True Riders (3 page)

“Me too,” Emma shouted. “I rode too.”

“Yeah, but I rode like a real cowboy.” Ethan puffed out his chest.

Their mother bustled back into the entryway. “Brooke, the groceries?”

“Coming.” Brooke dodged around the twins and followed her mother into the kitchen.

She was putting away some crackers when Ethan and Emma came rushing in, sliding on the tile floor in their stocking feet. They'd left their boots and most of their other outdoor clothes in the entryway, though Emma was still wearing her favorite pink knit hat with the mouse ears on it.

Ethan slid right into Brooke, catching his balance by grabbing her elbow. “I told you I'm a cowboy,” he said, grinning up at her. “I proved it! So now you have to let me ride Foxy.”

“Me too!” Emma put in. “I want to ride Foxy too!”

Brooke sighed. The twins had watched some old Western on TV the week before, and Ethan had thought he was a cowboy ever since. He'd been bugging her off and on about riding Foxy, though she'd pretty much ignored the requests.

“Let's go ride now!” Ethan started galloping around the kitchen, pretending to whip his imaginary horse. “Come on, come on! I'm a cowboy!”

“Me too, me too!” Emma followed her brother, giggling wildly.

“Forget it.” Brooke had to raise her voice to be heard over the din. “It's too cold. Besides, Foxy isn't a cow pony; she's a Chincoteague pony.”

Ethan stopped short, looking wounded. “She is so! She's a cow pony. And I want to ride 'em cowboy!”

“Ride 'em cowgirl!” Emma yelled, waving her arms and sending a package of pasta crashing off the counter onto the floor.

Brooke's mother had been busy unpacking produce and putting it into the crisper, but now she turned and glanced at the twins with a sigh. “Brooke,” she said. “Why don't you take them out and give them a quick pony ride, hmm?”

“What?” Brooke stared at her.

“Just this once.” Her mother sounded a little impatient as she click-clacked over to grab the fallen box of pasta. “I'm sure a quick ride will get it out of their systems.”

“But I was just about to ride Foxy myself,” Brooke protested.

“Perfect.” Her mother smiled. “We'll just pop the twins on first, and then Foxy will be all ready for you to have your ride afterward.”

“But—” Brooke began, but she was quickly drowned out by Ethan's and Emma's shrieks and shouts of glee. They stampeded for the back door, already arguing about who got to ride first.

“Hold it right there,” their mother called out. “Coats and boots back on first.” She shot Brooke a distracted smile. “Thanks for doing this, sweetie. Better bundle up yourself, hmm?”

“Stop!” Brooke grabbed Ethan by the arm as he started to dart around Foxy's rump. “Don't walk behind the pony, remember?”

“Yeah, dummy.” Emma stuck her tongue out at her brother. “Foxy'll kick your head off!”

“No she won't.” Ethan gave Foxy a hearty pat on the stomach, making the pony flinch and flick an ear back toward him. “Foxy loves me, 'cause I'm a real cowboy. And a cowboy's best friend is his trusty horse.”

Brooke sighed. Foxy was tied to the fence near her water trough, and Brooke was doing her best to groom and tack her up quickly—the sooner the pony was ready, the sooner this would be over with.

But the twins weren't making it easy to get anything done. First Emma had insisted on spending a good ten minutes brushing the pony's long, thick tail, even though it hadn't been tangled. Meanwhile Ethan had run off with Brooke's hoofpick to scratch in the mud under the trough. By the time Brooke had gotten it back, wiped it off, and cleaned out the pony's feet, Ethan had managed to knock over the grooming bucket, spilling brushes, cloths, and curries everywhere.

Brooke had gritted her teeth as she'd gathered everything back up. Normally she loved grooming her pony, but today she figured Foxy wouldn't mind if she just knocked off the worst of the dirt to speed things along.

“Okay, she's clean enough.” Brooke tossed her brush into the grooming bucket, then glanced at her mother, who was leaning against the fence nearby checking her cell phone. “Can you try to keep them from harassing Foxy too much while I grab my Western saddle?”

“Of course.” Her mother sounded unconcerned, watching as Ethan and Emma started climbing around on the wooden fence.

Brooke shot the twins a slightly anxious glance, thanking her lucky stars that Foxy was so good-tempered. Then Brooke darted into the glorified shed she called her barn. It was divided into what Brooke had dubbed the pony part and the people part. The pony part was just a three-sided area where Foxy could come in out of the weather, and where her feed and water buckets hung. Normally Brooke groomed and tacked in there too, but she'd decided that such close quarters might not be a good idea with her little siblings involved.

The people part of the barn was where Brooke kept Foxy's feed, tack, and other equipment. Her two saddles sat on a rack her stepfather had built, with her bridle hanging off the horn of the Western saddle.

Slinging the bridle over her shoulder, she grabbed the Western saddle and a pad. When she emerged back outside, she was surprised to find that the twins were nowhere in sight. For a second her heart lifted. The two of them had short attention spans. Could they have lost interest and decided they didn't want to ride after all?

Then she heard excited voices and looked over to see Ethan and Emma mobbing Adam, who had just pulled into the backyard on his dirt bike.

“Yo, twinsies,” he greeted them with a laugh, lifting one arm so that Ethan's feet dangled several inches off the ground. “What's up?”

Now Brooke was even more surprised. What was Adam doing here? She was pretty sure he was supposed to have basketball tryouts all afternoon. A year ago she wouldn't have hesitated to ask what was going on, but given the way things had been between them lately, she felt a little shy.

Her mother, however, wasn't shy at all. “Hello, Adam,” she said. “How are basketball tryouts going?”

“Oh. Uh, not so hot, actually.” Adam turned away, fiddling with the kickstand on his bike. “I got cut today,” he mumbled over his shoulder.

“Oh dear.” Brooke's mother clucked sympathetically. “But you've always been so athletic!”

“Yeah, well . . .” Adam shrugged, then grabbed Emma and spun her around, making her shriek and giggle.

Brooke could tell he didn't want to talk about it, and no wonder. He'd been really excited about making the team. She decided she'd better change the subject before her mother started grilling him.

“Hey, want to help with Foxy?” Brooke asked him. “The twins want to go for a pony ride.”

“Not a pony ride, a cowboy ride!” Ethan corrected. He immediately started telling Adam all about the movie he'd seen and the mechanical horse at the store.

Adam wandered over to Foxy as he listened. He gave the pony a pat on the neck, and she nuzzled him, clearly looking for one of the peppermints he sometimes brought her from his dad's restaurant.

“Okay, pardner,” Adam said at last in a mock Western drawl, interrupting Ethan's excited description of how hard the mechanical horse had bucked. “Cowboys are all about ridin', not talkin'. So let's get this here cow pony saddled up, okay?”

He reached for the Western saddle, which Brooke had set on the fence. “Do you remember how to do the cinch?” she asked as he swung it onto Foxy's back.

“Course I do.” He grinned at her. “I was the one who helped you figure it out, remember?”

She did remember. She'd found the Western saddle at a garage sale before Foxy had even been old enough for Brooke to ride her. The first time Brooke had tried to put it on the pony, Brooke hadn't been able to work out how to tie the Western cinch, which was much different from the English girths she'd used up until then. Adam had done a little research on the Internet and had almost immediately been able to catch on to how the cinch knot worked, thanks mostly to learning all kinds of different knots from his grandpa when they took his fishing boat out in the Chesapeake Bay. Brooke had had a little more trouble getting the hang of it, but Adam had demonstrated over and over again until she'd finally mastered it, not even teasing her—much—about her fumble fingers.

Brooke didn't ride Western much anymore, preferring either her English saddle or bareback, so she stood back and let him tie the cinch, figuring he'd get it done faster.

“Ready,” he said, snugging it up tight. “Who's first?”

“Me! Me! Me!” the twins cried in unison, jumping up and down and waving their hands.

Adam bent and picked up a stone off the ground. “Okay, here's how we'll decide,” he said, putting both hands behind his back. Then he held them out, both hands closed into fists. “Whoever picks the hand with the stone in it goes first. That's the cowboy way, right? So no arguing, pardners.”

Luckily, the twins each chose a different hand, and when Adam opened his fists, the stone was in the one Ethan had picked.

“Hooray!” Ethan yelled, making Foxy snort and turn her head to eye him warily.

“No yelling,” Brooke told her little brother. “Come on, let's get you up.”

“I've got him.” Adam grabbed Ethan under the arms and swung him into the saddle in one motion. Brooke was a little surprised that he could do that. When had he gotten so tall?

Just then Brooke's mother looked up from her phone. “Be careful, honey,” she called to Ethan. “Do what Brooke and Adam say, all right?”

Ethan ignored her, grabbing the horn and leaning forward. “Where's the reins?” he demanded.

“No reins.” Brooke untied Foxy's lead rope from the fence, leaving the bridle hanging on the gate. “I'm going to lead her while Adam walks next to you. Okay?” She glanced at Adam.

“Sure.” Adam patted Ethan on the leg. “Come on, pardner. Let's go ride the range.”

Ethan giggled, seeming to forget about not having reins, and Brooke breathed out a sigh of relief. “Come on, Foxy,” she whispered, clucking to the mare. “This won't take long. . . .”

“Again! Again!” Ethan cried as Brooke led Foxy back to the fence after leading Emma around the field.

Brooke sighed and sneaked a peek at her watch. The twins' pony rides had been going on for almost an hour. After Ethan had gotten off, Emma had taken her turn. Then Ethan had decided he wanted Adam to take pictures of him riding, so he'd climbed on again, and Adam had snapped a few shots with his smartphone.

Naturally, Emma had wanted pictures too. She'd posed enthusiastically, even trying to stand up in the saddle before Brooke had stopped her.

And now Ethan wanted another turn and wasn't being shy about letting them know. Brooke's mother had wandered into the house for a cup of coffee a few minutes earlier, but now she returned.

“Oh, let them each have one more turn,” she told Brooke, sipping at her steaming mug. “They're having so much fun.”

Brooke sighed. “Sure, why not.” Actually, she had to admit it was fun to see her little sister and brother enjoying Foxy so much. So what if they were rapidly running out of daylight for her own ride? It was probably too cold to do much real work anyway, since afterward she'd have to walk Foxy until she was fully cooled out, and that would mean even more time out in the cold.

Soon Ethan was back on board. This time he started kicking as soon as Brooke set off on her circuit around the pasture.

“Hey, when do I get to gallop?” he said. “I want to gallop!”

“No galloping. Sorry,” Brooke said.

Ethan pouted. “But all cowboys gallop! I can do it.”

“Well, Foxy can't,” Brooke told him. “For one thing, the ground's too hard this time of year.”

Adam was still walking alongside the pony, his gloveless hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. “We could let him try a little trot, though,” he suggested. “How's that sound, buddy?”