Taking the Reins. Carolyn McSparren

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      “Nothing to do?” Hank gaped and pointed out the window. “Girl, you got horses!”

      “They’re just driving horses,” Sarah said. “You can’t ride ’em or anything.”

      Hank laughed, showing every one of his perfect teeth. “If you can drive ’em, you can ride ’em.”

      “Mom was the only one who ever hung around the post stables.” Sarah eyed Charlie. “But then there was tons of other stuff to do. Actual humans and the post exchange and a pool and stuff.”

      “You’ll make new friends once school starts,” Hank said. “Hey, you must be good at it, right? Army brats are.”

      “They’ll hate me.”

      “Why would they hate a foxy chick like you?” Hank said.

      Charlie cleared her throat and caught Hank’s eye. This was her daughter he was calling a foxy chick. He had the grace to look away.

      “Right. As if.” Sarah picked up the sandwiches, added a couple of brownies to the pile, stuck a diet soda under her arm and headed for the door.

      “Lay off the computer for the rest of the day,” Charlie said.

      “Mom!”

      “Show us around this afternoon,” Mickey said, looking to Charlie to make sure that was okay. She nodded. “You can wheel the crip.” His chair whirred as it backed away from the table.

      Sarah’s eyes widened. Apparently she hadn’t realized he was in a wheelchair. She recovered instantly and flashed him a grin of her own, the first real smile Charlie had seen on her face in days. “I’m up for that, just not right now.” She flipped her long, light-brown hair over her shoulder. “I suppose I’ll go read an actual b-o-o-k. Is that all right with you, Mother dear?”

      “Sarah—” Charlie began. Without waiting for an answer her daughter went out and shut the door firmly behind her.

      “She hated having to move down here,” Charlie explained. “She’s lived on post since she was born. Out here she’s lonely and bored.” There was no reason to tell them that Sarah had lost her father less than a year ago. She might not act as though she was still grieving, but Charlie knew she was and ached for her. She wanted so much to help, but Sarah wasn’t interested. She blamed her mother for her father’s defection and death and didn’t hesitate to tell her.

      Nobody said anything. Men. They probably had no idea what to say.

      “I haven’t helped much,” Charlie added. Big understatement. Why couldn’t she simply tell Sarah she loved her and keep on telling her until she believed it? Charlie asked herself for the hundredth time. Heaven knew she wanted to, but she didn’t know how.

      One thing she’d learned from her father very early—don’t show your heart to anybody, especially the people you love. You do, you get zapped.

      “At her age she’d find fault with Paradise,” Sean finally said. “I’ve got two daughters of my own. One’s majoring in engineering in St. Louis and is relatively civilized. The other—not so much.” After lunch, everyone went off to unpack, then reassembled to explore the farm. All except Sean and Jake, who was staring out his window again.

      “Hey, Jake, how about I show you around?” Charlie said. Sean appeared grateful for the break. “Unless you’re tired and want to unpack.” She watched him weigh his choices and was prepared to choose for him if he couldn’t or wouldn’t. He needed an opportunity to make small decisions and build up to larger ones.

      Sean started to speak, but Charlie wiggled her fingers behind her back to stop him.

      She caught Jake’s panicked glance at his friend.

      “I’ll introduce you to the other horses,” she said. “Come on.”

      “Okay.”

      She heard Sean release his breath behind her.

      She handed Jake a baseball cap off the rack in the corner. “Down here the sun is dangerous to your skin all year round.”

      He nodded. “Like Iraq.”

      He put on the cap. She plopped her battered khaki safari hat on her head and started out into the stable. As she passed Sean, he touched her arm and winked at her.

      CHAPTER THREE

      JAKE MUSTN’T THINK she was watching him. All the students had emotional as well as physical problems, but Charlie suspected Jake would be the most difficult to deal with.

      She needed to figure out the hot buttons for the others, too. She heard Hank’s boots click on the staircase and realized he also limped, though less than Jake.

      Without the front half of his of his right foot, Hank would never be able to balance on a saddle bronc. He’d probably be able to ride bareback, but not on a bucking horse.

      He could drive draft horses. No balance required.

      And he obviously loved horses. Carriage driving didn’t involve as much adrenaline as rodeo, but there were still moments of terror. Vic Piper, the farrier, said that carriage wrecks were less frequent than riding accidents, but were usually worse, especially when the horse in question was a big old Belgian or shire.

      She looked around and realized that Jake was no longer walking beside her.

      “Jake?” she called.

      “Down here,” he answered.

      In the hay-storage room the bales were stacked in stair steps all the way to the roof of the barn some twenty feet above.

      Charlie found Jake sitting cross-legged on one of the lower bales. Two feet away stood big Mama Cat, twenty pounds of yellow tabby with orange eyes that could shoot fire. Her tail had swelled to twice normal size, and the tip flicked back and forth an inch in either direction.

      Usually by this time she’d disappeared up to the top of one of the rafters or gone for the nearest jugular. Charlie was afraid to move. It was another one of those “child in the gorilla cage” moments.

      She held her breath as he reached two fingers toward the big tabby. The world stopped while man and cat stared deep into each other’s eyes.

      Jake’s eyes were the color of the Aegean Sea in high summer. She still remembered that blue from the vacation she and her parents took to Crete during one of her father’s tours of duty. She’d felt that if she looked over the side of the little boat, the mermaids would pull her down. She felt the same drowning sensation now as she stared into Jake’s eyes.

      Good grief!

      She’d sworn off men! Definitely no more soldiers. Celibacy was the order of the day. Men wanted to own you, to make you go where they wanted you to go, be what they wanted you to be. Military men, especially. And you better not make any changes in your life while they were off fighting the bad guys. Steve would have preferred she go into suspended animation while he was away.

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