Daring to Dream, Page 3

“Could you build them a lean-to?” Rick suggested from the driveway side of the fence. “They’d probably be happier with some kind of shelter. They’re not used to being in the wild.”

  Claire’s eyes darted around the yard, scanning for building materials.

  Distant thunder clapped the sky. Albert neighed nervously, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Pixie’s anxious eyes fixed on Albert. Taylor recalled a show she’d seen on TV. It was about wild horse herds and how they often got hit by lightning because they were in open pastures. She wondered if, because of this, all horses feared thunderstorms; or maybe they were simply scared of the noise and furious light.

  “I guess we’d better get started right away,” Claire said. “We don’t want the big guy getting so spooked that he leaps the fence and runs down the street.”

  Taylor imagined an awful scene of a terrified Albert in the street among screeching cars. It made her shudder. “I’ll tie their lines to the fence,” she said.

  Albert’s eyes had a wild look in them that worried Taylor. He snorted unhappily. Pixie seemed calmer, but she was still watching Albert, taking her cues from him.

  Taylor placed her hand on Albert’s neck. She could feel his heart pumping hard and realized she must be somewhere near his jugular vein. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” she soothed. “Really. Nothing’s going to hurt you. It’s just a storm.”

  Taylor took Albert’s lead line and led him to the fence. She was confident Pixie would follow, and the pony did. Taylor quickly tied them to the fence using the hitch knots she’d learned at Ralph’s place.

  “I have some planks in the garage,” Claire said. “I’m thinking we can make some kind of three-sided shelter if we attach it to the house I have for the feral cats.”

  Taylor glanced at the feral cat shed. It had two levels and was about seven feet high. It would probably be the right height for Albert if they built the shelter to the height of the shed.

  “Rick, could you help us?” Claire requested.

  “I’d like to help you,” Rick replied. “But I’ve got to get this trailer back to Ralph. He needs it to transport one of the new horses. He said you can keep his tack stuff as long as you need it, though.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Claire told him with a parting wave. She walked over beside Taylor. “We’d better get busy building this thing. It’s just you and me, kiddo, and this storm is coming in fast.”

  * * *

  A raindrop rolled down Taylor’s nose, and she caught it on her tongue. With one hand she steadied a plank she had been nailing to the cat shed. With the other, she searched in her hoodie pocket for nails but didn’t find any more.

  When the rain had started, Claire had quickly herded all her dogs into the house. Those that wouldn’t go in found shelter on her porch, which was open but covered with an awning. Now Claire was in the garage searching for supplies.

  “I need more nails,” Taylor shouted through the driving rain as Claire came out of her garage with a very large blue tarp. Taylor realized the tarp was the winter cover to Claire’s aboveground pool.

  “Hold on! I’ll bring them to you,” Claire called, turning back inside the garage.

  While she waited, Taylor checked to see how Albert and Pixie were faring in the downpour that had come upon them so quickly. Albert was clearly on high alert. His ears swiveled in every direction as he studied his new surroundings. Pixie stayed close to Albert’s flank, her head down.

  When lightning flashed in the sky, though, Albert’s ears flattened, and he neighed shrilly. Pixie dug her sturdy rear legs into the dirt, almost as if preparing to kick any approaching lightning back up into the clouds.

  Claire emerged from the garage with a coffee can of nails. She and Taylor finished securing the planks to the shed and then threw the tarp on top.

  Taylor was nailing down her side of the tarp when she heard a car engine coming up the driveway, windshield wipers slapping. Climbing up two steps on her freestanding ladder, she peered over the top and saw her mother getting out of their car.

  Taylor’s mother, Jennifer Henry, was dressed for the rain in a yellow hooded slicker and high blue rubber boots. From under her hood, a few of her blonde curls blew in the wind as she pulled the gate open and stepped into the yard.

  Taylor had texted her mother, saying she was on a rescue with Claire, but that was all she’d said about it. It didn’t take Taylor’s mother long to figure out the rest, though.

  Taylor’s mother saw Pixie and Albert standing in the rain and jumped back, startled. “You rescued them?” Jennifer cried, looking at Taylor and Claire, wide-eyed with surprise. “You can’t keep a horse and pony in your yard, can you? Why are they here?”

  “Tell you later,” Claire shouted to her over the rain and wind. “There are some old white towels in the garage. Would you bring them out here? Try to keep them dry.”

  Taylor’s mom ran into the garage and came out with a stack of towels with a black garbage bag draped on top. She ducked below the tarp stretched above the two sets of planks. “Is this your pool cover?” she asked.

  “Yep,” Claire replied with a laugh. “Just put the towels on top of the garbage bag in a corner for now.”

  “You can’t keep a horse and pony here,” Jennifer repeated. Then a blast of laughter came from her lips. “Why am I even bothering to tell you that, Claire? I should know by now that you do things your own way.”

  “Exactly,” Claire said with a smile. “So pick up a hammer and help us finish this. Then I’ll make you a cup of tea and tell you all about it when we’re done.”

  * * *

  Claire and her mother had gone inside, but Taylor stayed with the horse and pony. Standing in the newly constructed lean-to shelter with Albert and Pixie, she looked down at the once-white towel in her hands. “Wow! Were you ever dirty!” Taylor told Albert. She’d been toweling him dry for close to fifteen minutes and had already saturated three towels with mud. His time in the rain had already washed a great deal of the dirt from him.

  All Taylor really wanted to do was get the two of them dry so they wouldn’t catch a chill. She’d worry about cleaning them once the weather was nicer. At least the rain had helped.

  Outside the shelter, the rain had subsided into a drizzle. A fold in the tarp created a downspout that sent a rivulet of water pouring steadily in the right corner of the makeshift shelter. Albert and Pixie positioned themselves near it and delighted in drinking from the puddle it created in the grass.

  Taylor picked up a fourth towel and swept along Albert’s right flank. His ribs protruded from his side, and she quivered slightly as a blast of white-hot anger shot through her. How coldhearted could a person be to neglect these sweet animals like this? It was inexcusable! Infuriating!

  And then a sad tenderness swept away the rage and almost overwhelmed her. “You don’t have to worry anymore,” Taylor told them softly, blinking wetness from her lashes. “We’ve got you now. It’s all going to be good from here on out.”

  Taylor heard the gate creak open, and in the next moment Travis stepped into the doorway of the shelter. “I don’t believe it!” he cried as he stepped inside. “Is this cool or what?!”

  She had texted him to come as fast as he could to Claire’s house, saying only that she had something amazing to show him. He’d replied: RLLY? IN MDDLE OF AWSM NEW BTMAN.

  Annoyed, Taylor hadn’t even bothered to respond. She wished she could share Travis’s intense love of comics but she just didn’t see the point, at least not to the degree of obsession Travis brought to it. Sometimes it seemed as though he loved his comics and superheroes more than anything else in the world.

  But there Travis was.

  All Taylor’s anger and sadness evaporated at the sight of her friend, and a wide grin spread across her face. “I know! I know! Aren’t they great?”

  Albert neighed loudly at Travis.

  Travis jumped back so suddenly that he fell on his butt in the wet grass.

  Taylor didn’t mean to
laugh, but it was too funny, and she could see he wasn’t hurt. “Oh, sorry. I forgot to tell you — they don’t like men.”

  Travis stood and brushed wet grass from the back of his jeans. “Oh, thanks for telling me now. I should be glad he didn’t bite me.”

  “Relax, you’re all right,” she said.

  “Did you get these in a rescue?” he asked from outside the shelter.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are they yours to keep?”

  How she longed to say yes! “No. I guess Claire will find them a home.”

  “You should keep them,” Travis insisted. “He’s a black horse just like you’ve always wanted. Is he an Arabian?”

  Taylor shook her head. “Quarter horse.”

  “Close enough,” Travis said, unconcerned. “Ask your mother if you can keep him, at least.”

  “I couldn’t separate them. This pony loves Albert like crazy. She follows him everywhere.”

  “Then take them both.”

  “I couldn’t. Where would I put them?” Taylor questioned.

  “In your yard,” Travis said, as if the answer should have been obvious.

  Taylor shook her head again. “It’s not nearly big enough.”

  Travis spread his arms and gestured widely. “Neither is this yard, but here they are.”

  “This is only temporary until Claire finds a better place for them.”

  “Imagine if you got a horse before Plum Mason did! That would make her really crazy!” Travis said with a mischievous grin.

  “I thought you didn’t care about stuff like that,” Taylor commented.

  “I don’t. I’m just saying. I’d love to see her face.”

  “It might be funny to see Plum get all mad, but that isn’t why I’d want to keep them.” Taylor cast a longing glance at Albert and Pixie. “They’re just so sweet and beautiful. And they’ve been treated so badly. I’d take great care of them.”

  Albert stuck his head under some rainwater falling from the top of the tarp. Sputtering, he shook his forelock and mane, spraying them all.

  Taylor jumped away, laughing. “Like I’m not already wet enough, Albert!” she joked, flinging the water from her hands at him.

  Albert sputtered, nodded his head, and licked his lips. Taylor was sure he was playing along. Pixie neighed cheerfully.

  Oh, if she only could keep them! Taylor felt the desire to own them as an ache deep inside.

  Was it really impossible?

  Of course it was!

  But it would be so wonderful!

  What would it hurt to at least ask?

  * * *

  Taylor and her mother had just finished supper and were still sitting at the table in their kitchen. After leaving Claire’s place, they’d returned home, showered, and pulled on sweats. Jennifer had thrown last night’s leftover chicken into some cream of mushroom soup and served it over rice. It felt cozy to be dry and warm and fed. “Any dessert?” Taylor asked.

  “I had extra brownies left today,” Jennifer replied.

  Taylor’s face lit with pleasure. “Awesome!”

  Jennifer got up to get them out of a large canvas tote in a corner of the kitchen. “It would have been more awesome if I had sold them all,” she remarked.

  Ever since Taylor’s mother and father split up a few months ago, money had become much tighter. Her father, Steve, had moved across town, and he didn’t come visit her regularly. Taylor had the feeling that maybe he didn’t pay his child support all that regularly, either, although her mother never complained about it directly. What she said was, “I have to be more careful with money these days. You understand, don’t you?”

  To make extra money besides what she earned as a waitress at the Pheasant Valley Diner, she’d begun making desserts and selling them to the local delis, supermarkets, and restaurants. People began asking Jennifer to supply food for their private parties and local events. Now Taylor’s mother was working long hours to get her small catering business, Jennifer’s Cooking, going while still keeping her waitress job.

  “I booked another job today,” she reported as she handed Taylor a brownie square. “The Pheasant Valley PTA luncheon.”

  “All right, Mom!” Taylor cheered. “Don’t make the food too good, though. Some of those teachers don’t deserve it.”

  “Like who?” Jennifer asked, sitting at the table and nibbling on her brownie.

  “Remember Mrs. Kirchner from when I was in the third grade? She was evil.”

  Jennifer laughed. “She was not! What was evil about her?”

  “Everything! She had the meanest expression. All us kids would shake when she came into the room.”

  Jennifer chuckled. “You exaggerate!”

  “No, I mean it. She was awful.”

  “Isn’t she Claire’s neighbor?”

  Taylor nodded. “I dive into the bushes to hide when I see her over there.”

  “You do not!” Jennifer said with a grin of amusement.

  “Maybe not the bushes,” Taylor allowed, “but I definitely hide.”

  “Mrs. Kirchner has taught at the elementary school since I was there,” Jennifer recalled. “Come to think of it, Claire and I used to hide from her, too.”

  “Told you!”

  Jennifer got up and began clearing the supper plates, stacking them in the dishwasher. Taylor helped. “Mom, is there any way I could work with you in the catering business?”

  “I don’t know,” her mother replied. “It’s nice of you to offer, though.”

  “Well, not really as nice as you think. I’m looking for a way to earn extra money.”

  “Oh, I see,” Jennifer said as she rinsed a pot. “You’d want to be paid.”

  “Not a lot,” Taylor clarified quickly. She could see that she’d disappointed her mother, who’d assumed she was simply offering to lend a hand. Taylor was certainly willing to help out. It was just that this plan might benefit both of them.

  “And what do you need this extra money for?” Jennifer asked.

  Taylor’s throat suddenly felt dry. She swallowed hard. “Well, I was thinking … It wasn’t really my idea, but Travis suggested it and it makes sense, in a way. I know you won’t like the idea at first, but just think about it before you answer.”

  “What?” Jennifer asked, her voice rising slightly with impatience.

  “Promise you’ll think about it before you say no?”

  “Just say it!”

  Taylor coughed to clear her throat. Then she began talking even more rapidly, afraid that if she didn’t race through her speech, she’d lose her nerve. “Here’s the thing. Albert and Pixie are really, really great. And they love each other so much. I don’t think Pixie could even live without Albert. A chance like this to get a horse and pony for free will probably never, ever come again. So … you see?”

  Jennifer stared blankly at Taylor. “I’m afraid I don’t see,” she admitted after a moment. “Who’s getting them for free?”

  Taylor steeled her nerves, but her reply came out in croak. “Me?”

  “What?” her mother asked again, her voice thick with incredulous disbelief.

  This was Taylor’s moment to be persuasive. It was now or never and she knew it. “I could build a split-rail fence, like Claire has, in the back. And then I could work with you after school and you would pay me so I could buy them oats and hay and —”

  “Wait a minute!” Jennifer cut her off. “You want to keep those two animals in our backyard?”

  “I know it’s not really big enough, but it’s got room for them to walk around, and then when I’ve earned enough money —”

  “No! Absolutely not! What are you thinking, Taylor? Have you lost it completely?” Jennifer shook her head and sighed heavily. “How can you even ask that?”

  Not knowing what else to do, Taylor resorted to an old childhood standby. “Pleeaaassse,” she begged. “I love them.”

  “You just met them this afternoon.”

  “But it was love at first si
ght! Albert’s almost exactly like the horse I’ve been dreaming about all my life, so it’s as if I’ve known him forever. And Pixie goes where Albert goes, so I have to have them both.”

  Jennifer sat down again at the table. Taylor didn’t like the weary expression on her face. “Taylor, I’m working day and night just to pay the bills. We can’t take on a horse, let alone a horse and a pony. It’s out of the question.”

  Taylor knew her mother was right. What she was asking was unreasonable and even insensitive. Her mother worked so hard. Taylor couldn’t help being disappointed, though, deeply disappointed.

  And then another emotion rose within her and overtook the disappointment. The feeling took her by surprise, but she felt no desire to control it.

  Taylor was seized by a strong, deep anger.

  “Can’t you think about what I want?” she demanded, standing.

  “Taylor!”

  “I mean it! I’m always saying I understand why I can’t have stuff. And I do understand. But I want Albert and Pixie more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life!” she shouted.

  With hot tears of fury brimming in her eyes, Taylor stormed out the kitchen door, letting it slam behind her.

  She got as far as the garage before she stopped and let the tears spill freely, once again feeling the full weight of her disappointment.

  On Saturday, Taylor was up by seven. She shoveled down a bowl of Cheerios, got on her bike, and headed for Claire’s. It had rained off and on through the night, but the morning sky was a clear blue. The leaves and puddles in the road glistened with leftover wetness. It wasn’t really cold, though the first invigorating snap of fall weather was unmistakable.

  Taylor lived in the bowl of the valley, while Claire’s house was on the rim. That made for tough, uphill pedaling along winding Mohegan Lake Road, named for the Native Americans who had once lived in Pheasant Valley.

  When she arrived at Claire’s, the rescued dogs were asleep under the awning on the side deck. One of them noticed her and got up. He began barking, and she shushed him as she let herself in through the gate.

  Before she’d left on Friday, she had covered Pixie and Albert each with a blanket. Now they stood contentedly side by side eating hay. Taylor smiled as Albert lifted his head to bring his muzzle to Pixie’s. The two friends nuzzled each other a moment before returning to the pile of hay they’d been munching.