Another Chance (9 page)

Now she was
kissing his neck, pulling herself closer to him.  “All that sounds so
good.  I love you so much.”

He caught her
hands with his and pushed her back forcing her out of his lap.  When she
was kneeling on the floor in front of him his voice sounded like velvet. 
“No you don’t.  All you want is to live right here in this hick town and
hob knob with these red necks that you grew up with.  I had hoped that you
could get beyond that, but I guess I was wrong.”

Tears of panic
welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.  He was disappointed in
her!  He was beginning to regret marrying her.  She struggled to lean
closer to him again.  “I
do
love you.  I want us to travel and
have fun together.”

He held her at
bay.  “I don’t want to travel to get to New York!  I want to
live
there and I just might do that!  With you or without you!”

He had pushed
her back a second time onto the floor and when he finished talking he stood up
and walked across the room toward the stairs.  At the bottom of the
stairwell he turned and looked back at her, his eyes cold and hard. 
“Don’t force me to do that.”

Ruby stayed
knelt there on the floor and sobbed for a long time, but finally she got up and
went to the phone.  It didn’t take long to make arrangements with a real
estate agent, and then she went upstairs to the big room that she and Frankie
shared.

When she
entered, he was standing with his back to the door looking out the
window.  He didn’t acknowledge her arrival and didn’t move as she slipped
her arms around his waist and snuggled up against him.

She could feel
the stiffness in his body as he endured her advances.  Finally she
spoke.  “The real estate woman will be out first thing in the morning to
look the house and when she sees what a great house it is, I know she will sell
it for a fortune.”

Slowly Frankie
turned around and wrapped his arms around her crushing her against him. 
“I’m so sorry for the things I said.  I couldn’t live without you. 
You will love living in New York.  I can’t wait for you to see it. 
It is so beautiful!  The perfect place to showcase your delicate beauty.”

Ruby smiled as
her husband’s voice grew husky and his hands began to caress her body.  He
did love her and if selling this house made him happy, she couldn’t wait for it
to sell.  Frankie was all she needed in this life.  They belonged
together and nothing would stand between them again.

She wanted him
to be happy.  He had suffered so much while they had him in prison. 
It was a wonder he had survived.

When she
verbalized her thoughts softly, he whispered that it was only her entering into
his life that had made survival possible.

Wolf’s sleep
was restless.  He had nightmares that the drug gang he had infiltrated had
found Feather.  He could see her tied in a chair with them standing around
her, leering and threatening.  When he woke up for the second time,
drenched in sweat, he decided there was not much point in staying in bed. 
He dressed quietly and without waking anyone, made his way down to the barn.

He entered the
barn quietly, but every horse felt his presence.  They felt his need to
experience the quiet calmness of their natures.  He walked down to his
gelding’s stall and opened the door.  The red dun stepped out into the
aisle of the barn, waiting for Wolf to give him directions.  Instead, the
man turned an empty bucket up-side down and sat down on it.  The gelding
stood in front of him, head down, almost against Wolf’s chest.  Wolf
extended one hand and stroked the horse’s face.

Slowly the
images of the nightmare grew dim and finally disappeared completely.  Wolf
smiled.  Animals could do that for him.  Fear and worry seemed to
melt when he entered the quiet, simple world of animals.  They didn’t
stress about tomorrow or fret over yesterday.  They lived only in the present
and even if he didn’t know how to always do that, it was a gift they shared
with him when he came to them.  He neither knew nor cared how much time
passed as he shared the calm peace of the barn.  He could hear the horses
shifting quietly in their stalls and the warm pungent smell of the barn filled
his nostrils.  Slowly he felt the tension within his body melting
away.  He felt relaxed and peaceful, but finally the raised edge of the
bottom of the bucket that he was seated on, began to pinch through his snug
jeans into his tender flesh.  Finally he stood up, running his hands along
the gelding’s strong shoulders.  “Thanks, Brother.  As always, you
and your companions have helped me feel better.  Thank you so much.”

Glancing at
his watch he knew it was almost time for Clay to come down to the barn, so he
began morning chores by himself.  He had moved each horse out into their
day run, given them hay and had cleaned half the stalls before Clay arrived.

After a brief
greeting, they finished the chores and returned to the house for the breakfast
that Sue had prepared for them.  When Feather joined them a few minutes
later, he smiled a warm greeting at her.  His sister was his best friend
and her smile was like sunshine to his soul.

Clay gave him
the two phone numbers for Jordan Lanier.  “What time do you plan to
leave?”

Wolf shrugged
his broad shoulders.  “I want to make sure the horses get plenty of
exercise before we load them.”  He looked at Feather.  “Could you
give them a workout?”

She
nodded.  “I’ll ride Music and pony the other two.  About five miles?”

He
nodded.  “Yeah.  That should do it.  We won’t go but about eight
hours today.  We can work them lightly on the lounge line after we stop
for the night.  Maybe they won’t get stove up.”

“Are we camping?” 
Feather loved camping.

Her brother
smiled indulgently.  “I don’t think we need to put up the tepee. 
We’ll just sleep in the camper part of the trailer and eat out.”

She
frowned.  She loved the tepee, but since they were going to be working the
horses before and after trailering, she nodded.  “At least you’ll be
cooking breakfast.”  It sounded hopeful.

He shook his
head negatively.  “Sorry to disappoint ya.  We’ll probably eat out
then too.  After the first day, we’re really goin’ to push to make time. 
I just think we need to use the first day to let the horses get comfortable
about bein’ hauled for such a long stretch.”

“You’re taking
your horses too?”  Sue asked.

Wolf
nodded.  “We might as well.  I called my captain and asked him to
open doors for me in that area.  Maybe I’ll have a job when we get there.”

“But you don’t
even know if you’ll like it there!”  Sue protested.

Wolf
shrugged.  “I doubt that we
will
like it there.  I don’t think
any place could be better than this.  But we can’t stay here.  We
have to go far away, for your sakes as well as ours.”

She started to
object again, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks, but Clay pushed back
his chair and wrapped his arms around her.

“It’s better
this way, Sweetie.  We don’t want them to stay here if they might be in
danger.  We know where they’ll be and we can go visit them.  That’ll
give me a chance to drop in on Mac Howard.  It’s been a long time since
we’ve seen him. ”

She swallowed
the knot in her throat.  “You both know that you’re as close as we’ll ever
come to having children.  If things don’t work out there, you will always
have a home here.”

Feather joined
Clay by putting her arms around both of them.  Finally Wolf pushed back
his chair and wrapped his arms around the three of them in a group hug. 
“It’s a great comfort to know we have friends like the two of you,” Feather
said softly.  “You just can’t imagine how much it means to us for you to
say that.”

Feather had
packed all their clothes the day before while Wolf had the truck serviced, so
while she took the horses out for their exercise, he loaded everything,
including saddles, saddle pads, bridles, feed, feed buckets, collapsible water
buckets, hay nets and hay.  He was just putting in the little plastic tote
that contained all the grooming tools they used when Feather and the horses
came into sight down the dirt road.  While she rode on toward the trailer,
Wolf filled three hay bags with hay and hung one in each compartment in the
three horse slant load goose-neck trailer.  He looked the horses over as
they approached and was glad to see they were not sweaty or blowing hard. 
She had warmed them up, then worked them hard in the first part of the ride,
but had walked them the last mile so they were ready to step up into the trailer.

She dismounted
and began stripping the saddle off her gelding beside the door to the tack
compartment that was at the back end of the trailer next to the loading door.

He walked over
and lifted the saddle off the horse’s smooth back.  “I’ll finish up
here.  You go on up and tell Sue good-bye.  Losin’ you is hard on
her.”

She smiled up
at him.  “Yeah, like it doesn’t bother her that you’re going too.”

“I already
said good-bye.  It’s not somethin’ that I enjoy doin’, so once is
enough.”  He easily lifted her saddle onto the high saddle rack and turned
to the horse with a halter in his hand.  While she walked to the house, he
replaced the bridle her horse wore with a halter and then led the three horses
to the water trough to drink.

He was glad he
had remembered yesterday to fill the massive water tank in the trailer with
water from the ranch.  It wasn’t unusual for horses to drink less when
they were offered water that smelled different from what they were accustomed
to.  This way, he could gradually mix in other water so they wouldn’t
notice the difference so much.
 
He’d also
packed some loose grain salt that he’d sprinkle liberally into the horse feed
as he prepared it at each feeding.
 
The
extra salt would make the horses thirsty and assure that they drank plenty of
water each day.  He certainly didn’t want any colic or dehydration
problems while they traveled.  It meant extra work for Feather and him,
but better safe than sorry.  When they had drunk their fill, he loaded
them one at a time into their compartment of the trailer.

When she
returned a few minutes later with teary eyes, Feather leaned into the truck,
slipping a small ice chest into the seat where it would be between them. 
“Sue sent food so we don’t have to stop to eat for a while,” she explained.

Both Sue and
Clay came out for another round of hugs and hand shaking, then Wolf and Feather
got into the truck and began their long trip to Florida.

Now that
Jordan knew that the filly was on her way home, time seemed to drag by very
slowly.  She tried to stay busy, but all the young horses she was working
had suddenly become geniuses.  She rode them each day but they did such
honest work she seldom found a reason to correct one or drill on any specific
skill.  In fact they did so good, she sent two of them home.  It made
her barn seem almost empty and her chores went a lot faster, but she was glad
she would have some extra time to work with her filly when she finally arrived.

She refused to
let herself worry about the possibility that Lambert might have discovered
where she lived.  She did watch Bhrandii closer, trying to determine if he
sensed anything unusual, but his only concern was being with her.

Trying to help
the time to pass, Jordan cleaned the tack room, her truck, and started on her
house.  She dusted and polished all the living room furniture until it
shined, and then she gave the same treatment to her trophies in the trophy
case.  In the room that had been her parent’s bedroom, she cleaned out and
straightened things in the closet, vacuumed under the bed, washed the drapes
and re-hung them, cleaned the ceiling fan and polished the dresser and the
chest of drawers.  She stripped the linins off the bed and washed them,
although no one had slept on them, and made the bed up again.  While she
was washing those sheets, she stripped her own bed and washed those linings as
well.  When she finished the spare room, her own room received the same
treatment.

The kitchen
didn’t get a lot of use, but she had time on her hands so she attacked it
too.  She cleaned all her cabinets, inside and out, mopped and waxed the
floor, cleaned out the refrigerator, and polished the counter tops.

Each night,
she talked by phone to Feather, who gave her a verbal sketch of how the day had
gone.

They had
started referring to the filly as Pride, and Feather knew this woman was
anxious about how the horse was holding up on the trip.

Jordan knew
that she liked this young Indian woman already.  She was thoughtful,
intelligent and loved horses.  Not only did she love horses, she was a
horsewoman.  That spoke volumes about her to Jordan.

When Feather
told her they were planning to push all the way to Montgomery, Alabama the next
night, Jordan felt butterflies fluttering in her stomach.  That meant they
would get into Lake City during the middle of the day, the day after that.

Jordan
smiled.  She remembered how tired she had always been after driving from
Poplar Bluff to Lake City or back.  If she stopped for the night, it
wasn’t so bad, but if David was with her, they shared the driving and drove
straight through.  It was still a long trip, even if she slept part of the
way.

“I’m
practically begging for things to do until y’all get here, so if it’s okay with
you, I’ve got a small field we can turn your horses loose in to play for a
while.  They can relax while y’all go to the motel and relax.” 
Jordan offered.  She wanted to do something nice for these two young
people who were bringing Pride to her.  “Then when y’all have had a chance
to rest, come back out here and I’ll throw some steaks on the grill.  We
can visit while we watch the horses, and supper cook.”