Part 19 (1/2)
Kendra had returned to the office afterward, where she'd left Daisy snoozing contentedly in a corner, and eaten lunch-a carton of yogurt and an apple-at her desk.
Taking a client through the mansion, although almost certainly a fruitless enterprise, had served as a welcome distraction from her mixed-up thoughts about Hutch and that afternoon's horseback ride, but now she was alone in her quiet office, except for Daisy, and her imagination threatened to run wild.
The phones were silent.
The computer monitor yawned before her like the maw of a dragon, ready to suck her in and devour her whole.
She was ridiculously grateful when the mailman dropped in with a handful of flyers and bills, thrilled when the meter reader put in a brief appearance.
”I'm losing my mind,” she confided to Daisy, when the two of them were alone in the silent office again. ”You've been adopted by a crazy woman.”
Daisy yawned broadly, closed her lovely brown eyes, and went back to sleep.
”Sorry if I'm boring you,” she told the dog.
Daisy gave a soft snore.
By the time three o'clock rolled around, Kendra was practically climbing the walls. She attached Daisy's leash to her collar, shut off the lights, locked the front door and all but raced out the back way to her car.
When she arrived at the community center, Madison was waiting for her, along with her teacher, Miss Abbington.
Miss Abbington did not look like a happy camper.
”What's wrong?” Kendra asked as soon as she'd parked the car and gotten out.
”I think Madison should answer that,” Miss Abbington said. She was a small, earnest woman with pointy features that made her look hypervigilant-a quality Kendra appreciated, especially in a person who spent hours with her daughter every day.
Madison flushed, but her chin was set at an obstinate angle. ”I was incordiable,” she told Kendra.
”Incorrigible,” Miss Abbington corrected stiffly.
”What happened?” Kendra asked the little girl, at once alarmed and defensive. How could a four-year-old child be described as ”incorrigible?” Wasn't that word usually reserved for hard-core criminals?
”I misrupted the whole cla.s.s,” Madison said, warming to the subject.
”Disrupted,” Miss Abbington said.
Kendra gave the woman a look, then refocused her attention on her daughter. ”That isn't good, Madison,” she said. ”What, specifically, did you do?”
Madison squared her small shoulders and tugged her hand free from Miss Abbington's. ”I borrowed Becky Marston's cowgirl boots,” she admitted without a hint of shame. ”When she took them off to put on her sneakers for gym cla.s.s.”
”Without permission,” Miss Abbington embellished, looking down her long nose at Madison. ”And then, when Becky asked for her boots back, you told her you weren't through wearing them yet.”
”Madison.” Kendra sighed. ”We talked about the boot thing, remember? This morning at breakfast?”
”I just wanted to see what they felt like,” Madison said, but her lower lip was starting to wobble and she didn't look quite as sure of her position as before. ”I would have given them back tomorrow.”
Kendra looked at Miss Abbington again. Miss Abbington's gaze connected with hers, then skittered away.
”I'll take it from here,” Kendra told the other woman.
”Fine,” Miss Abbington said crisply.
”It's wrong to take someone else's things, Madison,” Kendra told her daughter. ”You know that.”
From the car, Daisy poked her muzzle through a partly open window and whimpered.
Madison's eyes filled with tears, real ones. She was a precocious child, but she didn't cry to get her way. ”Are you mad at me, Mommy?”
”No,” Kendra said quickly, trying not to smile at the image of her little girl clomping around the schoolroom in a pair of purloined boots. This isn't funny, she scolded herself silently, but it didn't help much.
”Do I still get to go to the cowboy man's house and ride a horse?”
Canceling the outing would have made sense, giving Madison reason to think about her behavior at preschool, but Kendra privately nixed the idea on two counts. One, she knew Madison's disappointment would be out of all proportion to the misdemeanor she'd committed and, two, she'd have to reschedule the ride and she didn't think her nerves could take the strain.
She was a wreck as it was.
”Yes,” she said, leading Madison to the car and helping her into the safety seat in back. Daisy was on hand to lick the little girl's face in welcome. ”You can still ride Mr. Carmody's horse. But tomorrow, as soon as you get to school, you will apologize to Miss Abbington and to Becky for acting the way you did.” A pause. ”Fair enough?”
Madison considered the proposition as though it were a proposition and not an order. ”Okay,” she agreed. ”But I still think Becky is a big crybaby.”
”Don't push your luck, kiddo,” Kendra warned.
She got behind the wheel, fastened her seat belt, started the engine.
”None of this would have happened,” Madison offered reasonably, ”if I had my own cowgirl boots.”
Kendra closed her eyes for a moment, swallowed a laugh. She wanted Madison to be spirited and proactive, yes. But a demanding brat? No way.
”One more word about those boots,” she said, glancing at the rearview mirror to read her daughter's face, ”and there will be no visit to Mr. Carmody's ranch, no horseback ride and definitely no day at the rodeo.”
Madison's jaw clamped down tight. She obviously had plenty more to say, but she was too smart to say it.
She wanted that ride.
Half an hour later, after a quick stop at home, where Kendra and Madison both changed into jeans and T-s.h.i.+rts and gave Daisy a chance to lap up some water and squat in the backyard, the three of them set out for Whisper Creek Ranch.
On the way, Kendra told herself silently that she was making too big a deal out of this. Nothing earthshaking was going to happen; Hutch would lead a horse out of the barn, Madison would sit in the saddle for a few minutes and that would be it.
She and Madison could turn right around and come home, none the worse for the experience.
Big Sky Mountain loomed in the near distance as they drove on toward the ranch, towering and ancient. If there was one thing in or around Parable that made Kendra think of Hutch Carmody, it was that mountain.
How many times had they gone there, on horseback and sometimes on foot, to be alone in that hidden meadow he loved so much, to talk and laugh and, often, to make love in the warmth of the sun or the silvery glow of starlight?
A blush climbed her neck and pulsed in her cheeks.