John Riley's Girl. Inglath Cooper
then why are you having it?”
“Because sometimes grown-ups have to do things they’d rather not do.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re grown-ups.”
More head shaking from Hank.
“Hi, Hank,” Flora said from her position in John’s arms.
“Hey, itty-bitty.” Hank tugged on one of her pigtails. “How was school today?”
“Good. Guess what I did?”
“Something smart, I’ll bet.”
“I drew a picture of Naddie.”
“Can I see it?”
Flora unzipped her book bag, pulled out a piece of green construction paper with an orange horse on it.
“That’s a mighty fine likeness,” Hank said.
“It sure is,” John agreed.
“Can I go see her?”
John set his daughter down. “You know Sophia’s got your snack waiting.”
“Just for a minute?”
“All right.”
She took his hand, then held out the other for Hank, skipping between them down the center aisle of the barn and chattering about her day along the way. He and Hank responded at the appropriate moments, smiles on both their faces. Hank loved her as if she were his own, and John was glad of it. If Laura had taught him anything, it was the value of love. That you could never have too much or give too much. He only wished he’d learned that lesson sooner. It was such an easy thing to give. Or it should be, anyway.
Outside, they crossed another expanse of grass and made their way into the barn where the two-year-olds were kept. A chorus of whinnies announced their entrance.
“I believe Miss Nadine knows you’re here,” Hank said.
“She always knows, doesn’t she, Hank?”
“Yep. She sure does.”
Hearing her name, the filly let out another loud whinny from her stall some twenty feet away.
“Just a minute, Naddie.” Flora darted into Hank’s office and charged back out a couple of seconds later with the filly’s customary afternoon carrots.
John and Hank shook their heads. By the time they caught up with her, Flora was already in the stall. The chestnut filly used her soft muzzle to gently poke about Flora’s body in a game of find-the-carrot. Flora giggled when Nadine nosed her right pocket and followed it up with a prod at her armpit. The horse reached around then and found what she was looking for, the three carrots sticking out of Flora’s back pocket. She let out a soft nicker that clearly meant: “I won—now give them to me.”
“Okay, okay.” Flora pulled one from her pocket and gave it to the young horse, who took one polite bite at a time, her beautiful head bobbing in enthusiasm.
“She looked pretty good on the lunge line this afternoon,” Hank said. “The stiffness in that right leg seems to have worked itself out.”
“No bute?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Let’s baby it a while longer, though.”
“Daddy?”
“What, sweet pea?”
“When can I ride Naddie?”
“Right after you start dating.”
Hank shook his head again and chuckled.
Flora gave him a look that would no doubt be perfected by the time she actually did start dating.
“Someday,” he said, refining his answer. “Naddie’s still green, honey. Popcorn is exactly what you need right now.”
“But Popcorn is slow.”
“Slow is good.”
A rumble sounded in the sky above the barn. Just as John reached to pull Flora out of the stall, a military jet roared over, so low it sounded as if it had grazed the very top of the barn roof. Nadine snorted, danced sideways, eyes wide, head high.
“There’s got to be something we can do to get them to alter their flight path,” Hank said as the sound faded. “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”
John sighed. He’d made a dozen phone calls. All to no avail so far.
The farm lay in the direct path of the drills the jets conducted periodically. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to their schedule so that they never knew when one would thunder over, so low they could see the pilot if they looked up.
“It’s all right, girl,” he said now to Nadine. And then to Flora, “Sophia’s going to fuss if you don’t get those cookies while they’re warm. Why don’t you go on up to the house now?”
Flora reluctantly said goodbye to Nadine who let out a protesting whinny.
“I’ll be back,” she promised. “Be good.”
“Fat chance,” Hank said. “As soon as you get out the barn door, we’ll have Miss Prima Donna on our hands again.”
Flora giggled. “She’s not bad, Hank.”
“Oh, just perfectly willing to kick the stall door down if you don’t come when she wants you to.”
“I’ll make some more calls about the jets, Hank,” John said over his shoulder as he and Flora headed out of the barn.
“Somebody ought to be able to do something,” Hank said.
The cell phone in John’s pocket rang. “You go on up, honey. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay, Daddy.” She sprinted off across the yard, disappearing through the back door even as he reached for the phone, punched a button and said, “Hello.”
“Hey. Hear you’re havin’ a reunion out there.”
John looked down at the grass, gave a renegade dandelion a booted swat. “Hey, Cleeve. Wish I could deny it.”
“What’d I tell you about being the nice guy?”
“I’m not feeling too nice these days.”
“Well, this oughta at least qualify you for sainthood or somethin’ darn close.”
“Somethin’.” John smiled, Cleeve’s intention, he was sure. Getting John to smile had been one of Cleeve’s goals for the better part of the past two years. It wasn’t often he succeeded, but Cleeve was a firm believer in humor’s ability to heal most of life’s gashes. “When’d you get back?”
“Just last night. Late. If they weren’t willing to pay so dang much for a good bale of horse hay down there, I’d find somewhere other than Florida to sell it. Takes me a few days to catch up on my beauty sleep.”
“Not that you’re vain or anything.” Cleeve Harper ran a dairy on the other side of the county. He was the closest thing John had to a best friend, if men admitted to such things. They’d known each other since the first day of first grade, had both been into horses and cattle when other boys they’d grown up with had been playing with construction sets and footballs.
“You gotta admit it’ll be interesting to see how all those girls turned out tonight.”
John tipped the bill of his baseball cap back, rubbed the spot in the center of his forehead where a dull ache had begun. “There’s that, I guess.”
Cleeve chuckled. “So you think she’ll—”
The cell phone squawked, then blanked out for a second.
“I didn’t