No Horse Wanted
Authors: LLC Melange Books
Tags: #horses, #investment, #eventing, #car, #young girl, #16, #birthday present, #pet, #animal rescue, #unwanted, #sixteen, #book series, #animal abuse, #calf roping, #teen girl, #reluctant, #buy car, #16th birthday, #1968 mustang, #no horse wanted, #nurse back to health, #rehabilitating, #sell horse, #shamrock stable, #shannon kennedy, #sixteenth birthday, #win her heart
Shamrock Stable #1
by Shannon
Kennedy
Published by
Fire and Ice
A YA/NA Imprint of Melange Books, LLC
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
No Horse Wanted, Copyright 2013 by Shannon
Kennedy
ISBN: 978-1-61235-693-8
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this
book are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States of America.
Cover Art by Lynsee Lauritsen
NO HORSE WANTED
SHANNON KENNEDY
The only thing that Robin Gibson wants for
her sixteenth birthday is a 1968 Presidential Blue Mustang.
Following their family tradition, what her parents promise her is a
horse of her own, one with four legs, not four wheels. Mom competes
in endurance riding, Dad does calf roping, her older brother games
and her older sister loves three-day eventing, but Robin proudly
says that she doesn’t do horses. She’ll teach her controlling
family a lesson by bringing home the worst horse she can find, a
starved, abused two-year-old named Twaziem.
Robin figures she’ll nurse him back to
health, sell him, and have the money for her car. Rescuing and
rehabilitating the Morab gelding might be a bigger challenge than
what she planned. He comes between her and her family. He upsets
her friends when she looks after his needs first. Is he just an
investment or is he part of her future? And if she lets him into
her heart will she win or will she lose?
Dedication
No Horse Wanted
is
dedicated to the “real” Twaziem and Lucky Lady. Without them, I
couldn’t have written this book. These two very special horses have
since crossed over the “Rainbow Bridge.” I rescued Twaziem the way
that Robin does in this story and he was my mother’s horse for more
than 30 years. I lost Lucky Lady to cancer two years ago, but we
still ride together in my dreams.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Wednesday, September 11th, 2:30 p.m.
One more day
, I thought,
one more
day!
Then, I’d be sixteen and nobody could tell me
I was a kid. Not my parents or my older brother or my college
freshman sister, who all thought it was their life mission to order
me around, just because I was the youngest in the family. I’d get
my driver’s license, go wherever I wanted and no one would call me
Princess Robin ever again.
Hello, freedom!
All I needed was a car. The one destined to
be mine was a classic! A 1968 Mustang hardtop coupe. No convertible
for me, not in Western Washington where it rained more than the sun
shone. The brilliant blue paint on my dream car shimmered in the
sunlight as I approached the Mustang Corral on the main drag in
Podunk, USA—otherwise known as Marysville, Washington.
Why had Brenna moved my car out to the
premier spot on State Street? Everybody who came into town could
see it there and someone else might buy it before I convinced Dad
to sign the papers. Brenna knew I wanted that gorgeous car. I’d
told her often enough, and of course, I visited my Mustang every
day on the way from school to my father’s accounting office. I’d
get it for my birthday. I knew it, heart and soul.
I’d talked her down from the list price on
the car to fifteen thousand dollars, cash. All I had to do was get
my father to agree to pay half, and he was almost there. Okay, so I
was his baby and sometimes I played it to get what I really wanted.
But, I was a good kid. I might not get the greatest grades in the
world and I did bring home every stray animal I found, but I never
did drugs, or drank booze or hung out with sleaze-balls. I deserved
my Mustang. Once he came up with his share of the bucks, I’d use
part of my college fund for my portion.
I’d be driving all over the place. My
brother might be happy with the beat-up half-ton Dodge pickup he
found on
Craig’s List
and my sister might swear there was
nothing better than her 1991 four-wheel-drive Jeep. One of my dad’s
clients saw it parked beside a road up in the boonies with a For
Sale sign taped to the cracked windshield. My sister still raved
about the great deal she’d made.
They could really be satisfied with other
people’s cast-offs, but not me. Okay, so my Mustang was more than
forty years old and it had been driven by someone else, but it
didn’t look like a used vehicle. The previous owners treated my car
like the treasure it was. I circled around it, admiring the sheen
of the Presidential blue color. Freshly washed and waxed, not a
glimmer of dust marred the finish. When I got it home, Brenna’s
brother, Harry, wouldn’t be around to keep my car in shape for me.
I’d have to do it myself.
No problem. What could be better than washing
and waxing my own car? Nothing! Nobody better even think about
eating fast food in my car when I got it. That was so not
happening!
I headed past the other ten Mustangs,
candy-apple reds, canary yellows, a night black convertible, and
emerald greens. A real rainbow herd, I thought. Brenna kept the
rest of the cars on the sides and toward the back of the lot. I
spotted Harry washing the puke green fixer-upper ’67 model on the
far side of the garage. No matter how hard he tried, that
particular rig was destined to be what his older sister called the
“loss leader.” It needed a new tranny and a rebuild on the engine
before anyone could drive it. And who would want to?
Looking at Harry Thornton made my day even
better, even if he hadn’t seen me yet. Sunshine blond hair curled
to broad, tanned shoulders. He’d changed to a T-shirt and shorts to
work here, but he still looked majorly hot. Of course, he didn’t
have a clue. He just thought all the girls wanted to sit at his
table because I did.
I wasn’t that popular even if I ran track and
cross-country. I was blonde, brown-eyed, five-foot-six, and made
friends easily. I liked people, well most of them, and they liked
to hang out with me. And Harry was always willing to talk to me
about cars, especially Mustangs, which had to be the best cars ever
made by Ford.
Brenna waved to me from the steps at the
front of the office trailer. “Hi, Robin. Come on over.”
Shifting my backpack, I went to join her.
“Hey, Brenna. What’s up with my car?”
She smiled, then ran a hand through her
shoulder-length red hair. The blue mechanic’s coveralls she wore
matched her eyes. “It’s not yours until the papers are signed. And
like I’ve told you all summer, your dad needs to do that, since
you’re not eighteen yet.”
“He’ll do it,” I said. “Tomorrow’s my
birthday and he knows this car is all I want. I’ve been telling him
that for ages.”
Brenna nodded and her smile faded. She
actually looked her age, almost thirty. “One of the guys I served
with in Afghanistan took it out for a test drive today, Robin. I’ve
been straight up with you. I won’t hold a car for someone who can’t
buy it. This place eats almost as much as Harry does.”
I knew she was trying to make a joke, but I
could also tell that she was being honest with me. If somebody came
in with enough bucks, my car would be gone. “Okay, I’ll get my dad
in here right away.”
She nodded, then headed for the garage to do
maintenance on a car she’d just taken in, and I jogged toward the
sidewalk. The Mustang Corral wasn’t that big as far as lots went.
It was sandwiched between a vacuum repair place and a small strip
mall. The only business left in the mall was a doughnut shop that
was open from before school to midnight. I skipped my usual routine
of popping in for a coffee and a maple bar. I had to talk to Dad
and he had to get serious about the blue Mustang. Or else!
When I walked into the accounting office
twenty minutes later, the secretary told me that my father was
finishing up with a client. I had to wait almost an hour for him.
Then, he rushed me out the door. He wanted to get to the feed store
before it closed because his horse needed some kind of special
supplement. Finally, we were on the way home and he was a captive
audience. He couldn’t get away from me.
“Dad, we have to talk about my birthday.”
He glanced sideways at me while he waited for
the red light to change at the intersection. “Robbie, we already
have it planned. Felicia is coming home from school, and she’ll be
here tomorrow night to celebrate with us. She’s taking Friday off
from classes and driving back on Sunday morning.”
“Wonderful,” I said, hoping he didn’t catch
the sarcasm. “I can’t wait to see her. I’m talking about my big
present. I want—”
“I know what you want,” Dad said, stepping on
the gas. “But it doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. Presents are
supposed to be surprises. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow night
at dinner to see what you get.”
I nearly told him I didn’t think waiting was
a good idea, not when Brenna had a buyer for my car. However, my
cell phone vibrated. When I looked at the screen, it was my best
friend and I had to talk to her. Not about the car—she just didn’t
get why I was so hooked on Mustangs—but about her life, which
pretty much sucked all of the time now.
* * * *
Thursday, September
12
th
, 4:00 p.m.
Leaving the department store sacks unopened
and uninvestigated, I closed the door to the closet in my parents’
bedroom. Snooping there had been a long shot, but I didn’t know
where else to look for the papers and keys to my Mustang. I just
couldn’t find anything to do with the car. Mom and Dad hid the
information too well, although the ’68 classic hadn’t been on the
lot when I walked by there today.
So, my car had to be here on the farm. I just
hadn’t found it yet. And I didn’t have a lot of time left to look.
Mom had to make a quick grocery store run to get Felicia’s favorite
junk food and Dad went with her. Hello, it was my birthday. Wasn’t
I supposed to be the special one today?
I’d searched most of the buildings; anywhere
a person could drive a car. The only place left to look was the big
barn where my family kept their horses. I figured my older brother
Jack would totally freak if the car was in the indoor riding arena,
not because the horses might trash it, but because they could spook
and get hurt.
Horses were weird at the best of times and
Jack fussed over the ones in the barn non-stop. He kept their
stalls cleaner than Mom did the house. She often said she wished
his obsessive neat and tidy fanaticism would carry over to his
bedroom. It hadn’t in nearly eighteen years, so I figured she
should get over it. I started to leave my parents’ room, then
remembered that Salt escorted me upstairs.