Chapter 15
Are we riding together?
Birdie sent a text to Wesley, since she hadn’t had the foresight to talk about it before she got out of the car earlier. She was just happy to have survived the children and was really looking forward to a rest. She had no idea how Vera and Dominic did that day in and day out, and the twins were just babies. They had years more work ahead of them. The idea made her want to crawl into a hole.
But she also admired the fact that Vera and Dominic had obviously given up what could have been a life of ease and luxury to take four children and try to give them a good stable homelife. They’d obviously been undisciplined wherever they had grown up originally and possibly even encouraged to run wild. Vera and Dominic certainly had their hands full trying to turn them into productive citizens, and again she had to hand it to them for choosing the difficult path when they could have enjoyed a life of ease and luxury.
Was that what she was doing? Enjoying her life of ease and luxury?
The thought wasn’t a good one, as she considered what she had done with her life. Of course she had donated more money each year than most people saw in a lifetime to various charities, but... What kind of manpower had she put in?
When had she ever lifted a finger to try to make the world a better place by her own sweat, blood, and tears ?
There were so many children in the foster system who could use good parents who cared about them, and yet she had never even considered looking at children who needed to be adopted.
She felt guilty about it and knew it was something that she was going to want to think about and possibly change in her own life. But not today , she thought as her phone buzzed with a text and she looked at it on the sink where it was sitting as she fixed her hair from her nap.
We can. I’ll pick you up?
Sure. Five minutes?
Whenever you want. I’m sitting outside the cottage.
She hated to keep people waiting, so she threw the comb down, figuring it didn’t matter at all what her hair looked like, because they were just horseback riding. It was going to get messed up anyway because there was always a lake breeze.
“He’s outside waiting,” her gram said.
“I know. He just texted me.”
“If he were a gentleman, he’d come in. You don’t expect your date to run out of the house and get in your car.”
“I—”
“I’m here,” Wesley said as she started to respond to her grandma. He gave a perfunctory knock on the door as he pushed it open.
“We’re not going on a date, Gram. He doesn’t have to come in and get me or meet my parents, or anything like that.” Goodness, she was so far beyond that it wasn’t even funny.
Gram ignored her. “That’s a good boy. I was hoping I would see you. Just for that, I ought to send over another apple pie. You be sure to stop in here when you’re bringing her back.”
“It’s going to be after dark, ma’am. But I’ll definitely stop in. I’ll do a lot for apple pie.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she said with a smile.
Birdie wasn’t sure whether Wesley had told her he enjoyed it or Gramps had mentioned it. She seemed to be spending a lot of time with Gramps, who had been doing all of her running around with her .
If Gramps wasn’t careful, Gram would have him signed up for all the things she was. Somebody should warn him.
“Text me if you need me, Gram,” she said as she grabbed her sneakers and hurried out the door, figuring she could stick them on in the car.
“I can wait for you to put your shoes on. I didn’t mean to rush you. Maybe I was hoping to get a slice of pie while I was waiting.”
She almost screeched to a stop as she hit the bottom step. And turned slowly. “Really? I didn’t even think about that. I just thought I didn’t want to hold you up. I hate it when I’m supposed to be somewhere, and I have to sit around and wait on people.”
He lifted a shoulder, casual and relaxed. “It depends on where you’re waiting. In a hospital waiting room, yeah. In somebody’s kitchen who happens to be one of the best apple pie makers in the entire world? It’s not so hard.”
“I like you made that distinction. I’ll have to remember that. When you show up early when we’re doing something together, it’s not because you want to spend extra time with me. It’s because you want to eat my gram’s pie.”
“I thought we agreed earlier that your gram was the male magnet.”
“I guess we did,” she said, sighing like it had been a trial.
“Here. The least I can do is open your door, since you’re carrying your shoes.”
“Why thank you, Jack,” she said, tempted to salute before she got in, but she just smirked at him instead.
They’d spent enough time together that she felt completely at home with him and was actually looking forward to going on the horse ride, even though she was worried that she might fall off.
She was working on getting her shoes on when he got in.
“Are you still nervous?” he asked as he started the car and backed out.
“Mostly about falling off and getting hurt. You know, the older I get, the more concerned I get about that. When I was a kid, it didn’t even occur to me that I should be worried about it.”
“It’s funny the things we don’t think about when we’re kids. I was reminded of pretty much every single thing today while we were watching those four...children.”
He said the word “children” delicately, almost as though he felt like the word didn’t apply. She knew he was just kidding, and she laughed .
“Honestly, what Vera and Dominic are doing is inspiring. Difficult, hard, and I’m not sure I would ever want to do it, but very inspiring. Those kids needed a home. You can just look at them and see how badly they do. And they weren’t easy kids to take.”
“And there are four of them!”
“Exactly. It wasn’t like they were adopting two, which would be reasonable. But four?”
“And then they have twins on top of it!” she said as she lifted her other foot up to put the second shoe on.
“I definitely think they needed the help.”
“Yeah. It actually made me feel really good to do it, even though it was...interesting, at the time.”
She noticed at that point that he was wearing boots, and she looked at the tennis shoes she just put on.
“I don’t own boots.” She grimaced and looked over at him. “You think that’s going to be a problem?”
“Yeah. Thou shall not ride horses unless thou ownest cowboy boots,” he said.
“Oh my goodness. You’re such a cracker head,” she said, rolling her eyes. And then she narrowed them and looked over at him. “You can ride horses without boots on, right?”
“I’m sure people probably have ridden them barefoot. Although, I think it will hurt if you get your foot stepped on.”
“True. So, I’m good? She’s not going to turn me away?”
“I highly doubt it. Not her first customer.”
“True. I would have quite the distinction.” And then she gasped.
“What?” he asked, looking around, trying to figure out the source of her distress.
“What if she wants to take pictures? What if she wants to use us as an advertisement? Oh my goodness. I never even thought about that!” She felt like getting out of the car right there. How was she going to tell Becky that she couldn’t do that?
“Becky hasn’t said anything about that, has she?”
“No, but it’s just common sense. You want to take pictures of happy people at your business so that it makes other people look at them and think ‘Oh, I’ll be happy like those happy people if I go to that business.’”
“You are a marketing exec. I thought you were.” He nodded his head. “What famous marketing execs do I know?”
“Exactly zero,” she said. “Because they’re boring.”
“Ouch. Somebody has a problem with marketing execs.”
“No. I was just kidding, mostly. But I’m not a marketing exec, so you can stop thinking about it.”
“Well, you’re writing all those little jingles in your book, so if they’re not marketing material—”
“Stop thinking about that.” She heard the warning in her tone, but it was laced with humor, so she thought she was okay.
“All right. You’re off the hook for today. But tomorrow, I’m going to start thinking about it again. Because you won’t be sitting beside me telling me to stop. If you sit beside me in church, I might put it off for yet another day.”
“Was that your backhanded way of asking me to sit beside you in church? Because if it was, your technique could use a little bit of improvement.”
“So that’s a no?” He grinned. “That’s good, because I was hoping I could figure out—”
“That wasn’t a no. I was just critiquing you and finding you lacking.”
“Ouch.”
“That’s okay. You can keep practicing on me. I’ll be sure to tell you my honest opinion.”
“Don’t hold back,” he said, giving her an exaggerated cautious glance.
He put his turn signal on to turn down the lane to the farm that Becky was renting.
“I really would like to see Becky succeed, but I’m afraid she’s just not going to have the customers that she’s hoping she’s going to back here.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you. This is a hard place to try to get a business started.”
They didn’t say anything more as they drove slowly down the bumpy dirt road, until the dilapidated house and then the even more dilapidated barn came into view.
Two horses were saddled and tied to the hitching post in front of the barn.
“Wow. Do you think those are our horses?” Birdie breathed as they came to a stop at what they thought constituted the parking area in front of the barn.
“That’s a gorgeous tail. It’s dragging on the ground!”
“And the mane. Look how long it is.” The horse turned so that it was a little bit diagonal toward them, and the wind lifted the ends of the mane which hung almost down to its knees.
“I’ve never seen a horse with a mane that long!”
“And that color. It looks like a steel gray. Such an odd color for a horse, but gorgeous. ”
They sat looking for a moment until Becky appeared in the barn and they realized that they needed to get out and stop staring.
“Remain seated until the ride stops,” Wesley said as he yanked his door open, looking over at her with his eyebrows lifted like he was giving her last-minute instructions.
“Don’t fall off,” she said, keeping her instructions short and simple.
“That’s my goal.”
“Mine too.”
They got out and walked over to Becky, who stood beside the horses.
“I didn’t think you guys would mind if I saddled them up for you.”
“I appreciate it. Looks like you’ve groomed them as well,” Birdie said, running an eye over the second horse which was just as gorgeous as the first.
“What color is that? Some kind of gray?”
“It’s called blue roan. It’s actually a base coat of black, with enough white hairs to make the coat appear blue.”
“Neat,” Wesley said, nodding his head and running his eyes over the horses.
“They’re so pretty. Picture-perfect.”
“Speaking of pictures—”
“Actually,” Wesley interrupted her. “We were hoping that we could ask you to not take pictures. Or if you’re going to take pictures, to...not include our faces.”
“Sure,” Becky said, looking a little puzzled but seeming to shrug it off. “So it’s okay if I take pictures? If I get your faces in them, I’ll either blur them out or not use those pictures. Will that be okay?”
“That’s fine with me,” Birdie said, thinking that no one was going to recognize the shape of her body, which looked like every other woman out there. Thankfully she didn’t have any distinctive tattoos. And she hadn’t worn any kind of jewelry that might be recognizable either. Plus, she was wearing the old jeans and shirts that she bought at the secondhand store, so there was nothing she wore that anyone would recognize.
Wesley seemed to be the same, because he nodded. “That’s a deal.”
“All right.” Becky said. “I won’t post anything without you guys’ approval.”
That was fair, and Birdie hoped that eventually she would be able to post whatever she wanted to. Perhaps their names would bring people to her stable and cause it to be a success .
Birdie didn’t want to be arrogant, but she was a pretty big deal. She was guessing that Wesley was too, whatever sphere he hailed from.
“All right, I have some forms I need you guys to sign,” Becky said, walking back into the barn and motioning for Wesley and Birdie to follow her.
“I got cash out, because I assumed you probably didn’t take cards,” Wesley said as they walked into the barn.
Birdie was happy that he had thought about that and taken care of it, because she hadn’t given it a thought. She almost told him, but Becky was talking about what the form said and then how much they would owe, and all Birdie did was sign on the dotted line, knowing that she was basically saying that if she got hurt, she wouldn’t hold Becky liable. She didn’t need to put a signature on a piece of paper to know that.
It was her choice to ride the horses.
Then, for the next ten minutes or so, Becky talked about how to mount and dismount, which side to use, and how to hold the reins.
“Both of these are mares that were supposed to be used for breeding, but they didn’t work out for some reason. Either they couldn’t be bred, or they couldn’t carry a pregnancy full term.”
“That’s sad. They’re so beautiful,” Birdie murmured.
“Sad for them, but good for me. People enjoy riding pretty horses.”
“I sure do,” Birdie said. It was the way her grandma felt about having a pretty table set, or having flowers on it, or the way some women felt about decorating the house. She just loved to look at beautiful animals.
“So this is Kit, and that’s Kat.”
“That’s cute,” Wesley said, looking over at Birdie, and she didn’t know what he was thinking, but she was thinking about the nicknames that they’d chosen for each other, Jack and Jill.
“I like that they had matching names, since they’ll be pulling as a team in the winter, if I have any business.” Becky had done everything right and seemed to be knowledgeable, but she also seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders, knowing that her business might not make it.
Still, it wasn’t keeping her from putting everything she had into it, which was indicated by the time spent grooming the horses and making sure they looked beautiful for the ride .
“All right, they’re both very calm, and I’ve ridden them both up and down the beach multiple times, so I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with them. I would say make sure Kit goes first or else have them side by side. Kat is more of a follower than a leader, and Kit likes to be in front.”
“How about you ride Kit then,” Birdie said, looking at Wesley, who had admitted that he had some riding experience under his belt.
“All right,” he said, going over to the left side of Kit and sticking a foot in the stirrup.
He hopped into the saddle with a graceful ease that Birdie envied. She knew she wouldn’t be nearly as smooth and might end up on her rear.
It wasn’t as bad as she thought, especially since Kat stood still, not moving at all when Birdie landed a little bit hard in the saddle.
“She really is sweet,” Birdie said, thinking that maybe she would be okay, if her horse was this calm.
“I’d trust a child on her, although no horse is bombproof. Any horse could go crazy at any time, just some horses are more likely than others. Kit and Kat are at the low end of the spectrum. Maybe a zero on a scale of 1 to 10.”
They laughed, nudged their horses the way Becky had instructed, and Kit went first, while Kat fell in behind.