More snorts, followed by the sound of hooves schlupping away.
What could have happened to them?
DJ walked toward the truck, which was parked off to the side to keep the drive clear. Both men were sitting inside. She breathed a sigh of relief. But why hadn’t they answered her?
The truck was running—the drone of the idling engine told her that. Feeling as if she’d learned she was the only human left alive on the planet, DJ forced herself to go toward the vehicle.
Hand trembling, she opened the door.
Rumbling snores nearly drowned out the drone of the engine. They were both sound asleep!
DJ nibbled on her lip. Between the foaling and the flood, the two had gone for nearly two days without sleep. Should she let them sleep? But the filly needed feeding.
“Dad?” Calling him that was getting easier.
DJ waited and noticed something felt different. She looked up, and her face stayed dry. It wasn’t raining!
“Dad, it quit raining!” She touched his shoulder.
He jerked as though she’d poked him with a cattle prod set on full force.
“Wha-what is it?” He peered at her, eyes owl round and blinking. “DJ, are you all right? Wha-what happened?”
“You fell asleep.”
Brad let his head fall against the back of the seat. “I came to find Ramone, and he was asleep. So I thought I’d just sit in the warm cab for a minute or two before I woke him up.” He scrubbed his face with both hands. “We need to feed the foal.”
“Yes, we do, but guess what else is up?”
He looked at her as if answering would take too much effort.
“It quit raining!”
“Thank you, heavenly Father.”
Brad’s heartfelt praise brought him out of the truck, hands raised palm up.
DJ wasn’t sure whether he was praising God or testing for rain, but his next words clued her in.
“No more rain. Thank you, God!”
She guessed it was both.
At his shout, Ramone jerked upright. “What’s happening?”
Brad pointed toward the sky.
Ramone climbed stiffly from the truck. “How long have I been asleep? I didn’t mean to do that—fall asleep, I mean.”
“No problem, Ramone. Look!” Brad pointed upward again.
“The rain stopped! Look, there’s even a star up there. I was beginning to think they had all disappeared forever.” Ramone thumped a hand on the hood of the truck, the noise spooking the curious horses that had gathered around them.
“Well, that’s one of many major prayers answered. Now, how about the foal?”
Brad turned to Ramone. “DJ thinks we should try a sling. It might make sense now that the filly has been handled so much. If Soda will cooperate, too. . . .”
“Whatever. I’m game.”
The three entered the garage, and DJ picked up the sheets. “I hope these are okay to use.”
“Deej, honey, anything is okay to use at this point. Everything but us and the horses are replaceable.” He took the sheets. “And you and Ramone are more important than thousands of horses—hands down.”
The glow around DJ’s heart radiated clear to her fingertips.
The men stroked Soda first, then approached the filly. She raised her head and appeared to be studying them. But when she didn’t thrash her legs, DJ began to wonder if she was too weak to fight.
They folded the sheet the long way and slid it under the foal’s belly. On three, they gently hoisted her into the air, letting her feet touch the ground. The foal scrambled for a moment but quieted again. Head up, she looked toward her mother.
“Oh, wow.” DJ led Soda over to the trio. “Come on, old girl, let’s make this count.” Please, God, please, marched through her mind as DJ guided the filly toward her mother’s udder.
“Please, God, let this work,” she heard Brad murmur behind her.
DJ stroked the filly’s head, crouching down so she could see what she was doing.
The filly started to pull away, bobbing her head and bumping the mare’s flank.
“Easy, now, little one, you can do this.” Please.
“If you can, Deej, squirt a little milk on her muzzle.”
DJ aimed a teat toward the filly and squeezed. She missed.
The men moved the filly an inch or two closer.
Bump, nudge, bump. DJ pulled another stream of milk from the mare. It hit the baby’s muzzle and dripped down over her lips. A pink tongue peeked out and licked the milk.
DJ held her breath.
One more bump, and the filly found the teat. She wrapped her tongue around it, pulling it into her mouth.
She began to nurse.
DJ swabbed away the tears. “She’s doing it,” she whispered around a throat so tight, she could hardly swallow.
“I know,” Brad’s voice came, reverent as a prayer. “Thank you, Father, for big favors.”
“Amen to that.” Ramone’s voice resounded with the same awe as Brad’s and DJ’s.
When the foal dropped her head a good time later, the men lowered her to the straw. She sighed and lay flat out on her side.
“You earned a good rest, little one. Sleep well.” Brad got up from his knees. “And speaking of sleep, I vote we all do that. Ramone, I’ll pull the Murphy bed in the rec room down for you. Sorry I can’t offer anyone a hot shower, but warm covers will have to do.”
They trooped into the house, jerking off their boots at the bootjack by the back door. DJ moved woodenly to her room, where she stripped off her filthy clothes with her eyes already half shut. She struggled into her sweats and, sitting on the side of the bed, pulled heavy socks over her freezing feet. She hung her head and sat there, as if frozen.
“Deej, getting into the bed before going to sleep would have been a good idea.”
She felt her father lift her legs and swing them up on the bed. She tried to say thank-you when he pulled the covers over her, but the effort was too great.
When she woke, weak sunlight cast a square on the hardwood floor. “The filly! She should have been fed again long ago.” DJ threw back the covers and leaped into her clothes, hitting the floor running. Without waiting to put on her boots, she opened the door to the garage.
The filly stood at her mother’s side, head up and under the flank, nursing on her own, her brush of a tail flicking from side to side.
DJ glanced at her watch. Nearly noon—she’d slept for hours. “Why didn’t they wake me?” she muttered as she shoved her feet into her boots and pulled them on. Snagging a jacket off the peg, she stepped outside.
The clouds looked like old dishcloths, tightly wrung and tattered. But the sun managed to find the holes between them and beam its warmth down onto the soaked earth. Horses nickered, and a pair of crows flew overhead, their caws sounding more like a song of rejoicing than a threat of doom.
A line of broken sticks and grasses lay in a mud coat that showed the highest reach of the flooded river. Now the water lapped a good foot below that mark.
DJ looked down to the barns. Water still stood well up the walls, the gray mud line above showing how far the water had already receded.
DJ drew in a deep breath of fresh air—and wished she hadn’t. After working on the cleanup last weekend, she knew the smell would only get worse. Small breaths would serve her better until her nose decided to ignore the stink.
“So, everyone, where’s my dad?”
“Right behind you.” Brad draped an arm around her shoulders. “I’d still be sleeping if the phone hadn’t rang. Your mother called to see how we are. All in all, I think she is handling this fairly well. When I said you were still sleeping, she said for you to call her back. Then I found your room empty.”
“I should have called her before I went to bed.”
“At 3:00 a.m.?”
“Was that what time it was?”
“Mm-hmm.” Brad stretched his arms above his head and yawned. His arm thumped back on her
shoulders.
“Did you see the foal nursing?”
“Yup. I checked on them around six, and she was up then.”
“You coulda told me.”
“What? And wake the sleeping beauty? Even I’ve got more sense than that.”
She dug an elbow into his ribs, but not too hard.
They heard a click and a buzz behind them. The spotlight between the garage doors went on.
“Power, we’ve got power!” Brad spun her in a circle, then wrapped her in a bear hug. “Come on, daughter, we’re going to have a real breakfast.”
Ramone came to the door. “You have a phone call, boss.”
“Thanks. How about you and DJ feed and water the horses while I make breakfast?”
Ramone nodded to where a couple of the loose horses were drinking from the dirty floodwater. “You told them that plan yet?”
“Well, at least water the two mares from the water in the bathtubs.”
The other foal was born late that Saturday night. Once again, Brad woke DJ in time. An hour later, he said, “This is what a normal foaling is like—the mare does all the work, and I cheer her on.”
DJ looked over to where both Soda and her baby lay sleeping. “I’ll take this kind of delivery any day. But that baby over there sure stole a piece of my heart.”
“Yeah, I know. I kind of think she should be yours.” At the look on her face, he put up his hands. “You earned her, you know. I might have ended up putting her down just because I didn’t have time for her with all the other stuff going on.”
“Dad!”
“Well, you never know. What do you think would be a good name for her?”
“Soda’s Storm Clouds. I’d call her Stormy for short.”
“Sounds like a winner to me.” Brad shook his head. “I think I’m going to keep you on retainer as horse namer.”
“Did . . . did you mean it about her being mine?” DJ was almost afraid to ask. Surely he’d been joking.
“Yes, I did. I mean I do. You’ll be on her registration papers as the legal owner.”
“Wow! That’s so . . . I—it’s just awesome.” DJ turned and gave him a two-arm, rib-crunching hug as hard as her sore arms could squeeze. “Thank you. A gazillion times over, thank you!”
“Once is enough. If you squeeze my aching ribs again, I’ll have to scream. And I doubt it’s cool for a father to scream because of his daughter’s hugs.”
DJ grinned and leaned into the warmth of his side.
CHAPTER • 16
“I’m really glad you’re home . . . and safe.”
“Me too.” DJ looked up from her history book. “Come on in, Mom. I’m almost done.”
Lindy sat down on the edge of the bed. “It felt like you were gone forever. And listening to the news about the water rising . . . DJ, all I could do was pray.”
DJ leaned back in her chair and crossed one ankle over her other knee. “You were praying for me?”
“Yes, almost continually. As were Gran and Joe and Amy and Robert and Bobby and Billy—”
“God answered, right?”
Lindy nodded. “I’ve decided something.”
DJ caught her breath. Now what? But her mother’s face didn’t wear gloom and doom. “What?”
“I’ve decided I’m going to make prayer a regular part of my life. I know Mom says we aren’t supposed to bargain with God, but I told Him that if He would bring you safely home, I would put Him at the center of my life.”
DJ felt like fireworks had just exploded, sending sparkles cascading in her mind.
“Now, I’m not exactly sure what I agreed to, but I intend to live up to it.”
“Gran and I’ve been praying for you about this for a long time.” The words tumbled out. DJ knew if she said much more, she would either explode and bounce off the walls or fall apart in tears. “Have you told Robert?”
Lindy nodded. “And my mother.”
“So you believe Jesus is God’s son?”
“I’ve believed that since I was a teenager but . . .”
DJ waited for the rest of the sentence. When none came, she leaned forward. “But?”
“But I let life take over and thought I could handle it all myself.” Lindy shook her head. “Silly, huh?”
DJ got up and crossed to the bed, sitting down beside her mother. “Mom, this is the best present you could ever give me.”
Lindy looked up, one side of her mouth quirked in a mini smile. “Even better than an Arabian filly of your own?”
DJ scrunched her eyes as if she was trying hard to make up her mind. “Yup, even better than Stormy.” Her grin said she was teasing.
With a gentle and loving hand, Lindy smoothed a lock of hair back from DJ’s cheek. “Brad was so proud of you—said he couldn’t have made it through without your help. I am, too. I know what a level-headed, responsible kid you are.”
“Most of the time,” DJ joked.
“Most of the time, yes—and what more can a parent ask for?” She hugged her daughter close. “Guess what?” she whispered in DJ’s ear. “Six more days till the wedding! I think I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“Not with your level-headed, responsible daughter on your tail, you won’t.”
The two laughed and hugged again.
“If what they say about a bad dress rehearsal being good for the actual performance holds true, then this wedding will go like a dream,” Lindy said when DJ came down the stairs on Saturday morning.
“Last night wasn’t that bad.” DJ smiled at her mother, sitting in Gran’s wing chair with her Bible on her lap. “You look good like that.”
“Like what?”
“Reading like Gran in her chair.”
Lindy nodded. “It just feels right to sit here to read my Bible. Must be all those prayers that were offered up from this very place.”
DJ came over and sat beside her mother’s feet, leaning against Lindy’s knee. “It feels good, too.”
Lindy stroked down the entire length of her daughter’s hair. “You have such beautiful hair, DJ. How about if I style it for you for the wedding?”
“Okay by me. Are you going to have your hair done?”
“No, Robert asked me to wear it like I always do, so that’s what I’m doing. I want this wedding to be a celebration that everyone will enjoy, not a fancy show.”
Three hours later, all dressed in their wedding finery, Gran, Lindy, and DJ waited in the narthex of the church. All the guests had been seated, and the organ played a medley of hymns.
“These shoes pinch my feet,” DJ muttered for Gran’s ears only. DJ smoothed a hand down the front of her high-necked dusty rose satin dress. The sleeves, puffed at the top and fitted from elbow to wrist, made her feel like she had stepped out of the pages of an earlier time. The toe-length skirt swished, playing a melody of its own with every move she made. If princesses felt like this, DJ figured she could handle the role. She sniffed the miniature roses and carnations in her nosegay. They smelled almost but not quite as good as a horse.
“You look lovely, darlin’. You can take the shoes off after it’s over. I brought your white sandals just in case,” Gran whispered back.
“Leave it to you to be prepared.” DJ turned to her mother. “Mom, you look fantabulous. Are you as happy as you look?”
Lindy nodded. “You know those butterflies you talk about before a show class?” DJ nodded. “How do you get them to fly in formation?”
DJ chuckled. “I concentrate on my horse until I enter the ring. Once I’m there, they fly together like they’re supposed to. Works every time.”
“Okay.” Lindy took a deep breath and let it all out. “Here we go. Let’s enter the ring!”
At a signal from the usher, the organist began the “Wedding March,” and the doors swung open.
DJ listened for the beat and started out on her left foot like she’d been told. She held her bouquet of red carnations and white lilies in front of her and rubbed the ring she wore on her
thumb. The ring that Lindy would place on Robert’s finger.
She glided down the aisle, smiling at Brad and Jackie in one row, and the Yamamoto family in another. Amy gave her a thumbs-up signal.
When DJ reached the front, she smiled up at Robert; at Joe, who was best man; then down at Bobby and Billy. She winked at them, and they clapped their hands over their mouths to keep from giggling.
DJ turned and watched Gran and Lindy start through the door. While the shoulder-length veil hid her mother’s face, she seemed to be lit from within with a glow that turned the simple cream-colored satin dress to radiant shimmers. Beside her, Gran beamed at everyone as their march down the aisle began. Everyone stood in honor of the bride.
DJ felt like cheering and crying all at once. She wanted to jump and shout, “Hey, that beautiful woman in satin is my mother—and the other one is my grandmother.”
When the completed party was at the front, DJ moved to stand beside her mother and Gran so the three of them faced the altar. The minister asked, “Who gives this woman to this man?”
Gran and DJ replied together, “We do.”
“Us too,” the twins added with serious faces.
DJ, Lindy, and Gran hugged each other, barely able to keep from laughing. Then Robert gently took Lindy’s hand and brought her forward. DJ took her place next to her mother, and Gran moved in next to her.
Feeling someone tug on her skirt, DJ looked down into the smiling faces of the twins, one on each side.
“Are you our sister yet?” Billy—or was it Bobby?—asked in his idea of a whisper. Those at the back of the church could hear it as well as those chuckling in the front.
DJ shook her head. “Soon.”
The verses were read, the soloist sang, and the vows given in strong voices.
“Is she our mother yet?” Another dual whisper.
“Soon.” DJ pulled the ring off her thumb and handed it to her mother. At least her part of the ceremony was done. The rings were exchanged and prayers said. As Robert kissed his bride, Bobby and Billy grinned at each other, clapped their hands, and threw themselves at Lindy’s skirts. “Now we’s a family!”
Laughter rippled through the room, and Robert and Lindy hugged both the boys and DJ.
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