Authors: Breaking Free
Gil cleared his throat. “I just want to remind you that this is totally out of the ordinary. Buyers never find a house this fast.”
Eddie just grinned at him. Maria too.
Oh, Lord, in spite of all his warnings, he was going to buy the first house they saw. Did God give a small boy’s prayers precedence over those of his father?
A
t the barn, Maggie stopped outside Breaking Free’s stall and watched him come toward her. Ears forward, he hung his head over the door.
“Well, hello to you too.” She dug a candy out of her pocket and palmed it for him. He sniffed it, lipped it, and then crunched. Mr. James had said that today they would turn him out in the corral while she cleaned his stall to see if he’d let himself be brought back in. She stroked his neck, still surprised he wasn’t head shy. But he didn’t like his ears to be touched, jerking away when her hand got too close to them.
Maggie checked to make sure the horse had water before heading over to the storage stall to get a couple flakes of hay.
“He let you pet him.”
“I know.” She nodded to Jules who had spoken, one who talked so rarely it caught her by surprise. The woman was forever sneaking up behind and watching Maggie. It was unnerving. “I never dreamed we could have such change so fast. But according to Mr. James, it often works that way.”
“Can I watch you work with him?”
Maggie hesitated. “I don’t know. Ask Mr. James.”
“I—I . . .”
“He’s one of the kindest men I think I’ve ever known, other than maybe my grandfather.”
Maggie watched Jules struggle with the desire to confide in someone, all the while struggling with her own rule to stay out of other people’s business. Then, with a look at Breaking Free, she knew she could do no less than what she expected of him: to try again to reenter life. She spoke softly. “You have to be the one to ask him. That’s important.”
Jules nodded and stared at the ground, finally raising doubtful eyes to Maggie. “You think?”
Maggie nodded. “I do.” Her hand shook as she shoved it in her pants pocket. Jules was a lifer with nothing to lose if she didn’t like Maggie’s advice.
Breaking Free stood with his head over the stall door and snitched a bite of hay before she could open the door. “Back up, horse, and let me in.” Jules moved away as silently as she’d arrived, and Maggie let out the breath she’d been holding. She dumped the hay in the rack and returned for a small serving of sweet feed, which he gobbled in a couple of bites.
Maggie dug a brush and a rubber curry out of the grooming bucket and started work on his shoulder. Her own spasmed when she raised her arm to groom his back. She’d been careful not to let anyone see the purple and green bruise that still bloomed like a flower on the front of her shoulder. By the time Breaking Free had finished eating, she’d finished brushing him, grateful she’d finally gotten the tangles out of his mane and tail. Leaving the wraps on his legs, she snapped a lead rope to his halter and led him out of the stall.
He stopped, raising his head to look around.
“He thinks he’s the king,” JJ called from the stall she was cleaning.
He looked in the direction of the speaker but paid no more attention. When one of the horses in the field whinnied, he answered, a loud blast that made Maggie’s ears ring.
“Ow, you could warn me, you know.” She tugged on his lead and took only two steps before he followed. No jerking on the lead, no chain over his nose. She led him to the round pen, opened the gate while he stood at her shoulder, and then walked him in.
When she unsnapped the lead, he walked forward to the center of the pen, his front legs buckled, and he groaned as he lay down.
“Is he sick?” Brandy and some of the other women walked up to the fence.
“No, watch.”
Breaking Free kicked his feet until he rolled up on his back, then kicked and wriggled his back down in the dirt. Dust flew up around him.
“He’s scratching his back, besides dust helps keep away flies and pests. All horses love to get down and roll, but racehorses are never given the freedom to do it.”
They watched as he snorted and rolled over, then back the other way, all the while grunting and shaking. When he scrambled to his feet, head down, he shook all over, sending a cloud of dust skyward.
The spectators applauded. Maggie just watched.
Old boy, you’re getting to be a horse, not a speed machine. Go for it
. She left him in the pen, enjoying the sunshine while she went back and cleaned out his stall.
Now for today’s test. Would he let her bring him in? Back in she walked toward him and he turned to face her, then when she walked away, he followed. She stopped. He stopped. She trotted; he trotted, as if they were joined by invisible wires. When she stopped at the gate, his head was hanging even with his withers, right behind her shoulder. He was limping again, and she could feel his pain in her bones. She snapped the lead shank on his halter. Another test passed with flying colors. But would he be able to overcome his hatred of men before Warden Brundage came to evaluate their progress?
O
n the way home, Gil, Eddie, and Maria stopped for milk shakes to celebrate finding their new house.
While Eddie slurped his, he asked, “Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like Carly?”
“Yes, she’s seems like a very caring person.”
“She’s pretty too.”
“True. Why?” He watched his son’s face.
Eddie shrugged. “Just thought I’d ask.” He glanced out the window, then smiled at his father when he caught his eye in the mirror. “She’s not married.”
“Well, she’s too old for you, sport.”
“Daaad!”
Pulling into the driveway a short time later, they heard Bonnie’s usual miss-you greeting. Her deep aroooohs echoed inside the house, and as soon as Eddie drove inside she skidded to a stop on the tiled floor beside his chair, wriggled furiously while he petted her head and ears, then tore down the hall, through the kitchen, sliding her long body around corners, up on the leather couch, off the other end, back to Eddie and off tearing around again. All the while barking and singing her ahroos.
“And that’s the Basset Five Hundred.” Eddie laughed along with his dog.
Gil stooped to pet her when she stopped, panting, in front of him, long black-spotted tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. “Bonnie, you are one crazy dog.”
“I went online with that group of Basset Rescue people I told you about. Others write about their dogs doing the same thing. They say there’s a basset-tude too.” Eddie leaned over and scrunched her ears up in his hands, rubbing white nose to black, to get a slurpy kiss from chin to hairline.
“You talk to people you don’t know?”
“You told me not to.”
“I know. But that’s not what I asked you. Do you go online to chat rooms and such?”
“Some.”
“Some meaning what?” Sometimes being a father wasn’t his favorite role.
“Well, I go on the Basset one, there’s also a group for kids with spina bifida. I check out the therapeutic riding sites, like Rescue Ranch, and then I look up stuff I’m curious about. Oh, and I found some horse rescue sites too.”
“Near as I can tell, you are curious about most everything.”
With a shrug, Eddie gave his chair a push and headed for his room. “I’m going swimming, you want to come?”
“I’ll bring lunch out in an hour or so.” Maria smiled at him from the arched entry to the kitchen.
Did he need to pursue this with Eddie now, or should they talk more about it later? Later sounded like a good idea, along with the pool. Sometimes Gil felt Eddie and Maria were in league together to keep him from working, and sometimes, like now, he was grateful. He knew he’d become a workaholic, saved only by the grace of a woman strong enough to stand against him and a son gentle enough to forgive. He whistled his way down the hall and into his bedroom to change into swimming trunks, ignoring the blinking light on the message machine, just like he’d turned off his cell phone on the drive to Horse Country.
“I have to work this afternoon,” he announced after a lunch of BLTs on foccacia bread, fruit salad, and tall glasses of iced tea and lemon cookies.
“I know.” Eddie looked up from slipping Bonnie a bite of bacon. “I’m going over to Arthur’s to play video games.” Eddie’s best friend, Arthur, lived three houses over on the cul-de-sac. “His mom made caramel corn. You want me to bring you some?”
“That’s a bit of an imposition.”
“Nope, she makes extra, just for you. She said everyone needs at least one vice.” Eddie laughed as he wheeled his way into the house to change out of his wet board shorts. His voice floated back. “Be neat to have a mom that did stuff like that.”
A pang struck Gil. “Maria, how long since we’ve had the Owens over for dinner?”
“Not since . . .” she squinted her eyes in thought. “Couple months anyway.”
“Okay, let’s invite them for a pool party and barbecue on Saturday or Sunday, whichever they can make.”
“Bueno. Anyone else?”
“We need to do more entertaining. Ask the Grandleys too. We’ll do steaks, hot dogs, and hamburgers. And make a couple of pitchers of your special lemonade.”
Gil heard Eddie whistle for Bonnie, and the two of them went out the door as he settled into his study to begin returning phone calls, starting with one to Amy, his secretary at the main office who wanted to know the progress of house hunting.
“I cannot believe I am buying the first and only house I looked at. It just isn’t done.”
“But if it is perfect, why question your judgment?”
“Good point.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”
They worked for several hours, e-mailing and faxing things back and forth, confirming his travel for the next few months. When he seemed to be overbooking himself, she reminded him of his commitment to stay at home more.
“I think you’re all ganging up on me.”
“That’s what you pay me for.”
He laughed at her teasing. “Thanks, Amy. Let me know on the convention in New York. That one I might take Maria and Eddie along with me.”
That evening he and Eddie played chess and cleaned up the rest of the caramel corn. Eddie’s comment about a mom who did stuff like caramel corn kept circling in his mind.
She is a beautiful woman, Gil thought the next afternoon when he took Eddie out for his riding lesson. Carly wore her shoulder length dark hair pulled back with a leather slide at the base of her skull. Today she was wearing a straw hat that had met with the dirt a time or two and perhaps had even been stepped on. But her dark eyes lit up when she greeted Eddie, and her smile softened a very square jaw.
Come on, Winters, you’ve not paid attention to her before—why now
? Of course he had paid attention to her, just not the male-female kind. Leave it to Eddie to stir things up.
The boy in question was not smiling today. His near fall during his previous lesson made his aides walk closer to the horse’s sides, even with his stirrups, a real step down from his growing freedom. When one of the aides said something, Eddie smiled back. There would be no trotting today, a punishment in Eddie’s opinion.
Carly strode to the center of the ring where three different students were circling the arena at the same time. Eddie was by far the more proficient rider. Two assistants were holding one little girl in place while a third led the small horse around. The third rider, an older teen, clung to the saddle horn, terror being the only visible emotion.
Eddie had been terrified at first too, but the way he’d blossomed in the nearly two years he’d been riding here was nothing short of miraculous. He was stronger, his balance much improved, but mostly his self-confidence had him sitting straighter and willing to tackle obstacles in the rest of his life too. Not that he’d ever been an introvert, Maria had seen to that, but now he was independent too. Carly had added to that independence.
“Now, Eddie, I want you to circle the ring once, turn in to reverse, and go around the other way. Keep him at an even walk and paying attention.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Gil made his way to the bleachers and took a seat halfway up so he could watch his son around the entire arena. He glanced over to the side when he heard someone crying. A little girl did not want to get off her horse, not an unusual situation.
Sure, just buy my son a horse. Carly’d made it sound so easy. Resentment tried to raise its sneaky head, but he squashed it like bashing pop-up critters in an amusement park. He knew letting thoughts like that get comfortable would take dynamite to get rid of them. And besides, resentment might bring along rage, and he’d beaten that one into oblivion more than once. He believed what he taught at his conferences. One could control one’s thoughts and must, if you didn’t want your thoughts to control you, but doing so took a lot of desire and practice.
Why was that easier on some days than others?
“There at the end, I finally rode all by myself again. Did you see, Dad?” Eddie popped a wheelie he was so excited.
“I sure did.” Although his heart was in his mouth most of the time, he was not going to let on to Eddie that he felt that way. “You did really well. But I could sure tell you didn’t like slowing down again.”
“Carly said I recovered my confidence, and my balance is much better. I didn’t tell her I was kinda scared at first.”
“I’m really proud of you. Fear isn’t easy to overcome, but you didn’t let it stop you.”
And now I can’t let it stop me
. The thought made him catch his breath. How would he find someone to work with Eddie at home if and when they did buy a horse?
“I think I would like to enter a horse show.”
Gil schooled his face into a smiling response. So many things could happen—a horse could get away, something could spook Eddie’s horse. The list blew up in his face before he could shut it down. “We’ll have to see.”
“Oh.” Eddie slumped. “You don’t want me to.”
Winters, get yourself under control. He doesn’t need your fear to stop him.
“Eddie, if and when Carly thinks you are ready for a horse show, I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen.”
But I don’t have to like it.