Lauraine Snelling (16 page)

Maggie met the gaze of the man who spoke. He stood behind the wheelchair and nodded briefly at her. He wasn’t handsome, but he wore an air of confidence like a fine cashmere sweater. Kind might be a good word for him. But somehow she figured he wasn’t the horseman his son was. And, by the way he averted his eyes from hers, he probably wasn’t a fan of inmates mixing with the general public.

Eddie held out a hand and let Breaking Free sniff it.

“I’m Gil, Eddie’s father. Do you suppose he knows the difference between male and female children?” the man asked hesitantly.

“Oh, he’s not afraid of men anymore, and as long as all men treat him with gentleness, he should be fine.”

“But if something happened, he might revert back to . . . his violent behavior.”

Cautious, a cautious man who obviously loved his son. Probably treated his wife with the same cautious protection. A yearning lightly landed on her heart as she answered him. “I cannot promise that he wouldn’t. Horses have to learn to trust their rider, like the rider must learn to trust the horse.” She stroked Breaking Free with one hand while holding him with the other. “Come Breaking Free, give the boy a chance to pet you.” The horse took the needed three steps forward and put his head down to the boy’s hand.

Eddie stroked the red face, his own face one huge smile. “He is really a special horse, isn’t he?”

“I think so, but I might be a bit prejudiced.”

“How well is he trained for general riding?” Gil Winters kept one eye on the horse.

“He still needs a lot of work. We are rather restricted here on what we can do.”

“I wish I had brought him and the others treats. I just didn’t think of it.” Eddie dug in the bag of dog treats by his hip. “You think he might like a dog biscuit?”

“Try him.”

Eddie laid one on the palm of his hand and held it out. Breaking Free sniffed it and rolled his upper lip back. “I don’t think he likes it.” Eddie giggled and went back to petting the horse.

A woman standing behind Gil cleared her throat.

“Pardon us for monopolizing your time. There are others . . .” He turned to the woman behind him. “C’mon, Eddie.”

“Thank you, Ms. Roberts. I hope I see you again,” Eddie said.

Maggie kept her tears inside. Charlie would have been his age. She’d not seen any children for so long that she watched him like a starving woman as the two left, one walking, one wheeling, but talking together. Eddie looked back over his shoulder and waved.

She answered more questions, but couldn’t remember about what. The loss of Charlie’s photo returned to rob her of the joy of Breaking Free’s debut. After walking Breaking Free back to his stall, she unsaddled him, taking care to put Mr. James’ tack on the rack she’d built on the exterior stall wall. Letting her horse loose in the stall, she took out the brushes and gave him a good brush down.
The picture, why my picture
? Who knew about it? Had someone been watching Maggie in her cell, putting her hand under the mattress so many times? Who wanted to hurt Maggie most? Who? DC probably didn’t even know what was there, she just wanted to destroy it because it was important to Maggie. It had to be DC.

Someone had already refilled Breaking Free’s water bucket but when he drained half, she took the bucket for more water and brought back a small can of sweet feed.

“That was wonderful.” JJ parked the wheelbarrow where it belonged. “I heard Mr. James say the open house was a resounding success. Eddie, the boy in the wheelchair, and his father signed up to sponsor Ghost. Guy has bucks. They paid a whole year in advance.”

“That’s great,” Maggie replied tonelessly. She suddenly felt like she was a balloon and all the air had just escaped, leaving her zipping all over and then collapsing on the ground. She shut the lower stall door and gave Breaking Free one last pat as he sighed like he was worn out too. Now it was time to line up again, say good-bye to fresh air, and be counted.

Back on the bus to return to the prison, Maggie envisioned ways to get even with DC, even though she knew she would do nothing, could do nothing. DC kicked the seat a couple of times until Kool Kat slowly turned and glared at her. Maggie figured DC was letting her know she knew Maggie knew it was she who destroyed the photograph.

Mr. James stood in the door well and hanging on to the pole, smiled at each of them. “I am really proud of all that you have done. The work you are doing is going to make a difference in someone else’s life down the road as these horses go out and join the world. Congratulations.” He glanced at his clipboard. “Now, onward. Three horses will be shipped off to the trainers this week, and four new ones will be coming in.”

As she rested her head against the window, Maggie felt waves of weariness wash over her. Now more than ever, she wanted out, and she wanted to work with horses when she got out. She carefully tucked away the thought of losing Breaking Free like the other women lost their three horses. The pain from the loss of her picture was more than she could handle already.

“I want Breaking Free, Dad.” Eddie lay back in his bed, his hands behind his head.

Gil could feel his son’s gaze boring into his back. He stood looking out the window, admiring the lights in the swimming pool. “He was beautiful, wasn’t he? But huge, Eddie.”

“He’s not huge for a Thoroughbred, only a bit over sixteen hands.” A pause stretched. “He liked me.”

“Eddie.”

“But Dad, he did.”

“I hoped that sponsoring Ghost would be enough, and Carly is looking for the perfect horse for you.”

“We found the perfect horse.” His son sounded so sure.

Gil kissed Eddie’s forehead, patted Bonnie’s head. “Good night, dog.” As he left the room, Eddie called him back. “What?”

“I just thought you should know that I am praying for Breaking Free.” There was the tiniest pause, then the young voice spoke from the darkened room. “Like I prayed for our new house.”

After checking on Maria in the kitchen, Gil suggested she leave her fussing and go watch TV for a while. Anything other than working around the clock.

She laughed. “You want iced tea?”

“Thanks, I’ll get it.” Taking the pitcher out of the refrigerator, he poured himself a glass and held up the pitcher. “You want some?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Maria, I know how to pour iced tea.” He handed her a full glass.

“Eddie say he found his horse.”

Gil groaned and leaned back against the counter, crossing his legs at the ankles. “The horse is huge, not well enough trained, and yet watching Eddie and that horse was like watching telepathy. I’ve never seen anything like it. Remember when he met Bonnie? They stared into each other’s eyes, and the link was there. I don’t get it.”

“Gift from God?”

He shrugged and drained his glass, setting it in the sink. “I don’t know, but I’m going to be working in my office for a while. By the way, have there been any unusual phone calls?”

“No.” She paused. “Wait, someone call two, three times, only hang up.”

It could have been anybody. “Thanks, good night.”

“Buenas noches.”

Gil wandered into his office, sat down at his desk, and pulled out a stack of cards to write thank you notes. That Eddie and that horse had connected was not in dispute. He’d seen it himself. He scribbled another card. He’d decided early on in his business that thank you notes to anyone who had helped make his trip more comfortable or more successful were mandatory. Usually he did them on the plane, but he’d only gotten about half of them done. With the stack ready to mail, he switched to updating his calendar on Outlook and syncing his PDA. Perhaps it was time to get one of the all-in-one jobs. Be one less thing to carry along.

Eddie and a huge red horse that used to hate men. Why was nothing easy with Eddie but loving him?

When the phone rang, he picked it up. “Gil Winters here.” A silence made him add, “Hello?”

“Well, I finally reached you.” Soft and sultry. The sound made the hairs on his neck stand at attention.

“Talk to my lawyer.” He rattled off the number.

“Gil, please, just a minute. Is . . . is Eddie still alive?”

That she would think her son could be dead spoke volumes about what she didn’t know about him. “Oh, please. As if you cared.”

“You haven’t given me any chance to care. He’s my son too.”

“Only in the biological sense. You signed away all rights to him, remember? And if you try to get to him, I’ll have an injunction in place so fast you won’t know what happened.”

“Gil, it’s been ten years. I was young and stupid then. I’ve changed, grown up.”

He closed his eyes and clamped his jaw.
Hang up, call Ben. Let the attorneys duke this out
. “You realize that if you try to contact him without my permission, you will lose your monthly allotment?”

“I hoped you would take pity on me and let me see him.”

That would be a cold day in a hot spot. “You gave up all chances—both for pity and to see him. Don’t call again. Good-bye.” He set the phone back in the charger. “Blast.” He’d not gotten her phone number. He picked up his phone to redial the number, but all he got was the dial tone.

He’d not handled this properly, he knew it, but then when had he ever handled things with Sandra properly?

SEVENTEEN

C
an we make recommendations to whom our horses go?” Maggie asked.

Mr. James gave her one of his assessing looks. “What do you mean?”

“The boy in the wheelchair? He connected with Freebee like I’ve never seen. It was like they’d known each other for a long time. They belong together.”

Mr. James shook his head. “If only life were that simple.”

“You think he could manage that much horse?”

“If they’re both trained right.”

“He said they have a retired Thoroughbred at the place he rides.”

“Some horses have an affinity for serving the handicapped, some don’t. Kind of like people.” He looked directly into Maggie’s eyes.

“Hey, Maggie!”

She waved at DC and turned back to Mr. James. “If you talk with Annie about asking our opinion . . . well, you know. Anyway, I better go see what she wants.” The thought of letting Breaking Free go warred with her trepidation about DC.

“Is there a problem between you and DC?” He nodded to where the other woman had been standing, but she had faded away.

“Ah . . .” Think fast. “Why?”

“Just a hunch. We’ll talk later.”

Maggie headed back to the barn, Freebee whinnying after her. A sense of foreboding ate at her mind, growing stronger when DC was nowhere to be found. Why did she call to her like that and where did she go?

After helping a new recruit catch her horse, she watched Kool Kat give another woman a lesson on grooming and picking feet. Such a gift Mr. James had with his “each one teach one” principles which were changing lives, including her own. As more horses moved to the freedom of pastures, he had upped the responsibility for the experienced inmates, assigning each a paddock, making it her job to check the horses in her paddock every day for health issues, see that no one was getting slighted in the feedings and no horse was being abused by another. Herd mentality meant that everyone had to get along after they settled the pecking order.

Maggie figured that people weren’t much different.

When they returned to the prison for noon count and lunch, there was a message on her door to contact Mrs. Donelli. Glancing at the clock, she hoped she could at least set an appointment time if she hustled. Had she done something wrong? Not that she could think of. Could it be about her parole?
Less than two months to go
. Where she was going to go and what she was going to do hung heavy on her mind. But she knew the first thing was to meet with her lawyer and see how much money she had from the divorce settlement. Lawana Carlson said the settlement divided everything right down the middle. Not that they’d been wealthy, but the house had been worth something. The house she had so lovingly turned into a warm and comfortable home.
Don’t think about that
!

All the things she’d refused to think about for all these years were now crowding in, demanding she pay attention. She knew there were some boxes of her personal belongings waiting for her at Lawana’s office. Since she’d never answered any of her friends’ letters, she wasn’t sure if she had any friends any more. Perhaps it would be better not to go back at all, just start over somewhere new.

But one thing she had to do. And that door she slammed closed with all her might.

She set up the meeting with Mrs. Donelli for the next afternoon and returned to stand in the lunch line. If only there was a way to get back at DC. She remembered Mrs. Worth’s talks on forgiveness. Well maybe not revenge but keep her from any more harassing—not only of Maggie but of the others who suffered too.

Images of the wheelchair-bound boy and Breaking Free slipped into her mind whenever she had a free moment. What special training would the horse need? Could she begin with it immediately? But what if they gave Freebee to someone else? She’d seen both interest and desire on more faces than just Eddie’s.

“Carly said she hasn’t found a horse yet.” Eddie locked his wheelchair in place and laid his helmet in the box kept for his gear. He smiled at his dad in the rearview mirror. “So I asked her if she would go to Los Lomas and see Breaking Free.”

Gil felt like banging his head on the steering wheel. Eddie would easily be voted President of the Persistence League. “And what did she say?”

“That she wants to look at another horse up there at the same time. For a schooling horse.”

“When is she going?”

“Tomorrow. She knows the people who run the TRF.”

“Thanks, I knew that.” What he hadn’t told Eddie was that he had talked with them too. They’d had four applicants for Breaking Free, but hadn’t completed the adoption process for any of them.

“It wouldn’t hurt to fill out one of those forms, would it? I mean, we wouldn’t be committed or anything.”

Gil watched his son try to be diplomatic, but his whole body sizzled with desire.

“Carly said she would train him.”