by Lisa Wysocky
THE FAME
EQUATION
LISA WYSOCKY
Published by
Cool Titles
439 N. Canon Dr., Suite 200
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
www.cooltitles.com
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Applied For
Lisa Wysocky––
The Fame Equation
p. cm
ISBN 978-1-935270-38-6
1. Mystery 2. Horses 3. Southern Fiction I. Title 2015
Copyright 2015 by Lisa Wysocky
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Other Books by Lisa Wysocky
Fiction
The Opium Equation
The Magnum Equation
Nonfiction
The Power of Horses
Success Within
Front of the Class (with Brad Cohen)
My Horse, My Partner
Horse Country
Success Talks
Two Foot Fred (with Fred Gill)
Horseback
Walking on Eggshells (with Lyssa Chapman)
Hidden Girl (with Shyima Hall)
Therapy Horse Selection
DEDICATION
To therapy horses everywhere.
I’ve thanked you before in other books, but thank you again. Your contributions are invaluable.
CAST OF MAIN CHARACTERS
Cat Enright:
A horse trainer who lives near Nashville, Tennessee. She is thirty, single (but in a relationship––she thinks), impulsive, vulnerable, and the owner of a small stable.
Jon Gardner:
Cat’s stable manager and right hand. No one, Cat included, knows his secrets.
Darcy Whitcomb:
Eighteen-year-old teenager with a trust fund. She might be spoiled, but Cat loves her like family.
Agnes Temple:
Eccentric woman of a certain age with short, spiky, electric blue hair. She owns two horses in Cat’s barn.
Bubba Henley:
Budding juvenile delinquent and eleven-year-old son of a neighboring horse trainer. He and Cat had become close earlier in the year.
Hill Henley:
Bubba’s father and fourth generation Tennessee Walking Horse trainer. He’s about as sharp as a mashed potato.
Keith Carson:
A neighbor and country music superstar. Cat has a secret crush on Keith and is thrilled that he chose her as his riding instructor.
Brent Giles:
A tall, blond small animal veterinarian from Clarksville, and Cat’s boyfriend. Cat thinks he’s cute, but isn’t sure she wants to take the relationship to the next level.
Martin Giles:
Recently promoted former sheriff ’s deputy. Martin is now a full-fledged detective––and Brent’s brother.
Melody Cross:
Rising country music star who is Keith Carson’s duet partner, and a close friend of Cat’s.
Ruthie Cosgrove:
Pastor of the Holy Church of the Mighty Happy.
Allen Harding:
The church’s financial advisor, and Ruthie’s brother.
Emily Harding:
Allen’s wife. She also runs the church’s therapeutic riding program.
Buffy Thorndyke:
Reporter turned publicist, she works with Melody Cross.
Davis Young:
Melody’s manager.
Augie Freemont:
Stocky, older man with a shaved head, goatee, and earring. He is the booking agent for both Keith and Melody.
Bill Vandiver:
Melody’s hair stylist.
The Potts Family:
Mother Claudine, father Cletus, sister Bran-dyne, and brother Bodine are blood relatives of Raylene––which prompted her to change her name to Melody Cross.
Chas Chadwick:
Head of Melody’s record label.
Scott Donelson:
Melody’s entertainment lawyer.
Robert Griggs:
A former student of Cat’s who now works at the Mighty Happy Therapeutic Riding Center.
Annie Zinner:
A horse trainer from Oklahoma and a mother figure to Cat.
Tony Zinner:
Annie’s husband and training partner. He and Jon Gardner have a past.
Gusher Black:
The owner of a new horse in Cat’s barn.
Hank:
Cat’s incorrigible Beagle-mix hound dog.
Sally Blue:
A (possibly) psychic, red roan Appaloosa mare owned by Agnes Temple.
Peter’s Pride:
A tall, older black gelding owned by Darcy Whitcomb. Petey is a calming influence on Darcy, but he also likes to play.
Hillbilly Bob:
Bay, aged gelding owned by a local orthopedic surgeon. Cat swaps training fees for treatment of broken bones and other injuries, and has won several championships on Bob.
Glamour Girl:
A gorgeous, but silly, yearling filly owned by Mason Whitcomb, Darcy’s dad.
Redgirl’s Moon:
Tall and elegant, she is a chestnut mare owned by Agnes Temple. Reddi is a real go-getter and excels in English events.
Ringo’s Jetstar
Former racehorse who is a new horse in Cat’s barn.
Wheeler
Short, squat palomino gelding who may be moving to a new home.
The Holy Church of the Mighty Happy, and the Mighty Happy Therapeutic Riding Center
1
THE COWBOY AND THE LADY cantered across the grassy field, then turned toward a large video camera that perched on a set of portable tracks. The autumn reds and golds of the hillside trees were duplicated in the rider’s clothes, and in the bright red roan and bay coats of the horses. As they neared the camera, the riders looked longingly at each other, then reached out to grab each other’s hand.
It would have been quite romantic. Except the male rider, who was to the right, moved the reins from his left hand to his right so he could grasp the other rider’s hand, and in the process dropped a rein. Of course the horse stepped on it and it broke. Both horses were being ridden in bitless bridles, so I wasn’t concerned that the horse’s mouth had been hurt, but I had kind of liked those reins.
The director, a rail thin fifty-ish man with dyed black, spiky hair who went by the name of Fitch, waved his arms around and everything came to a screeching halt. I wish someone had told me about Fitch’s arm waving when
I got my horses, Sally Blue and Hillbilly Bob, ready for this video shoot. Sally was okay with his windmill-like maneuvers, but Bob, normally a “steady Eddie,” often looked at Fitch as if he was from Planet Crouton. And who knows? Maybe he was. I’d asked Fitch to tone down the arm waves a bit, explaining that we didn’t need to get country music superstar Keith Carson dumped onto the ground, but Fitch just looked at me as if I was a pesky ant and made shooing motions with his hands. I’d been here all day and he had yet to speak one word to me.
As the video crew tweaked the position of the cameras and lights for yet another take, I looked longingly at the craft services truck that was set up near the back entrance of the steeplechase grounds at Nashville’s Percy Warner Park. I sighed. Craft services had some amazing hot chocolate and I thought longingly of a cup, but I needed to replace the broken rein, find another way for Keith to reach his hand out, and see to my horses.
Well, technically, Bob and Sally weren’t mine, even though I thought of them as family. Bob, a bay Appaloosa gelding with a bright white blanket and spots over his hips, belonged to an orthopedic surgeon who occasionally patched me up. Sally Blue was a young, red-roan Appaloosa mare who belonged to Agnes Temple. Think stout seventy-year-old cheerleader with short, spiky, bright blue hair and attention deficit disorder, and you had Agnes. In spite of that, Agnes was a dear friend.
Keith was riding Bob and I have to say the hunky singer looked darn good on a horse. He, his wife, Carole, and their large brood of kids, lived next door to me. I’ve had a not-so-secret crush on Keith as long as I can remember and when he asked me to give him riding lessons so he could look good in this video, my brain instantly turned to mush and for a few minutes there, I couldn’t walk straight.
I quickly learned that Keith was a stickler for perfection. The trouble was, many cowboys ride with a split rein, which means the left and right reins are not tied together. This is so a cowboy can drop the end of the reins to the ground when he dismounts as a signal for the horse to ground tie, or stand “tied to the ground.”
Keith wanted to be that cowboy and resisted every effort I made to get him to ride with a knot in his reins, or with a closed set of reins. Closed reins are made up of one long strap, and barrel racers use them all the time. Yet another idea was for Keith to hold the split reins in his right hand, but according to Keith, none of those options were “the cowboy way.”
The obvious solution was for Keith to ride to the left of the blond girl. Then he could just reach out his right hand. But with the lay of the land, the surrounding hills, the ambient light, and a host of other technicalities that I had no interest in, Fitch wanted Keith to the right of the other horse and rider.
“Sorry about the rein,” Keith said. “What is that, two broken reins now?”
“Three,” I answered with a smile.
“I’ll replace––”
“I know. We’ll deal with it later. Fortunately, I have one other pair in the trailer. But Keith?” I made sure he was paying attention. “You have to knot these. They are the last pair I have with me and I heard Fitch tell his assistant that we are losing the light. Just keep your hand over the knot and no one will see it except during the quick moment when you transfer your reins. Besides,” I finished, “no one will be looking at your hands. Your fans will be looking at your smiling face.”
I knew I certainly would be.
The other rider, rising superstar Melody Cross, was on Sally Blue. By the time I finished with Keith, Buffy Thorndyke and Bill Vandiver, Melody’s publicist and hair/makeup/ wardrobe guy, had surrounded her. I’d known Buffy for a while. She used to be a reporter with the Ashland City Times, the local paper for the northern half of Cheatham County, where my stables were located. We were about fifteen miles west of Nashville, Tennessee, close enough to the city to be attractive to commuters, yet rural enough to house some interesting characters.
I had just met Bill today, although his reputation had preceded him by several months. Melody swore by his hair color and extension work and I had to admit that her hair always looked fabulous.
Melody was last year’s Country Music Association New Artist of the Year. Her first three singles had gone number one and she was on a fast track to major stardom. I had met Melody a few months ago when she, at Keith’s suggestion, also contacted me about riding lessons. Before she and I met, Melody had not only never been on a horse, she had never touched one. But, she was just as determined as Keith that she perform her own riding in the video, and also ride well. The horses and I found her to be kind, with a natural ability to understand equine body language. She progressed quickly.
What also moved fast was our friendship. Outside of my barn crew, a few other trainers, and the owners of my horses, I didn’t have many friends. Noah Gregory was a friend from college who now managed horse shows, but I only saw him a few times a year when we were both at shows, and when we were both supremely busy. Keith’s wife Carole and I were friends, but she had four kids, the oldest being around ten, so her time was limited.
Annie Zinner was like a second mother to me, mine having passed away when I was nine, but she lived in Oklahoma. Annie and her husband, Tony, were trainers who had a unique connection to my assistant and barn manager, Jon Gardner, who was also a friend. Then there was my live-in riding student Darcy. She had just turned eighteen and had a trust fund. While Annie was like a mother to me, I was like Darcy’s second mom, hers being so busy marrying and divorcing minor European royalty and all.
But I didn’t have a close BFF girlfriend until Melody and I clicked. Right from the start I found myself making trips to her little rental home in Pegram, a commuter town in the southern part of our county. Between recording sessions and tour dates, interviews and meetings, Melody often showed up at my barn with old-fashioned cake doughnuts and a thermos of hot chocolate, or on warmer days, iced chai lattes. I liked her, and I found that fact odd. My veterinarian boyfriend aside, I normally liked dogs and horses better than I liked people. But I liked Melody.
I liked gossiping with her, watching chick flick DVDs, and helping her eat her latest batch of homemade cookies. Cookie-eating aside, those other things were not activities I normally liked to do. I even liked helping Melody choose her wardrobe for her live performances and found that task wasn’t so different from helping a riding student choose attire for the show ring.
The reason for the shoot today was the music video for Keith and Melody’s new single, “Do Good.” In the past few months I’d learned a lot from Melody about the music business. She and Keith were two hot stars on the same label, Southern Sky Records, and the powers that be had decided that teaming them up on a duet was a great way to maximize the label’s brand.
The single was a catchy, feel good song written by Melody, Keith, and Melody’s manager, Davis Young. Davis was a former guitar player in a band that had a few hits a decade or so ago. He was a little taller than medium height, had a lean body, and the requisite music industry goatee. His was a reddish brown. Rather than try to stage a comeback, he’d moved into management and had done well. I’d learned that it was not unusual in Nashville to have three or even four songwriters collaborate on a song, or, like Davis, for those songwriters to also have other music industry jobs.
In addition to Davis, who stood near the craft services truck drinking a mug of hot chocolate that should have had my name on it, Chas Chadwick, head of Southern Sky, was on the set. Chas was a dark, broody, preppy sort of fellow who looked to be in his mid-forties. He had spent most of the day standing just past the reach of Fitch’s windmilling arms. I guess when your company is paying more than a hundred grand for a video, you want to be sure you get your money’s worth.
Augie Freemont, a stocky, older man with a shaved head, goatee, and earring, was the booking agent for both Keith and Melody, and had come by during lunch. He was memorable also for the impressive double roll of fat on the back of his head. I’ve always wondered how that happens. I mean, who gets fat rolls on the back of th
eir head? Augie wasn’t thin, but he wasn’t obese, either.
Scott Donelson, Melody’s attorney, had popped onto the set earlier, but only stayed a few minutes. It was a show of support that was probably worth at least two billable hours to his client, plus mileage expenses of course.
The lights and cameras had supposedly been tweaked and Fitch was now waving his arms in a way that I assumed meant they were ready for the horses and riders. I gave a last swipe of baby oil to Bob’s dark nose to make it glossy, and placed my fingers over Keith’s left hand to encourage him to tighten his grip on the knot in his reins.
The riders jogged across the wide infield of the steeple-chase grounds and I wondered, for what must have been the thousandth time that day, how the label or video company got permission to film here. Usually Metro Nashville guarded the grounds like a crown jewel and firmly encouraged hikers and other visitors who came to Percy Warner Park to stay off the steeplechase course.
The music cued and the song began to play. Although they were not recording audio in this scene, the music helped both the horses and the riders get into their roles. Keith and Melody turned Bob and Sally and they all began to canter, again, to a point near the moving video camera. The horses cantered in time to the music and at the appropriate spot Keith and Melody looked longingly at each other. Keith then transferred his reins into his right hand and reached out to enfold Melody’s right hand in his left. Then the two stars cantered on, past the camera and presumably off into happily ever after.
“Cut!” Fitch yelled. “That’s a wrap.”
Numerous hugs and high fives were exchanged amongst the crew. You’d have thought they’d just won the lottery, and in their world, maybe they had. Keith and Melody handed the horses to me, and both stayed to help untack. Jon Gardner had been here most of the day. But, as the afternoon lengthened, good guy that he was, he felt a need to head back to our barn to feed the other horses in our care. Fortunately, he had driven over separately, in his rusty, dark blue sedan.