Horse Love (5 page)

Lisa had no idea how long they stood there, locked in that kiss. Even later, she couldn’t have said if it had been four seconds or an hour. It seemed an eternity, and it changed everything.

And then they walked along the beach in pleasant silence for a while. Soon, they began talking again.

“So,” Lisa said. “What would you be doing if you were home now?”

“I think I’d be working on my lines,” Tec said.

“Lines?”

“A play. I’m in the spring play at the high school. I’m Artful Dodger.”

“In
Oliver!
?” she asked.

“Right. You know the play?”

“Well, I’ve seen it done. But I’ve never been in it. The last play I was in was
Annie
.”

“You starred, I bet.”

It was true. She had. “Well …”

“I can see you with a shaved head, playing Daddy Warbucks.”

Lisa laughed. “That’s my part!” He smiled at her. Oh, those dimples! “It was just community theater,” she said. “But it was fun. I really loved it.”

“I do, too,” Tec said. “The way an audience reacts when you do it right for them—it’s like a drug.”

“I never thought of it that way,” said Lisa. “I just love the music and dancing—you know, the smell of the greasepaint. The whole thing. Isn’t it cool that we both love the same thing?”

“It just seems right,” he said, squeezing her hand.

“I guess we have a lot in common. I don’t suppose you ride horses, do you?”

“It’s the next thing on my list to take lessons in,” said Tec.

“Really?”

“Really,” he said.

“Well, you know they’ve got a stable here. I’ve signed up for a trail ride tomorrow. Would you like to come along? I could teach you.”

“That would be great. What time?”

“How about eight o’clock?” she suggested. “The trail ride leaves at eight-forty-five.”

Tec glanced at his watch, which made Lisa look at hers. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was after one o’clock in the morning! She and Tec had been walking and talking—and kissing—for over five hours, and she could have sworn it was little more than half an hour. The time had simply flown.

“Could we make that eight-thirty?” he asked. “I think I could make it by then, but I’m not positive.”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the stable then, if you can make it and if we don’t see each other at breakfast first.”

“What would I need to wear?” he asked.

She told him that he’d need long pants and some shoes with a heel. “See, if you don’t have a heel on your shoes, you run the risk of having your foot slip through the stirrup, and that can be really bad. They probably have hard hats, so you don’t have to worry about that. I guess it’s already pretty warm here by eight-thirty in the morning, so you won’t need a jacket. They’ll have riding
crops, too, and you can probably choose between English and Western. If you’re a totally new rider, Western may be better for you because the saddle is easier to sit in and, even though it’s bad form, you can hold on to the pommel if you need to.”

“That’s what the rope goes on?”

“Yes, on a Western saddle. All modern pleasure riding saddles have evolved from working saddles. The English saddle we use today is a cousin of the saddles that were used on battlefields in the past. They are light so that the horse doesn’t have to carry any extra weight. The Western saddle is more substantial, because a cowboy could have to be sitting in it for eight or ten hours at a time. It’s a seat, a sofa, a desk, a workspace. Sorry,” she said, stopping herself.

“What?” Tec asked.

“I’m beginning to sound like Carole.”

“Well, Carole must be very smart.”

“She is,” Lisa said. “Except that she doesn’t always know when to stop explaining things about horses.”

Tec laughed. “I think I’d like your friends,” he said.

“You will,” Lisa promised him. “But right now, if I don’t get some sleep, I’m not going to be good at explaining anything when we go on that ride.”

“I take it that’s a cue,” Tec teased.

“It is,” Lisa said.

They walked to her room. In the moon-shadowed darkness of the tropical evening, Tec kissed her, then disappeared into the night.

Lisa sighed and opened the door to her cabin. It took only a few seconds to get ready for bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she realized there was far too much to think about for her to be able to sleep. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts. Actually, there was only one thought: Tec Morrison.

“O
UCH
!” S
TEVIE SAT
upright in bed to massage the aching, overworked muscles in her right shoulder. If they hurt now, they were going to hurt a lot more the next day after hours of cleaning, scraping, and painting.

“Phil Marsten, I hate you!” she said, punching her pillow—with her left fist—for emphasis. She shifted to her left side and put her head back on the fluffed pillow. She was asleep in a matter of seconds.

A
T SEVEN
-
THIRTY
the next morning, when she was brushing her teeth, Lisa was barely aware that she’d had only a couple hours of sleep. Who needed sleep? And who wanted sleep when there were people to spend time with and hold hands with and …

She sighed, splattering toothpaste on the counter. It wasn’t easy brushing her teeth when she couldn’t erase the gigantic grin on her face, because that made it hard to reach her back teeth.

It would have to do. She spat and rinsed, wiping the counter as she did so. Then she took a moment to look at the girl in the mirror. She was pretty sure it was the same girl she’d seen there before—the one she’d seen every morning of her life. She was still Lisa, but there
was something palpably different about her. Was it the smile? Maybe. The little bit of color she’d gotten the day before from the sun? Perhaps. But there was something else: a maturity, a wisdom, a mere feeling. Who knew? And it didn’t matter, except that it made all the difference in the world. She’d met Tec.

She hadn’t expected to meet Tec. She couldn’t have guessed she’d meet him or that he’d meet her, but they’d met and they’d held hands and talked and walked and then kissed and nothing in the whole world was ever going to be the same. Sure there was a smile, a glow, but the only part that mattered was what was inside, and that was the part that held thoughts of Tec.

Lisa ran a comb through her hair, slipped into her riding pants and boots, pulled on a polo shirt, found her gloves and riding hat, and then left the room, closing the door behind her.

She was going to breakfast. Tec
might
be there. And then she was going to the stable. Tec
would
be there. They’d ride together and she’d teach him, but she reminded herself that she didn’t want to be too bossy or talk too much about riding. She just wanted to enjoy his company and tell him enough to be safe. He wasn’t preparing for a show or anything, so keeping his heels down, toes in, and elbows firm wasn’t going to matter anywhere near as much as staying on the horse!

She smiled, knowing herself too well

The dining room was buzzing and full. She paused at the door, looking for Tec, but there was no sign of him. She did, however, see her parents. They were at a table with a couple of empty seats, and they waved at her to join them. There would be room for Tec when he arrived. She picked up a glass of orange juice and a dish of fruit and sat down.

“Nothing ever changes, does it?” her mother teased. Lisa had no idea what she was talking about, because it seemed to her that everything in the world had recently changed.

“Your riding clothes,” her mother explained. “You’ve already found the stable?”

“Oh, right, that,” said Lisa. “Yes, I thought I’d go for a trail ride. It’s best if you do that in the morning before it gets really hot.”

“I’m glad they’ve got horses here,” her father said. “Makes me feel less guilty about dragging you away from your stable on vacation.”

“You don’t have to feel guilty,” Lisa said, smiling. “I like it here already.”

“So do I,” said her mother.

“Me too,” said Mr. Atwood.

Lisa finished her dish of fruit and glanced at her
watch. It was 8:15 and time to get going. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“We’re going on a snorkeling picnic,” her mother said. “It leaves at ten-thirty and will be back this afternoon. Want to come along?”

Lisa didn’t want to miss a minute of her possible time with Tec. “No thanks,” she said. “I think I’ll still be at the stable then. I’ll get along by myself. See you this afternoon, then, or at dinner in any case.”

“Have a nice ride,” her mother said.

“I will,” Lisa promised, leaving them with a wave and a smile.

All the way over to the stable, Lisa kept looking around for Tec. He should be walking over there now if he was going to be there by eight-thirty—though Lisa didn’t know where his cabin was and didn’t know from which direction he’d be coming. Maybe he was there already. It would make sense for a new rider to get to the stable early, even if it meant skipping breakfast, to get to know his horse. Even as an experienced rider, Lisa might have thought of doing that herself. She chided herself for wasting time on a bowl of fruit.

“Hi. Are you joining the trail ride?” a young man asked her. He looked at his list. “You must be Lisa Atwood?”

“Guilty as charged,” said Lisa. “Actually, I think there will be two of us. Has Tec Morrison signed up yet?”

The man checked his list. “Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “Nobody by that name. And the ride is full, so I hope he’s not expecting to go out with us today.”

“Oh,” said Lisa. It hadn’t occurred to her that the list would fill up. Tec might be annoyed with her for making him get up so early for nothing. Maybe she should give him her place.

But he wasn’t there yet, and Lisa was. When he showed up, they could figure out what was the right thing to do. In the meantime, Lisa proceeded as if she were choosing a horse for him.

“Just something easy and reliable,” she said.

“Okay,” said the man, who had introduced himself as Frank. “You haven’t ridden much?”

“Um, well, just for a while,” she said.

Frank looked at her a little oddly and she knew why. Her riding pants, though clean, were clearly used, and her boots were well broken in. It was true that she hadn’t been riding all that long—not compared to Stevie and Carole—but it wasn’t true that she was inexperienced. What Frank thought didn’t matter, though. What mattered was that Tec got a horse he could handle.

Frank brought out a horse he introduced to Lisa as Oatmeal and then began bringing out the tack. Without
thinking, Lisa began tacking up the horse. At Pine Hollow, riders were expected to tack up their own horses, and it was completely automatic for Lisa to do so now—especially when her mind was foggy with fatigue. She slid the saddle into place and began buckling the girth and adjusting the stirrups expertly.

“I wish all my beginners were as knowledgeable,” Frank teased. Lisa smiled, realizing what she’d done.

“Well, I just—”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m glad for the help. Can you do the bridle?”

“I guess so,” she said, accepting it from him and then sliding it over Oatmeal’s head, slipping the bit into his mouth.

“Okay. Riders? Are we all ready?”

Lisa looked around her, noticing the others for the first time. There were four other riders, plus Frank, a group of six all together. The others were patiently standing by their horses. With Frank’s signal, they began to mount.

There was a young couple—newlyweds, Lisa thought—who seemed as new at riding as they were at being married. The wife began by trying to get on the horse from the wrong side. Her husband started to help her, but in doing so, he dropped the reins to his own horse.

Lisa wrapped Oatmeal’s reins around a fence post and went to give them help, holding the husband’s horse’s reins while instructing the wife on how to get her boot into the stirrup. Then she showed the woman how to hold her reins, while the husband looked on. Lisa hoped he’d learned something, but when he went to mount, he wasn’t much better. She explained patiently that putting his foot into that side of the stirrup would result in a twisted stirrup leather—unless he wanted to sit on the horse backward.

He thanked her for her help, listened carefully, followed instructions, and was soon in his saddle, facing the right way, with his reins held properly.

Frank had been busy helping an elderly gentleman who seemed to know what he was doing, but who needed to use the mounting block because of what he called “these creaky old bones.”

The other rider was a young woman whom Lisa thought she’d seen in the dining room the night before. She was wearing a staff shirt for the resort, but she didn’t seem to be a stable worker, though she clearly knew what she was doing on a horse.

Frank mounted his horse and lined them up. Frank asked Jane—the staff member—if she could lead the way since she knew the trail. Next came Lisa, then the older man, and then the honeymooners, followed by
Frank. Lisa understood the lineup perfectly. Jane was a good rider, so he wanted her in the lead, but the best rider always had to be at the back to keep his eye on the riders who might most easily get into trouble: the honeymooners. He’d clearly figured out that Lisa was a better rider than she’d told him, and he knew the old man knew what he was doing on a horse, creaky old bones and all.