Authors: Lisa Wysocky
The Fame Equation
EQUATION
LISA WYSOCKY
Published by
Cool Titles
439 N. Canon Dr., Suite 200
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Applied For
Lisa Wysocky––
The Fame Equation
p. cm
ISBN 978-1-935270-38-6
1. Mystery 2. Horses 3. Southern Fiction I. Title 2015
Copyright 2015 by Lisa Wysocky
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Book design by White Horse Enterprises, Inc.
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Also available via Ingram, and Baker & Taylor
Other Books by Lisa Wysocky
Fiction
The Opium Equation
The Magnum Equation
Nonfiction
The Power of Horses
Success Within
Front of the Class
(with Brad Cohen)
My Horse, My Partner
Horse Country
Success Talks
Two Foot Fred
(with Fred Gill)
Horseback
Walking on Eggshells
(with Lyssa Chapman)
Hidden Girl
(with Shyima Hall)
Therapy Horse Selection
DEDICATION
To therapy horses everywhere.
I’ve thanked you before in other books, but thank you again. Your contributions are invaluable.
CAST OF MAIN CHARACTERS
Cat Enright: | A horse trainer who lives near Nashville, Tennessee. She is thirty, single (but in a relationship––she thinks), impulsive, vulnerable, and the owner of a small stable. |
Jon Gardner: | Cat’s stable manager and right hand. No one, Cat included, knows his secrets. |
Darcy Whitcomb: | Eighteen-year-old teenager with a trust fund. She might be spoiled, but Cat loves her like family. |
Agnes Temple: | Eccentric woman of a certain age with short, spiky, electric blue hair. She owns two horses in Cat’s barn. |
Bubba Henley: | Budding juvenile delinquent and eleven-year-old son of a neighboring horse trainer. He and Cat had become close earlier in the year. |
Hill Henley: | Bubba’s father and fourth generation Tennessee Walking Horse trainer. He’s about as sharp as a mashed potato. |
Keith Carson: | A neighbor and country music superstar. Cat has a secret crush on Keith and is thrilled that he chose her as his riding instructor. |
Brent Giles: | A tall, blond small animal veterinarian from Clarksville, and Cat’s boyfriend. Cat thinks he’s cute, but isn’t sure she wants to take the relationship to the next level. |
Martin Giles: | Recently promoted former sheriff ’s deputy. Martin is now a full-fledged detective––and Brent’s brother. |
Melody Cross: | Rising country music star who is Keith Carson’s duet partner, and a close friend of Cat’s. |
Ruthie Cosgrove: | Pastor of the Holy Church of the Mighty Happy. |
Allen Harding: | The church’s financial advisor, and Ruthie’s brother. |
Emily Harding: | Allen’s wife. She also runs the church’s therapeutic riding program. |
Buffy Thorndyke: | Reporter turned publicist, she works with Melody Cross. |
Davis Young: | Melody’s manager. |
Augie Freemont: | Stocky, older man with a shaved head, goatee, and earring. He is the booking agent for both Keith and Melody. |
Bill Vandiver: | Melody’s hair stylist. |
The Potts Family: | Mother Claudine, father Cletus, sister Bran-dyne, and brother Bodine are blood relatives of Raylene––which prompted her to change her name to Melody Cross. |
Chas Chadwick: | Head of Melody’s record label. |
Scott Donelson: | Melody’s entertainment lawyer. |
Robert Griggs: | A former student of Cat’s who now works at the Mighty Happy Therapeutic Riding Center. |
Annie Zinner: | A horse trainer from Oklahoma and a mother figure to Cat. |
Tony Zinner: | Annie’s husband and training partner. He and Jon Gardner have a past. |
Gusher Black: | The owner of a new horse in Cat’s barn. |
Hank: | Cat’s incorrigible Beagle-mix hound dog. |
Sally Blue: | A (possibly) psychic, red roan Appaloosa mare owned by Agnes Temple. |
Peter’s Pride: | A tall, older black gelding owned by Darcy Whitcomb. Petey is a calming influence on Darcy, but he also likes to play. |
Hillbilly Bob: | Bay, aged gelding owned by a local orthopedic surgeon. Cat swaps training fees for treatment of broken bones and other injuries, and has won several championships on Bob. |
Glamour Girl: | A gorgeous, but silly, yearling filly owned by Mason Whitcomb, Darcy’s dad. |
Redgirl’s Moon: | Tall and elegant, she is a chestnut mare owned by Agnes Temple. Reddi is a real go-getter and excels in English events. |
Ringo’s Jetstar | Former racehorse who is a new horse in Cat’s barn. |
Wheeler | Short, squat palomino gelding who may be moving to a new home. |
T
HE COWBOY AND THE LADY
cantered across the grassy field, then turned toward a large video camera that perched on a set of portable tracks. The autumn reds and golds of the hillside trees were duplicated in the rider’s clothes, and in the bright red roan and bay coats of the horses. As they neared the camera, the riders looked longingly at each other, then reached out to grab each other’s hand.
It would have been quite romantic. Except the male rider, who was to the right, moved the reins from his left hand to his right so he could grasp the other rider’s hand, and in the process dropped a rein. Of course the horse stepped on it and it broke. Both horses were being ridden in bitless bridles, so I wasn’t concerned that the horse’s mouth had been hurt, but I had kind of liked those reins.
The director, a rail thin fifty-ish man with dyed black, spiky hair who went by the name of Fitch, waved his arms around and everything came to a screeching halt. I wish someone had told me about Fitch’s arm waving when I got my horses, Sally Blue and Hillbilly Bob, ready for this video shoot. Sally was okay with his windmill-like maneuvers, but Bob, normally a “steady Eddie,” often looked at Fitch as if he was from Planet Crouton. And who knows? Maybe he was. I’d asked Fitch to tone down the arm waves a bit, explaining that we didn’t need to get country music superstar Keith Carson dumped onto the ground, but Fitch just looked at me as if I was a pesky ant and made shooing motions with his hands. I’d been here all day and he had yet to speak one word to me.
As the video crew tweaked the position of the cameras and lights for yet another take, I looked longingly at the craft services truck that was set up near the back entrance of the steeplechase grounds at Nashville’s Percy Warner Park. I sighed. Craft services had some amazing hot chocolate and I thought longingly of a cup, but I needed to replace the broken rein, find another way for Keith to reach his hand out, and see to my horses.
Well, technically, Bob and Sally weren’t mine, even though I thought of them as family. Bob, a bay Appaloosa gelding with a bright white blanket and spots over his hips, belonged to an orthopedic surgeon who occasionally patched me up. Sally Blue was a young, red-roan Appaloosa mare who belonged to Agnes Temple. Think stout seventy-year-old cheerleader with short, spiky, bright blue hair and attention deficit disorder, and you had Agnes. In spite of that, Agnes was a dear friend.