A Military Match

“Let me know by tomorrow. Dakota is assigned to you, but you can pick another horse for the competition if Dr. Cutter doesn’t think Dakota should participate.”

Lee, who had been waiting nearby, came over after the captain walked away. “Are you going to enter?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

“You can enter, but don’t plan on winning.”

Avery cocked his head to the side. “And why is that?”

“I’ve seen a couple of the riders from the National Guard Volunteers in action. You’ll be outclassed.”

“You just heard the captain say that I’m the best he’s ever seen with a saber.”

“Oh, I agree, but that’s only a quarter of the overall score. You might be as good with a pistol as those boys, but they’ll ride you into the dirt in Military Horsemanship. That’s like dressage and no offence, but you stink at that.”

“Okay, my fancy riding could use some work. You seem to know so much about it, why don’t you give me a few lessons?”

“Me? I’m worse than you are. You need someone who really knows how to work with you and your horse.”

Avery glanced at the men leaving the building. “So which of the guys in the unit is better?”

Lee shoved his hands in his pockets. “I hate to say it, but most of us are pretty average.”

Exasperated, Avery said, “All right, you go to horse shows all the time. Who’s the best in this area? Who can I get a few pointers from?”

Lee burst out laughing.

Avery scowled at him. “What’s so funny?”

Controlling his mirth with difficulty, Lee managed to say, “Jennifer Grant is the best dressage rider in the area, but from what I’ve seen, she isn’t going to give you the time of day.”

Chapter Four

I t was almost dark by the time Jennifer turned into the gravel drive that led to her family’s double-wide mobile home on their twenty acres outside Dutton. To her relief she saw her mother’s green-and-white pickup and horse trailer sitting in front of their small barn. She had been half afraid that her mother wouldn’t be home yet.

The front stoop light came on and Lizzie, followed by twelve-year-old Toby and eight-year-old Ryan, piled out of the door to race toward her. She stopped beside the chain link fence that surrounded their tiny overgrown yard and rolled down her window.

“I smell pizza,” Toby shouted as he pulled open the gate.

Picking up the warm cardboard box from the seat beside her, Jennifer passed it out the window to her eager siblings.

Lizzie took the box, holding it over her head to keep Toby from grabbing it. “I told you she would win.”

Toby snatched the box from his sister’s hand. “I hope it’s pepperoni.”

Lizzie snatched it back. “I hope it’s cheese.”

“Be careful or it will be a dirt pizza,” Jennifer warned, but the two of them were already on their way into the house.

Ryan, the youngest and quietest of the Grant kids, looked up at Jennifer. “Did you win?”

She gave him a tired smile. “I won the dressage class.”

“But not the jumping class?”

“No.”

“Why? Did McCloud miss some jumps?”

“I wish I could blame him, but the truth is, I didn’t get there in time to enter.”

“Oh.” He shoved his hands in the pocket of his jeans and kicked at a bit of gravel with the toe of his shoe. “I guess that means you didn’t win enough to get me a new bike.”

“No. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I only won enough to cover the money I spent to enter, the pizza and feed for the horses.” Jennifer stepped out and began walking to the back of the trailer.

Ryan followed her. “That’s okay. I don’t really need it. It’s almost winter anyway.”

She wanted to hug him, but she knew he wouldn’t appreciate the gesture. He hadn’t been able to go dirt bike riding with his friends since their mother had accidentally run over his bicycle. Jennifer knew he missed hanging out with his buddies, but there were so many other things the family needed first.

“You should go inside before your brother eats your slices of pizza.”

“I’m not hungry. Can I help you put your stuff away?”

“Sure. You get the saddle and pad and I’ll take McCloud. I almost forgot to mention that Dr. Cutter has asked me to keep Isabella for a few day.”

His eyes lit up. “Really? That’s great. She’s a cool rabbit, but won’t Mom be upset? She got kind of mad when Isabella was here last time.”

He stood aside as Jennifer backed her horse out of the trailer. “Mom was just upset because Isabella liked to run in and out of her long skirts and chew on the lace. We’ll keep Isabella in her cage when Mom is in one of her costumes.”

“Maybe we should keep her in the barn.”

Jennifer stopped and looked down at him. “Mom or the rabbit?”

Ryan’s mouth fell open, then he started to laugh and Jennifer grinned, too.

Ten minutes later, they finished putting McCloud out into the pasture with Lollypop, their mother’s black mare. The two horses greeted each other with soft whinnies. Soon they moved off and began grazing together as the last golden rays of sunlight faded from the western sky.

When Jennifer and Ryan entered the house, she sent him to wash up. Lizzie and Toby were sitting on the worn blue sofa in front of the TV. The pizza box, with two small slices remaining, sat open on the kitchen table.

Jennifer washed up at the kitchen sink, then put both slices in the microwave. When Ryan returned, she handed him the plate and a glass of milk. He took it and joined his brother and sister on the couch.

Jennifer settled for a glass of milk and the last apple in the vegetable drawer. After tossing the empty pizza box in the trash, she retrieved her textbooks from her room and returned to the table to study.

A few minutes later, Jennifer looked up as Mary Grant came out of her bedroom and entered the kitchen. Her mother was wearing one of her 1850s-style dresses, a deep blue and white plaid cotton dress with a full skirt over layers of white petticoats.

“Oh, good, you’re home,” Mary said, turning around. “Can you hook me?”

“Are you going out like that?”

“The historical society is meeting at the Dutton mansion in Old Towne tonight.”

“So?” Old Towne was a collection of log cabins, restored businesses and homes from the early 1850s. The Dutton mansion was a simple two-story house with pretentious white columns supporting a small balcony across the front of the building. It was the town historical society’s fondest hope that they could turn the area into a profitable tourist attraction.

“Really, Jennifer. You know as an employee of Old Towne I can’t go onto the property unless I’m in period dress. I am, after all, Henrietta Dutton. I’m not about to greet visitors to my home in anything but my freshest gown.”

Jennifer tugged on the tight bodice and began fastening the long row of hooks down the back of the garment. “It seems kind of silly to dress up when there won’t be any tourists to see you.”

“Perhaps, but this keeps me in the spirit of my role. I can practice greeting important people with the grace and charm of a southern belle.”

Jennifer fastened the last hook. “Don’t you think you’re carrying this a little far?”

Her mother spun around and flipped open a fan suspended from her wrist by a silken cord. “Of course not, darling,” she drawled as she fluttered the dark blue silk and ivory fan beside her face. “I’m simply enjoying my job. Wait until you see my performance on Founder’s Day. This year, for the first time ever, we are staging a stunning re-enactment of Henrietta Dutton’s charge up Dutton Heights. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.”

Snapping shut her accessory, Mary lifted her skirts with both hands and headed for the door. “I won’t be back until late, so don’t wait up. Thank goodness I don’t have to wear a hoop under this thing. I’d never be able to drive in it. But I do wish I had a carriage to ride in. It would so much more appropriate to arrive in a horse-drawn buggy than in my truck.”

As her mother departed in a flurry of petticoats, Jennifer glanced to where her brothers and sister sat on the sofa. They were all watching her with various degrees of concern on their faces.

Lizzie said, “It’s tough enough being the brainy girl in school. Having a mother who thinks she is Betsy Ross on top of that is the pits.”

“Mom does get a bit carried away,” Jennifer admitted.

Toby rose and brought his empty plate to the sink. “Carried away? Our mother is a nut case. She knows more about old Colonel Dutton and his weirdo wife than they did. Who cares what was happening in 1859, anyway?”

Their mother’s passion for re-enacting the past sometimes seemed to border on an obsession, but Jennifer felt the need to defend her.

“If it wasn’t for Mom’s respect for the history of our town and her determination to save our heritage, Henrietta Dutton’s deeds of valor would be forgotten.”

“And the town council wouldn’t have an excuse to hold a money-making festival every year and exploit mother’s zeal, not to mention her time and energy,” Lizzie added.

“When did you get to be such a cynic?” Jennifer asked.

“Between your job and school and riding, I’m the only one left to listen to her grand schemes to expand the widow Dutton’s ride into a national event.”

“I’m here,” Toby said, elbowing his sister when he sat down beside her.

Lizzie elbowed him back. “Oh, like you listen to her. All she talks about is making the exact same ride to show the world how brave Henrietta Dutton was. Mom doesn’t even ask about school or how my chess match went.”

“How did your match go?” Jennifer asked, feeling guilty for not asking sooner.

“I won—as usual. Most boys only think they’re smarter.”

Her comment started another round of elbowing with Toby. Ryan moved to the floor to get away from his jousting siblings.

“Cut it out,” Jennifer said sternly. “I’m sure things will get back to normal after the Founder’s Day Festival. Making the past come alive is Mother’s dream. We need to support her.”

Jennifer opened her textbook and prayed that she was right, but she couldn’t quite silence the nagging doubts at the back of her mind. The kids needed a mother who was involved in their lives, not one so involved with the past that she couldn’t see the present. How did one tell their own parent that they were falling down on their job?

The Founder’s Day Festival was only three weeks away. Jennifer would hold her peace until then, but after her mother made her big ride, they were going to have a mother-daughter heart-to-heart.

On Monday afternoon, when Jennifer was done with her classes for the day, she made her way through the veterinary hospital wards and down the short hall to the front desk at the Large Animal Clinic.

Her mother’s behavior was still on her mind, but she wasn’t as worried as she had been the day before. The entire family had spent Sunday together in a normal, modern-day fashion. They had attended church together and spent the afternoon visiting friends of the family. By the end of the day Jennifer decided that she had been making mountains out of mole hills.

Stephanie, another student who worked part-time in the clinic, sighed with relief when Jennifer opened the office door. “Am I glad to see you.”

“Busy day?” Jennifer tucked her purse into the gray metal cabinet beside the desk and took a chair behind the glass partition that separated them from the client waiting area.

“Three emergency surgeries on cows, two bad lacerations on a pair of draft horses and a sonogram to check if a llama is pregnant. Nothing too weird. I just need to get going. I’ve got an anatomy test this afternoon and I really have to study.”

“Is there anything I need to know?”

“Dr. Wilkes just brought in a ton of stuff to be filed.” Stephanie transferred a large stack of papers to Jennifer’s side of the desk.

“Oh, joy.” Dr. Wilkes was notorious for his bad penmanship.

Stephanie bit her lower lip. “Do you want me to stay and help?”

“No, I’ve got it. Go cram to your heart’s content.”

“You’re a doll, Jennifer.”

“Yes, I know,” Jennifer said, nodding sagely.

Stephanie giggled, then hurried out the door. Jennifer picked up an armful of papers and carried them to the shoulder-high black filing cabinets lining the wall behind her. She peered closely at Dr. Wilkes illegible scrawl and tried to decide if the first letter of the client’s last name was an A, an O or a misshapen D.

Fifteen files later, her eyes were beginning to cross when the sound of the front door opening made her look up in relief. Anything was better than this.

To her surprise, Edmond Barnes walked in followed by his chauffeur. His driver held a glass bowl overflowing with a bright bouquet of autumn-colored flowers.

She smiled at Avery’s grandfather, happy to see he was looking much better. “Mr. Barnes, what are you doing here?”

He took the bouquet from his driver. “I’ve brought a small gift to repay your kindness the other day, Miss Grant.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Jennifer looked at the small opening in the glass partition between them, then hurried out of the office door and around to the waiting area.

He extended the flowers to her. “I didn’t have to do it, I wanted to do it.”

“How on earth did you know that I worked here?”

“You said you were a veterinary student. A few phone calls was all it took to discover that you both attend school and are employed here.”

Taken aback, she said, “That’s actually a little scary.”

His expression showed his surprise followed quickly by genuine distress. “I’m very sorry, Miss Grant. The last thing I want to do is upset you. Please enjoy the flowers and the knowledge that your kindness touched me deeply.”

“I will, thank you very much.” She couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer. Although it was clearly none of her business, she couldn’t help wondering if Mr. Barnes and Avery had made any progress in repairing their relationship.

“Have you been able to accomplish what you came here for?” she asked, hoping he and Avery had been able to heal their breach.

“Reconciling with my grandson? I’m sorry to say I have not, but I’m taking your advice. I don’t plan to give up on him. I did that once and it was my biggest mistake. I’ll be staying in the area for a while, although the service at my current motel leaves a lot to be desired.”

“That’s an easy fix.” Turning around, she retraced her steps into the office. Setting the flowers on the desk, she pulled her purse from the cabinet and withdrew a card for the bed and breakfast next to the café where her mother worked. She slipped it under the glass toward him.

“This place is on the main street of my hometown. It’s only a few miles from here on Highway 24. It’s called the Dutton Inn, but it’s a bed and breakfast. The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Marcus, belong to our church so I can vouch for them. It’s quiet, immaculately clean and the beds have real feather mattresses.”

Edmond took the card. “That certainly sounds better than where I’ve been staying.”

“I’m sure you’ll like it. The town has a historical section that you may enjoy exploring. If you want a really knowledgeable tour guide, my mother, Mary Grant, works at the café next door. She’ll be happy to bend your ear about our history.”

“I may do that. Thank you once again for your kindness and consideration.”

Just then the outside door opened again. Captain Watson and Avery walked in.

Jennifer pressed her lips together and looked down. How long would it take until the sight of Avery’s face stopped twisting her heart with yearning?

Calling herself every kind of fool, she pasted a polite smile on her face and greeted them. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. How may I help you?”

Avery stopped in shock at the sight of his grandfather talking to Jennifer. He had assumed, wrongly it seemed, that the old man had gone back to Boston.

Hanging back as Captain Watson approached the desk and asked to speak with Dr. Cutter, Avery tried to figure out why the head of his family’s empire was still in Kansas.

What motive could Edmond have for remaining in the area? Something wasn’t right.

His grandfather didn’t trust the day-to-day running of his company to anyone. In all the years Avery had known him, he could only remember him missing work once. The day of his son and daughter-in-law’s funeral. The next day, he had gone back to his office, leaving Avery alone in the sprawling mansion.

Jennifer picked up the phone and spoke to Dr. Cutter, then hung up and said, “You may go in, Captain.”

Avery spoke up quickly. “If you don’t need me, sir, I’ll wait here.”

Captain Watson glanced at Avery sharply, but nodded. “I think I can handle it. I shouldn’t be long.”

When his captain left, Avery gave his full attention to his grandfather. “I don’t know how you knew I would be here today, but I don’t have anything to say to you.”

Edmond gave him a tight smile. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I simply stopped by to thank Miss Grant for her kindness the other day. I had no idea you would be here.”

Avery wasn’t sure if he should believe him or not.

With a slight bow, Edmond said, “You have my phone number if you decide you wish to speak with me. Until then, I bid you good day.”

He walked past Avery and left the clinic followed closely by his burley and stoic driver.

Avery watched his grandfather leave, but he knew it wasn’t going to be easy to dismiss the man from his thoughts. Curiosity had the better of him now. What did Edmond have to gain by staying in town?

For a moment, Avery considered the possibility that his grandfather might actually want a reconciliation. The second the idea popped into his head, Avery dismissed it as foolish. And so was the notion that Jennifer had somehow arranged it. His grandfather never allowed sentimentality to influence his decisions.

“He seems like a nice man.” Jennifer said, drawing Avery away from his speculations.

“He isn’t.”

She looked down. “People change sometimes.”

“Not very often.”

He stepped up to the glass in front of the desk. Jennifer turned away and began filing papers, allowing him to spend a few moments admiring her feminine curves.

Watching her, he began to consider that he may have lost more than he’d gained when he’d broken it off with her. He’d been angry when he learned Jennifer had gone behind his back to contact Edmond.

Avery didn’t want anyone to know what a fool he’d made of himself over a scheming woman. Jennifer had made a mistake, but at least her intentions had been good. At the time, her tearful apology and explanation had fallen on deaf ears. All he saw was one more woman who’d betrayed his trust.

He didn’t trust easily, but he’d trusted Jennifer more than anyone in a long time. That was what hurt the most. His attempts at revenge hadn’t eased his pain. They only managed to make him feel worse.

But he felt better now that he was near her.

I miss her. I miss the way she used to smile at me.

Giving himself a mental shake, he looked down. It didn’t matter what he missed. Anything they might have shared between them was long gone. His behavior had made sure of that.

“How have you been?” he asked when the silence had stretched on long enough.

“Fine, thank you.”

“That’s good. How did your meet go last Saturday?”

“Fine, thank you.” Her tone didn’t vary.

“I guess that means you won again. Lee says you’re one of the best riders in the state.”

“Lee is too kind.”

“He’s a fan of yours, for sure. How is it that I didn’t know you were so accomplished? You never went to any shows when we were going out.”

“We went out during the winter. The shows run from April through November.”

“That makes sense. It’s the same for our unit’s exhibitions. To become such an expert you must have had a good teacher.” His show of interest sounded lame even to his own ears.

“I did.” She opened another file drawer without looking at him.

“Who taught you?”

She slammed the file drawer closed and turned to face him. “What do you want?”

He spread his hands wide. “I’m just making conversation.”

“I don’t think so.”

“All right, I’m interested in learning the same type of fancy riding that you do. Who taught you?”

“My grandmother was my coach.”

He decided to cut to the chase. “Does she give lessons?”

“She passed away two years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” So much for his plan to take lessons from the person who had trained her.

“Thank you. I miss her very much. Perhaps that’s why I tried to intervene with you and your grandfather. I know how final it is when you lose them and how much you wish you had had more time with them.”

“I’ve had more than enough time with Edmond. Look, I need to find someone to teach me the basic dressage moves in the next couple of weeks. Money is not an object. I’ll double the going price for lessons. Are you interested?”

She tossed the papers she held onto her desk and folded her arms across her middle. “You’re joking, right?”

“I’m rarely serious, but today is the exception to the rule.”

“Why?”

“What does that matter?”

She tilted her head. “Humor me.”

“Have you heard of the American Cavalry Competition?”

“Of course. I’ve watched it several times.”

“It’s going to be held at Fort Riley next month and I plan to compete for the Sheridan Cup.”

“I remember now. There’s a military dressage class, isn’t there?”

“It counts for one quarter of the overall score. The saber class is a lock for me and I’m sure I can finish in the top three with a pistol, but Lee tells me I need a dressage coach and I believe him. He’s seen some of the other riders in action. So, what do you say?”

“No.”

“What? I just offered you twice the going rate for a few measly lessons.”

“And I said no. I don’t care what you offer to pay me. Money is not an object.”

His temper flared at being thwarted. “You’re just afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands off me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That is so true. I can picture them around your scrawny neck right this minute.”

“That’s not a very Christian attitude, Jenny,” he chided.

Her eyebrows shot up. She opened her mouth and closed it again without saying anything.

He knew a moment’s satisfaction at seeing her speechless, but it quickly evaporated when he watched her bite her lower lip. He had kissed those full sweet lips before. He wanted to kiss her again.

She said, “It wasn’t a very Christian thing to say, but as you so clearly pointed out to me when we were dating, you are not a Christian. Good luck in finding someone to give you lessons.” She picked up her papers and turned her back on him.

The captain came out of Dr. Cutter’s office with a smile on his face. “Good news. Dr. Cutter has cleared Dakota to return to full duty. I can’t wait to tell the rest of the men. With proper conditioning, he should be fit to ride in the competition.”

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