Sean when at last they were under way.

  “Me, too.”

  “I wasn’t very friendly to your daughter.”

  Sean laughed. “Neither was I. Not easy to be friendly to Brie.”

  “From what you said earlier, I thought your younger daughter was the problem.”

  “Nope. Lizzy’s pretty levelheaded, but Brie was our first, and my wife tried to make her into a princess. I mean, what normal middle-class family names a child Brittany?”

  “I guess she agreed with her mother. She still looks princessy. Turn right at the bottom of the hill by that sycamore tree. There’s a path that goes up over the levee and back into the woods. Hard to see until you’re right up on it, but it’s a nice drive. There’s a great open space for the picnic by the stream.”

  Sean’s reinsmanship had improved, although he hadn’t been bad to start with. Pindar seemed to turn without any signal from him.

  Charlie looked behind her. The others were following in excellent order. Jake relaxed by Mickey, who seemed at ease driving Ariel. Mary Anne sat forward in her seat, but Hank was driving Annie one-handed with his foot up on the dashboard.

  “I wasn’t around much when Brie was little,” Sean continued. “Betsy, my wife, decided early on she was going to be the next Little Miss America, or some such. She signed her up for her first contest when she was three.”

  “Really? I’ve seen those shows on TV—the kids in fancy dresses and false eyelashes and makeup?”

  “Brie loved it. Betsy made the costumes, but even so, entry fees and travel—they eat up a bunch of money. You know those kids have bridges made to fit in their mouths when they start losing baby teeth?”

  “Yuck.”

  “By the time I realized the whole shootin’ match was out of hand, they were gone two or three weekends a month, staying in motels—inexpensive motels, but still.”

  “I cannot see you as one of those pageant fathers with the video cameras.”

  “That’s cause I wasn’t,” Sean said drily. “Betsy hid as much as she could from me, and I didn’t want to know. Still, it seemed like all we did was fight over Brie’s career—that’s what Betsy called the pageants. The thing that slowed it down was Betsy got pregnant with Lizzy—the one who’s finishing up her engineering degree at Washington U. in St. Louis. Real bad pregnancy. Gestational diabetes, preeclampsia. Then she had a bout of postpartum depression. As usual, I was off on a temporary duty assignment and no help. Betsy’s mother had to come and take over.”

  “That must have been a terrible shock for Brie.”

  “She never forgave Betsy, Lizzie or me. According to her, we ruined her life. Betsy had to give all that pageant stuff up. Too hard on her nerves. Brie was a really beautiful little girl, but when she entered a couple of pageants in high school on her own, she never won. First runner-up a lot, but not the crown. Everybody seemed to realize she cared too much for the wrong reasons.”

  “Her mother couldn’t help at all?”

  “Betsy died when Bri
e was a freshman in high school. Heart attack. That’s when Brie tried to get back into pageants.”

  “Oh, Sean, I’m so sorry.”

  “Brie’s still trying to be the winner she was when she was three years old. Isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard?”

  “It’s right up there in the top ten, Sean.” Charlie leaned against his shoulder and slipped her arm around him. Calm, easygoing Sean. Everybody had a story. She should have discovered Sean’s history earlier. But he wasn’t a squeaky wheel like the others. He seemed to be completely whole, even if he was missing a hand.

  What had she missed about the others?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHARLIE NEVER KNEW whether Jake would come to the patio to join her or not. She felt like a teenager waiting for a telephone call from the boy she had a crush on. But this was worse than any crush. She stayed at high alert until either he showed up or she gave up.

  When he did come out, they usually talked about the horses or the farm. She told him stories about growing up an army brat, about living in Germany and Greece, about her mother, even about Sarah.

  Not, however, about Steve.

  She was eager to learn about Jake’s life in an Amish community, but every time she asked him a question about it, he changed the subject.

  They’d become friends. That was all they should ever be—at least so long as he was her student. But friendship wasn’t all she wanted.

  Now, when she had rediscovered passion, she’d fallen for a man who didn’t feel passion for her in return.

  She still hadn’t even convinced him to join the others at the dining table.

  She’d pretty much given up that fight. Maybe one day she’d find out why he stayed away at meals.

  Tonight Charlie gave up waiting for him on the patio. She was so tired she left after only thirty minutes. If he showed up, he could wait for her for a change. She expected to fall asleep instantly.

  Instead, she felt too tired to sleep. She tried all the usual techniques, then tried tossing and turning, but that didn’t do much good, either. She put a pillow between her knees to straighten her back. Still nothing.

  Her mind flipped around like a ball in a pinball machine, never hitting the bell.

  But she knew what the problem was. Jake. Might as well admit it. Gail, the carriage driver, recognized that he was great looking and sexy. As if Charlie needed another woman to point that out to her. He was also kind, caring and competent, but monumentally screwed up with a hair-trigger temper that seemed to go off when he felt somebody he cared about needed protection.

  She truly believed that under his layers of outward control lurked a lava lake of passion ready to blow the top off the volcano. With Jake she felt as though she were poking at a humongous fire ant nest with a very short stick. Any minute the ants would swarm out and bite her. And it would hurt big-time.

  What did she want from him? She was in a position of authority with vulnerable survivors. Any kind of relationship with Jake would be unprofessional and would compromise not only her future and the program’s, but his recovery, as well.

  How would it play with Sarah and the colonel? She felt certain Sarah already guessed.

  At the patter of raindrops on her window, she rolled over and tried to ignore the sound.

  Not more rain! The weather was supposed to be fine for the remainder of the week.

  The sound came again. Then nothing. Then more showers. She sat up and looked at her window just as a handful of gravel hit the glass.

  She was out of bed and had the window raised in an instant.

  “Charlie! Wake up!”

  She leaned out. “Jake? What on earth?” This didn’t sound like seduction.

  “Get your clothes on and come down. You’re having a baby.”

  “Molly’s not due for another week. Her udder hasn’t begun to swell yet.”

  “Tell Molly that when you get down here. I’ll see you in the barn.”

  He was wrong. Mares foaled late if anything, never early.

  She pulled on the jeans she’d worn all day and a clean T-shirt without a bra. She ran barefoot down the stairs and stopped by the patio door to slip on her barn muckers. She hadn’t washed her face or combed her hair.

  The foaling stall, as far from the stallion stall as possible, was fitted with soft lights that were always burning when a mare was inside. The door was wire mesh to the floor so that anyone outside could see the entire space.

  It was already bedded deep with straw. Always better for a mare to foal in than shavings. She expected to find Molly munching at her hay net or snoring in the corner. She did not expect to find Jake in the stall beside her.

  “Get out of there,” she said.

  “Take a look.”

  Charlie slipped in quietly beside him.

  The mare had been exhibiting the signs of late pregnancy for a couple of weeks, but no more than normal. The muscles at her tail head had relaxed, and her belly had distended and dropped. Charlie ran her hand down Molly’s flank, felt sweat and received a snort and an irritated cow kick in return.

  A moment later she received a handful of yellow colostrum from an udder that would have made a Jersey cow proud.

  “Good grief, you’re right. She’s in labor. It’s too early.”

  “Not that early. She could take hours.”

  “She never has in the past. This is her third foal. How did you guess?” Charlie asked.

  “I came down to check on her,” he said.

  “At three in the morning?”

  “I don’t sleep all that well.”

  “I thought we were bringing her inside too early, but now...”

  “Happens that way sometimes.”

  Inside the stall the mare walked in a circle. She’d worn the hay down in her path and was really sweating now. Her black pelt showed in the overhead light. From time to time she stared at her belly in annoyance, and several times kicked at it.

  “Getting close,” Jake said. He grabbed Charlie’s hand and held it hard.

  Fluid gushed onto the hay.

  “This is the scary part,” Charlie whispered. “She’s starting.”

  The mare gave a groan and sank onto her chest and then her side, straining with her whole body, her legs stretched behind her.

  Jake and Charlie prepared to help if necessary.

  “Please,” Charlie whispered, “give us two front feet and a nose.” That was the optimum presentation for a foal.

  The foal sac broke as the foal began to emerge. “Yes!” Charlie said. Before the baby slid onto the hay, its head was already free of membrane. It blinked at them with wide, baby eyes.

  “Welcome to the world, little one,” Charlie said. She went down on her knees to help Molly give one final push so that the baby’s hind legs were clear of Molly’s body. “Jake, go to the wash rack and bring some towels, please.”

  He nodded and a moment later knelt beside her. Charlie rubbed the baby’s wet face and nostrils with one of the towels he handed her.

  “What’s wrong with Molly?” Charlie said. “She’s still straining.”

  “Charlie, move the baby out of the way. Now!”

  Charlie stared at him. He’d never used that tone with her before. The baby was already struggling to stand. Charlie grabbed it around the waist and hauled it forward, away from Molly’s hind legs. Was Molly bleeding? If she hemorrhaged, there was no way to stop the blood in time to save her life.

  Charlie expected to see a gout of blood. Instead, she saw two more feet and another nose. Twins! No! Twins seldom survived.

  Jake grabbed the second foal in both arms as it emerged and lifted it like a puppy. It gazed up at him with wide, trusting eyes.

  “It’s tiny,” Charlie said.

 
“It’s breathing,” Jake replied. “Hello, little guy.”

  Molly struggled to her feet and looked at once for her foal. She saw the baby in Jake’s arms first and reached over to nibble its wet coat.

  “Hey, Molly, over here,” Charlie said, and turned the mare’s head to the fine big foal already wobbling on its feet. A little confused, Molly reached across and nibbled this baby, as well.

  “This place is getting crowded,” Jake said. “How do we keep her from stepping on the little one?”

  “Put the foal down. Let’s see what Molly does. She could reject it totally, or its sibling could decide not to share. I’ve only seen a couple of pairs of twins born, and none where one was so much bigger than the other. I left my cell phone upstairs. You have yours with you? I need to call our vet. She doesn’t usually come out until morning with a normal birth.”

  “No way is this normal,” Jake said, and handed her his cell phone.

  While she talked to the vet, who agreed to come out to the farm at once, Jake brought two cushions from the sofa in the common room and propped them against the outside of the stall on the dirt floor.

  When Charlie realized what he was doing, she raised her eyebrows.

  “This floor is as clean as the common room floor,” he said with a shrug. “And a lot more comfortable to sleep on than wet hay.”

  “You have a point.” Another decision. They seemed to come easier for Jake these days—at least the small ones that had to do with animals. People, not so much.

  For a while they stood shoulder to shoulder against the stall door, ready to jump inside to protect the little foal. Molly nuzzled it toward her rear legs. Unlike the firstborn, the little one was able to stand under Molly’s belly and grab a teat on the first try.

  The big one was too tall to reach under its mother’s belly without hunkering down and bending its neck. Molly kept shoving it toward her back end, and eventually, it latched on.

  “Yes!” Jake and Charlie threw their arms around each other. He pulled her off her feet and swung her around in the aisle. The geldings hung their heads over their stalls to see what all the excitement was about. The other horses began to whicker softly as they caught the scent of the foals.