The Counterfeit Cowgirl (7 page)

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“I knew you wouldn’t disappoint us,” Aaron drawled. He stared appreciatively at Felicity’s riding outfit. “It’s a good thing we polished up the horses.” He looked down at his own dusty jeans and wrinkled, blue work shirt. “Too bad I didn’t have time to polish myself.”

He stood outside the stables behind his house where two horses and two ponies had been tied to a wooden fence rail. The wide graveled drive leading to the building was bounded by a white, wood-rail fence and dotted with pecan trees. The stable looked even more imposing in the daylight than it had the night before.

Felicity wasn’t in the mood to notice the pastoral beauty of her surroundings. Not even concentrating on Aaron’s broad shoulders and long, strong legs blocked the object of her anxiety from the forefront of her mind.

The dreaded object twitched a muscle on his flanks and stamped his rear foot. The hollow clomp of Rhyolite’s hoof on the graveled walkway resounded through Felicity’s mind and body like cymbals clashing.

She came to a dead halt. Rhyolite lifted his head and snorted at her. Felicity’s knees turned to rubber. Her heart quaked within her chest. But her face wore the smile a top saleswoman always wore in the face of migraine headaches, hostile prospects, and runners in her stockings.

“Are you sure those jeans were made for riding?” Aaron asked.

Felicity ignored him in favor of concentrating on deep breathing. She had worn a blue cotton shirt trimmed with red and a pair of red jeans so tight she had trouble zipping them up. When she looked at the height of the stirrup she was supposed to place her foot into, she knew the jeans — meant to help hold her erect — had been a major mistake.

Rhyolite tossed his head and stamped his hooves again. She looked down at those hooves. They were the biggest horse hooves she’d ever seen. Stark terror arose in her throat.

“Felicity, look at Donatello,” Pete said. “I brushed him myself.”

“Felicity, look at Michelangelo,” Joey cried.

Felicity turned aside to look. She admired the two well-brushed ponies. Cautiously stroking Donatello’s soft muzzle temporarily distracted her quivering nerves.

Beside Rhyolite, a second horse just as big stood quietly. As Felicity’s frozen gaze rested on the other horse, he twitched his tail and stamped a foot.

She was going to die this afternoon. She knew it.

Pete patted Donatello’s neck. “Let’s go, Felicity. This is going to be fun.”

Felicity got a grip on herself. She could do it. She could do anything. There was no reason to suppose disaster loomed just because she was about to mount a horse.

She approached Rhyolite cautiously. Her palms were so wet, she probably wouldn’t be able to hold the reins. Wiping them on her jeans, she eyed Rhyolite. The big horse stood calmly, swishing his tail gently and ignoring her.

The first big challenge was to get aboard the monster. Felicity swallowed.

“Well, Miss Clayton? Would you like a hand up?”

Startled, she looked at Aaron. He was standing on the other side of the horse watching her expectantly. As if he knew she was going to be stomped, kicked, bitten, or thrown, she thought with considerable indignation.

Felicity’s fighting spirit rallied. “No, thank you. I prefer to mount on my own.”

The words sounded fine — almost as if she knew what she was talking about. Heartened, she took another step toward Rhyolite while her adrenalin surged and her courage was up. Within about three feet of the big gray gelding, all systems collapsed. Rhyolite tossed his head and looked at her. Felicity halted in her tracks.

Fortunately, the two boys were occupied with untying their ponies’ reins. Aaron was leading his horse away from the fence and appeared to be watching the horse’s gait.

Now. She had to do it now, while no one was observing. Once in the saddle, she’d cling like a spider monkey until the ordeal ended. But first, she had to get in the saddle.

Felicity dried her damp palms on her hips and searched out the stirrup. How she was supposed to get her boot into a waist-high stirrup, she didn’t know. Taking a deep breath, she went for it.

The stirrup felt cold and heavy to her inexperienced hand. Holding it steady, she lifted her foot — a difficult task in her skin-tight jeans — and aimed it at the stirrup.

Rhyolite jerked his head up. His hindquarters made a semicircular motion, and the stirrup fell from Felicity’s cold fingers. Every muscle in his enormous body twitched; he snorted and tried to look around at her. It was almost as if the big horse was annoyed with her.

Numb with fear, she approached again. She tried to imagine she was climbing a tree or a fence, some inanimate object that didn’t sidle away every time she lifted her foot and tried to place it into the stirrup. Rhyolite couldn’t move very far tied to the fence rail, but any movement at all took him out of Felicity’s range. Every time she tried to insert her boot into the stirrup, the horse moved.

Felicity forgot her fear in favor of frustration with Rhyolite. Not that she considered this Rhyolite’s fault. No, sir. If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear Aaron had told the horse to make her look bad. Naturally, Rhyolite had to obey or risk having his oat supply cut off.

She wasn’t letting Aaron get away with this. Circling, Felicity came at the horse from a different angle, all too conscious of Aaron watching her as he walked his own horse in a circle.

“Let me give you a leg up.” He tied his horse to the fence and took up a position on the gelding’s left side. “Looks like Rhyolite is a little testy this morning.”

Felicity remained on the right side of the gray gelding. “As you say, he’s a very spirited horse.”

“You have to get on the other side of Rhyolite, Felicity.” Joey had already mounted his pony and was holding the reins like a true cowboy. “He won’t let you get on him on that side.”

Felicity viewed the horse with hostility. “Is that so?”

“Isn’t that right, Uncle Aaron?”

Aaron’s smile was a masterpiece of innocence. “That’s right, Joey.”

Felicity gathered she had just broken a major law of horseback riding, and that Aaron knew it. She hadn’t gotten any good advice from her cousins since they knew the disaster that had befallen her on her last great ride. She also hadn’t located a book on the subject, since she’d spent the day house cleaning and waiting for various repair persons.

The only thing she could do was bluff.

She sauntered around to where Aaron was waiting to hoist her up. “That’s very good, Joey. You really know your stuff. I’m sure your uncle is very proud of you and Pete.”

“They’re good students,” Aaron said.

Felicity gave him a suspicious glance. His smile was so bland, she could have cooked it over water and called it custard.

“I can see they are,” she said.

She refused to look at Rhyolite. If she did, she might lose every bit of nerve Aaron’s knowing smile gave her. She placed her foot reluctantly in his locked hands and felt her body rise impossibly high in the air.

“Now throw your leg across,” Aaron commanded. “Not that one. The other leg. That’s it. You’re on.”

Felicity balanced numbly on the saddle. She was mounted, for what that was worth, but she didn’t think she’d be there for long. This was even worse than the last time she’d attempted riding a horse. Rhyolite was so big, she felt like a marble balanced on a two-by-four. Any minute now, she’d roll right off.

“Here are the reins.” Aaron passed her the two thin strips of leather that were supposed to control the behemoth. “Don’t start without us. I’ve got a path picked out that’s easy and unobstructed.”

She clutched the reins so tightly, poor Rhyolite turned in a circle in an effort to obey whatever strange command she was giving him. Felicity gasped and dug in her knees in a vain effort to cling harder. Rhyolite’s forelegs rose off the ground in a half-rear. He danced back then shot forward a few steps. Felicity almost somersaulted off; she dragged back so hard on the reins.

“My,” she gasped, when the great horse halted. Her teeth chattered with terror. “He sure is spirited.”

“Quit tugging the reins,” Aaron shouted. “He doesn’t know what you want him to do.”

With Aaron’s sharp navy eyes on her, Felicity hastily put on her professional smile and assumed a relaxed posture.

“You forgot to put your feet in the stirrups,” Pete observed. “Isn’t she supposed to put her feet in the stirrups, Uncle Aaron?”

“I — uh — used to ride Indian style,” Felicity said. “I’m not used to stirrups.”

Conscious of Aaron’s stare of disbelief, Felicity bent over to look for the stirrups. When she did, she almost slid sideways off the horse. She located them at last, one on each side, and carefully thrust her booted feet into them as tightly as she could manage. They might help hold her in place.

Aaron picked up his horse’s left foreleg and examined the hoof. “Corsair has picked up a stone. I thought something was wrong with his gait.” He looked up at Felicity. “Would you be very disappointed if I asked you to ride Quiche this afternoon? She isn’t quite up to my weight, and I don’t have another saddle horse available, so I’ll need Rhyolite.”

Felicity was ready to faint with relief, even though she strongly suspected Aaron was trying to find a face-saving way to get her off the big horse and onto a smaller, gentler mount.

“I’d be happy to,” she said graciously. “I can always ride this wonderful horse another time.”

Not if she could help it. Felicity loosened her death grip on the reins and prepared to draw her feet from the stirrups. Unfortunately, she had thrust her boots in so deeply, they wouldn’t slide out.

“Hold it,” Aaron called. “I’ll help you get down.”

Felicity didn’t think she could sit there knowing Rhyolite — a veritable mountain of muscle and sinew — was beneath her another minute. She jerked back with her heels. The stirrups released their grip and Felicity’s heels banged solidly into Rhyolite’s flanks.

“Felicity, stop!” Aaron yelled.

The big horse gathered himself and she sat on a heaving mountain. The next thing she knew, Rhyolite launched his body forward. She jerked back and dropped the reins in her desperation to grab his mane. She dug in with her knees and clutched Rhyolite for dear life.

Rhyolite took off like a bottle rocket.

She didn’t have time to shriek. The wind pushed any sound she made back down her throat. She relived her entire life within a grand total of five seconds.

Rhyolite flew down the driveway, galloping at full tilt toward the road that ran in front of the house. Gravel flew in all directions from beneath his mighty hooves. The only thing Felicity could see was a blur of grass. She bent forward, gasping, and wrapped her arms in a death grip around the horse’s neck. She dimly heard Aaron’s shouts and the yells of the two little boys. The rumble of Rhyolite’s hooves thundered in her ears.

Tires screeched. A horn blared. Rhyolite reared violently and made a two-legged turn. Felicity felt her body become weightless as she parted company with the saddle on Rhyolite’s back. She floated across space and made a three-point landing on Aaron’s well-maintained lawn.

She lay on her back, gazing up at the white-blue sky of deep summer. Dazed, Felicity found herself fascinated by a fluffy white cloud hovering overhead. She studied it, dimly amazed that it was so white and so scalloped around the edges. She had never seen a cloud quite like it before.

People bent over her, blocking her view of the sky. It irritated her, but she couldn’t summon interest in telling them to move. She focused on the pieces of blue she could see while the summery odor of green grass caressed her senses.

“Felicity, are you all right?” Pete cried. “You really are a good cowgirl. You made old Rhyolite do a pirouette.”

Felicity smiled. She didn’t know what that meant, but she could see that in Pete’s eyes she had earned her cowgirl’s spurs.

“Felicity, please get up,” Joey pleaded.

“She almost rode that horse over my truck,” an aggrieved voice said. “Damn it, Aaron, you ought to be more careful who you let ride that crazy gelding of yours.”

“Shut up, Chance.” Aaron sounded frantic. “You nearly hit one of my cows last week doing ninety miles an hour down this road. This wouldn’t have happened if you’d been driving at a decent speed.”

“Felicity,” Joey called. “Felicity, wake up.”

Felicity was dimly aware of the way Aaron checked her limp body over, tight-lipped and pale with anxiety. Although she found his concern heart-warming, it was misplaced. She felt wonderful.

“Aaron, is she all right?” Deborah approached at a run. “Should I call an ambulance?”

Felicity noted Aaron’s concern. But when he tapped her cheek gently with his forefinger, she saw the motion but didn’t feel it.

“I don’t know,” he bit out. “She seems conscious, but I can’t get her to respond.”

“Felicity, wake up,” Pete called.

Felicity wished everyone would quiet down and let her continue her peaceful communing with the summer sky. A full five minutes passed before Felicity’s senses fully returned; she wished they hadn’t. Everything had been so quiet and restful.

“I think I’m all right,” she said at long last. “I just had the breath knocked out of me for a minute.”

Aaron sucked in his own breath and carefully lifted her to a sitting position. The moment she sat up unaided, he laid into her.

“You ought to be horse-whipped,” he roared. “You nearly got my horse killed.”

“Hush, Aaron,” Deborah begged. “What if she has a concussion?”

“Your crazy horse nearly dumped me on the road in front of that man’s truck,” Felicity returned. “I ought to sue you for possessing a wild, unruly animal and making people ride it.”

Aaron’s mouth opened, but for a moment no sound came out. Then he appeared to find his voice.

“I ought to sue you for pretending you knew how to ride a horse, you phony cowgirl,” he shouted. “You’ve never ridden a horse before in your life, have you? Well? Have you?”

“Aaron, please,” Deborah said. “She might be hurt.”

“Don’t mind him, Deborah,” Felicity said. “He’s just behaving like a jerk because he’s so relieved his stupid horse didn’t kill me.” She smiled at the driver of the truck. He was a black man in his mid-fifties, short and wiry. “I’m terribly sorry that wild horse of Mr. Whitaker’s spooked your truck. If you had ended up in the ditch, it would have been all his fault.”