Stealing the Prize Read online

  It took a moment to slow her speeding thoughts. First she would have to get Prince Albert so he wouldn’t trample Eric.

  Arms stretched out at either side in order to make herself appear bigger, she called out to Prince Albert, “Whoa, boy! Stop!” She moved toward her horse’s path, bringing Jojo with her.

  As Taylor had hoped, Prince Albert broke down to a quick trot, though his nostrils still flared and his eyes were wide. As soon as he was close enough, she snatched his reins, yanking his head down to hers. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded, her voice filled with worry. She quickly untied the offending saddle, tossing it on the ground behind her.

  Once she was sure Prince Albert had settled, Taylor hurried to Eric, one horse in each hand. Tears began to brim in her eyes as she almost tripped over herself, trying to reach him. Why wasn’t he moving?

  She knelt down next to him and tapped his shoulder. “Eric! Eric, wake up!” She had learned in health class to not shake the person if there was a suspected neck or back injury.

  Eric lay on his side, his left shoulder twisted at a painful-looking angle. He had bloody scrapes down the side of his face where he had landed in the dirt. Letting go of the horses’ reins, she knelt to hear if he was breathing.

  Well, she thought he was … she wasn’t absolutely sure. She put her hand on Eric’s neck to find a pulse. She thought she felt movement against her palm.

  Stay calm, Taylor commanded herself as she let go of Prince Albert’s reins and reached into her front pocket to fish out her cell phone. Call 911!

  Her finger was on the nine when Eric groaned and stirred. Eyelashes fluttering, he blinked a few times, trying to regain focus.

  Taylor’s trembling hands returned her phone to her pocket and clutched Prince Albert’s reins, as well as Jojo’s, once again. “Eric! Can you hear me? Are you all right?” she asked urgently, trying to steady her wavering voice. “You were passed out for almost a minute.”

  Eric moaned once more and seemed to be suddenly hit with a wave of pain. He sat up, a grimace on his face, and grabbed at his shoulder. Wincing, he looked at Taylor. “Is Prince Albert okay?” he asked, and coughed a few times, dirt falling off him.

  Taylor bit back tears once again, touched that after being knocked unconscious his first worries were about her horse and not himself. “Yeah, he’s fine,” she squeaked, reaching out and brushing dirt off of his clothing. “But are you? You had a pretty bad fall.”

  “I think I’m okay. What happened?” he asked, rubbing his neck with the hand of his uninjured arm. “I was staying on fine until the saddle slipped, which spooked him, I guess. Did you remember to tighten the cinch when we got in the ring?”

  “Yeah, of course I …” Her voice trailed off as a whole host of new emotions washed over her.

  She hadn’t tightened the cinch.

  She had forgotten when she ran to get the helmets. “Oh, Eric, I’m so sorry!” she wailed, her face crumpling. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his dirty shirt. “I’m just so glad you’re okay,” she sobbed.

  Eric flinched. “Watch the shoulder!” Then he softened. “It’s okay. Mistakes happen. We’re all fine.”

  Taylor nodded quietly and stood, holding her hand out to Eric to help him up. He grabbed it and hoisted himself up, wincing in pain. Taking hold of Jojo’s reins, he began to hobble forward. Taylor stood for a moment, trying to regain her composure, while Eric headed back to the barn.

  Just then, Beverly Mason sped up the drive at an alarming speed. Great. What timing. Taylor scowled to herself as the black SUV came to a skidding stop in front of the barn. A plume of dust washed over the limping Eric and Jojo.

  Taylor watched as Plum stepped out of the car, velvet hunt cap under one arm, riding crop in the other. Her polished black tall boots contrasted starkly with Eric’s dirtied appearance. “What happened to you?” Plum asked her cousin, blonde eyebrows raised in surprise.

  Eric stopped and looked at her for a moment, seeming to consider his answer. He glanced back at Taylor, who still stood in the ring. He turned back to Plum. “Uh … I fell off of Jojo. He spooked at something, and I guess I just wasn’t sitting right.” He walked into the barn without any further explanation.

  Plum laughed and followed after him, poking him in the back with her riding crop. “You would fall off. You’re such a klutz sometimes.” Their voices faded into the barn as Taylor began to trudge toward them, wiping the tears from her eyes. She looked back at Prince Albert sadly. She was beginning to think this would never work.

  Prince Albert might always be a one-girl horse, and that would never do. But even if she had to give him up, where would he go? If no one else could ride him, no one else would want him. And Eric certainly wouldn’t want to try again, what with her forgetting to tighten the cinch added to the fact that Prince Albert now seemed to think he was a bronco.

  What was she going to do?

  Mrs. LeFleur came hurrying out of the main building wearing an alarmed expression. “I just saw Eric pass by and he looks terrible. Did he fall from —”

  She stopped short and took in Taylor’s disheveled appearance. “You don’t look so good, either,” Mrs. LeFleur noted fretfully. “And … have you been crying? What happened out here?”

  Taylor couldn’t think fast enough to come up with something, and besides, she didn’t like the idea of lying to Mrs. LeFleur. The entire story came spilling from her lips as she watched Mrs. LeFleur’s anxious expression become increasingly alarmed. “How long was he completely unconscious?”

  Closing her eyes, Taylor tried to calculate the time. She’d had to get hold of Prince Albert and settle him down, and then she’d crossed the ring and gotten her phone out. “A minute,” she estimated uncertainly.

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. LeFleur said with a gasp. “We have to get him to a doctor, make sure he’s all right.” Mrs. LeFleur hurried to Beverly Mason’s SUV and rapped on the driver’s side window.

  The tinted glass window slid down, and Plum’s mother gazed coolly at Mrs. LeFleur. “You have to get your nephew to a doctor,” Mrs. LeFleur urged. “He’s had a fall and been knocked unconscious. We can’t take any chances.”

  “Oh, he seems fine to me,” Beverly Mason said.

  “You must take him right now!” Mrs. LeFleur insisted.

  “I don’t think so,” Beverly Mason disagreed in a level, disdainful tone.

  Taylor didn’t know which of them was right. Eric did seem okay, yet she’d be inclined to trust Mrs. LeFleur’s judgment over that of Plum’s mother any day of the week. Mrs. LeFleur’s panic seemed out of character, though.

  “I insist he be taken to a doctor or to the emergency room,” Mrs. LeFleur shouted. Taylor thought Mrs. LeFleur might even burst into tears. “If I have to, I will take him myself.”

  “Oh, fine, if you must,” Mrs. Mason relented angrily. “Take him! Take him! This is ridiculous.”

  Mrs. LeFleur put her arm around Eric’s shoulders and guided him toward her car. “I wonder if I should call an ambulance,” she mused.

  “No, please,” Eric said. “I don’t need an ambulance.”

  “Maybe not,” Mrs. LeFleur allowed, “but I’m taking you to the hospital to be checked. Taylor, can you watch things until I return?”

  “I’m coming,” Taylor insisted, hurrying to Mrs. LeFleur’s car.

  Mrs. LeFleur looked at the horses in the corral. “All right,” she said to Taylor. “The horses will be all right until we come back. Let’s go.”

  Even though she thought Mrs. LeFleur was overreacting, Taylor trusted the woman completely and would never doubt her judgment.

  Still … there was something odd about the way Mrs. LeFleur was acting.

  An hour later, Taylor sat beside Mrs. LeFleur on the orange plastic chairs in the waiting room attached to the emergency room of the Pheasant Valley Hospital.

  “Good thing Eric’s father was home,” she commented to Mrs. LeFleur. Mr. Mason had rushe
d to the hospital when Mrs. LeFleur called him and was now inside with his son while a doctor checked Eric over.

  The sound of Taylor’s voice made Mrs. LeFleur startle, as though her thoughts had taken her someplace very far away and she had been abruptly called back.

  “What? Oh … yes … it was. I think a parent or relative has to check a minor into a hospital if prior permission hasn’t been given. So we couldn’t have done it without him.”

  “Eric seemed all right, though.”

  Behind her thick glasses, Mrs. LeFleur’s eyes closed, and she sighed deeply. “You can never be too careful.”

  Even though Eric’s dad told Mrs. LeFleur and Taylor that they didn’t have to wait, Mrs. LeFleur had insisted that she wouldn’t leave until she heard about Eric’s condition.

  Taylor wondered why Mrs. LeFleur was so upset. Even Eric said he felt fine. Taylor felt so confident that he wasn’t seriously injured — especially after Mr. Mason told them the doctor was almost positive Eric was okay — that she’d called her father to come pick her up to take her home. Taylor didn’t quite understand why Mrs. LeFleur was insisting on staying.

  “How are things going these days … for Wildwood, I mean?” Taylor asked after a few more minutes of silent waiting. She was searching for some conversational subject to pass the time, and the ranch’s finances were a natural topic. They’d been tight from the start because the costs of refurbishing the long-abandoned ranch had been high. Mrs. LeFleur constantly worried about money, but Taylor hadn’t heard her mention anything about it for a couple of weeks.

  Taylor was hoping things were better now that they had the County HORSE contract. It also seemed like a good time to remind Mrs. LeFleur that they had the contract due to Prince Albert’s excellent performance at the Rotary Show.

  “We need more business,” Mrs. LeFleur replied absently. She turned toward Taylor. “Do you think I’m overreacting to this?”

  Taylor suddenly felt put on the spot. “Maybe a little … I don’t know.”

  Just then a tall man with dark blond hair came through the automatic glass doors. He had obviously come straight from work since he still wore the coveralls of an auto mechanic. “Mrs. LeFleur!” Steve Henry cried fondly when he spotted her. “Good to see you!”

  Mrs. LeFleur rose to give him a hug. “Little Stevie Henry!”

  Taylor had heard Mrs. LeFleur call her father that before, and she always thought it was funny, especially since her father was well over six feet tall. Although Mrs. LeFleur remembered Taylor’s father, this was the first time they were actually seeing each other in many years.

  “It’s been so long, but you look the same,” Mrs. LeFleur said.

  “So do you,” Steve Henry replied.

  “Nice of you to say so, even if it is a complete lie,” Mrs. LeFleur said with a smile.

  Taylor’s father used to ride at Wildwood Stables back when Mrs. LeFleur’s uncle ran the place. Her uncle was Devon Ross’s father, and the two cousins had been brought up almost as sisters, since Mrs. LeFleur’s parents had died when Mrs. LeFleur was a child. Her father had told Taylor that Mrs. LeFleur had been a champion rider back then, winning all sorts of awards, especially as a jumper.

  “How’s Jimmy?” Taylor’s father asked. Jimmy, Taylor knew, was Mrs. LeFleur’s son.

  Mrs. LeFleur looked away as though the subject was painful. “You know he never walked again after the accident,” she said stiffly.

  “Yes, I knew he was in a wheelchair, but how is he?” Steve Henry said.

  “We had a falling-out some years ago, and we haven’t spoken since,” Mrs. LeFleur divulged.

  “A falling-out?” Taylor asked. She had never heard that expression before.

  “A fight,” Mrs. LeFleur explained. “Quite a bad fight.”

  The obvious question sprang to Taylor’s lips. What did you fight about? But she didn’t give voice to it. It seemed rude to ask.

  “Ah, gee, I’m sorry to hear that,” Steve said. “Maybe the two of you should get back in touch. I always liked Jimmy.”

  “Yes, well … It’s very nice to see you again. I met your wife not long ago. She seemed lovely.”

  “She is. But actually she’s my ex-wife,” Steve said awkwardly.

  Mrs. LeFleur looked to Taylor. “I’m sorry. I don’t think Taylor ever told me her parents were divorced.”

  Taylor shrugged. “I guess it never came up.” Taylor’s parents had split up only six months earlier, and it wasn’t something Taylor generally liked to talk about.

  Steve seemed to really focus on his daughter for the first time. “You look a little roughed up, yourself. Did you fall, too?”

  “No, but I was clinging on to a horse that bolted.”

  Steve scowled at her with a puzzled expression. “What crazy kind of riding were you two lunatics doing?”

  “I’ll tell you in the car.”

  “Sure you don’t want a lift home, Mrs. LeFleur?” Steve offered.

  “No, I have my car, thank you.”

  Taylor said good night and left with her father. “That must have brought back some bad memories for her,” Steve commented as they headed out to the parking lot.

  “Why?” Taylor asked.

  “Jimmy LeFleur took a bad fall from his horse and —”

  “Landed in a wheelchair for the rest of his life,” Taylor filled in the rest. “I know. You told me.”

  Steve opened the car door for her and then went around to the driver’s side and turned on the engine. “Yeah, but he seemed to be okay at first. I mean, he was unconscious for just a little while. But that night he went into a coma and didn’t come out for a few days. When he did come out of it, there was damage to his spinal cord, and he never walked again. And I guess he never rode a horse again, either.”

  An image flashed into Taylor’s head. It was of the boy in the wheelchair from the County program. “Not necessarily,” she disagreed. “People in wheelchairs can ride.”

  “That’s true. I wonder if Jimmy ever did get back on a horse,” Steve said.

  “It’s Mrs. LeFleur who never rode again,” Taylor said.

  * * *

  That night Taylor lay on her bed wondering what Mrs. LeFleur had fought with her son about. How terrible it must be for Mrs. LeFleur to have a son she didn’t see or even talk to. Wildwood’s owner seemed so warm and kind; it was hard to believe she could hang on to a grudge against her own child. And, for that matter, her cousin. It seemed that Devon Ross was trying to make up with Mrs. LeFleur for some reason — she’d even donated Shafir to Wildwood Stables — but Mrs. LeFleur refused to have anything to do with her. Taylor found it very puzzling.

  She was about to switch off the lamp on her nightstand when her cell phone buzzed. The name ERIC MASON came up, and Taylor’s heart raced.

  “Hi, Eric, how are you feeling?”

  “I’m a little sore, that’s all. I don’t know why Mrs. LeFleur made such a big deal.”

  “I think I found out why,” Taylor told him. “Your accident must have reminded Mrs. LeFleur of what happened to her son, Jimmy. He took a bad fall and never walked again.”

  There was silence on Eric’s end of the phone. “Wow,” he said seriously after a moment. “That’s bad.”

  “I know,” Taylor agreed somberly.

  “I guess I’m lucky.”

  “Or Jimmy was unlucky. Everyone falls eventually,” Taylor said.

  “Yeah,” Eric agreed. “That’s true.” There was more silence. “Well, listen, I have some good news,” Eric said brightly, changing the mood of their conversation. “My friend called and said he could get us a whole bunch of horse shampoos and horse treats. He’s even got some combs and brushes so you can replace some of the worn ones in your grooming kit.”

  “That’s awesome,” Taylor said, smiling. “And it’s really free?”

  “Not exactly, but I only had to give him twenty bucks for all of it.”

  “Then I’ll pay you ten. We’ll split it,” Taylor of
fered.

  “You don’t have to.”

  Taylor was touched that he was willing to share with her, asking nothing in return. “No, I’ll give you the ten. It’s only fair to split the cost,” she insisted.

  “Sure, okay,” he gave in. “But I have even better news. My friend has a pony blanket, and he thinks that the store will be getting rid of the inventory of old, unsold horse blankets next week.”

  A smile spread across Taylor’s face. “Are you kidding?”

  “No. That’s what he told me.”

  Prince Albert wouldn’t be shivering through the winter, after all!

  “That’s great. Thanks, Eric. Thanks so much!”

  “No problem. Now, if we can only get our horses to behave, all our problems will be solved.”

  On Friday, Taylor sat on the split-rail fence of the corral nearest the main building and watched Dana ride Prince Albert at a walk around the ring. Lois, her instructor, stayed at her side.

  Dana put down the reins and spread her arms out at either side while Prince Albert kept walking.

  “Wow,” Taylor breathed, impressed. Beginners typically learned this move, that was true, yet it was an impressive accomplishment for Dana. The girl had autism and was often distracted. Spreading her arms wide while riding took concentration, confidence, and balance.

  On solid ground, Dana was often unfocused, nervous, and uncoordinated — but not when she rode. Sitting atop Prince Albert, Dana was always the picture of calm composure, and never more so than at that moment. Pride beamed from Dana’s face, but she kept her chin up and her eyes straight ahead, gazing through Prince Albert’s ears as Lois had instructed her.

  “Good boy, Prince Albert,” Taylor whispered as her horse, Dana, and Lois walked past. Hearing her voice, the quarter horse sputtered softly.

  Taylor clapped her hand over her mouth. Maybe she shouldn’t have spoken. It might not be wise to remind Prince Albert that he was carrying a rider other than Taylor. But the black horse clipclopped steadily on.

  Daphne came and stood beside Taylor at the outside of the fence. Behind her, Pixie was saddled. The cream Shetland kept her eyes fixed on Prince Albert. She shifted uneasily from side to side. “Steady, there,” Daphne cautioned the pony. “I know you’re dying to follow your pal, but we have pony rides to give in fifteen minutes.”