Every Wild Heart Page 20

  “What are you saying?” I asked.

  Nic glanced at Denny, then back at me. “I rode her once already.”

  “What?” said Denny. “No, you didn’t. I would never have let you.”

  “You weren’t here,” Nic said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. “You were at home. It was late at night.”

  “What?” Denny and I said, in unison. Peach jumped away from us. My heart skittered in my chest, but Nic sat still in the saddle as though the horse hadn’t moved an inch. I didn’t even see her flinch.

  “You need to get off that horse right now,” I said.

  “I can’t. I still need to cool her down.” Her words shook with the quiet timbre of desperation.

  “Off,” Denny said. I could see his jawline tensing. “Now. You can walk Peach from the ground.”

  Nic’s shoulders slumped. She swung a leg behind her and slipped off Peach’s back. She turned toward Denny and me slowly, as though facing a firing squad.

  “How did you get here at night without me knowing? Who drove you?” I asked.

  “A friend.”

  “Who?”

  Nic looked down at her feet.

  “Who?” I demanded.

  “His name is Lucas. He goes to Kirke.”

  I shook my head angrily. Lucas. He must have been the same kid who helped her take that boy’s car off school property. As mad as I was, I could feel Denny’s anger looming even larger beside me. “Go,” I told Nic, waving her away. “Go walk that horse.”

  Denny watched her go. “I can’t believe she would do this,” he said. “What if she’d been hurt?”

  I turned to him. “You don’t lock the barn at night?”

  He bristled. “I lock the gate at the bottom of the drive.”

  I took a deep breath, reminding myself that Denny wasn’t the one I was angry with. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . .” I sighed. “This isn’t your fault. Nic did this. I can’t believe she did this.” I could hardly bear to think of what could have happened to her. How had she managed to get past the security guard at our house? Who was this child? It was as though she had changed overnight, and I had no idea how much the accident was to blame.

  Denny stuck his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, squinting out at Nic and Peach as they walked around the far end of the ring. Nic was talking to the horse, and possibly crying. The low hum of her voice carried across the ring to us. The horse seemed to lean toward her slightly as they walked.

  “She’s fourteen years old,” I said. “Maybe I just need to tell her she’s not allowed to ride anymore.”

  Denny’s eyes followed Nic and Peach. He didn’t answer.

  “But it would be like taking away her spirit,” I said after a moment. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “No, I don’t think you could,” Denny said. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Or should.”

  We both watched Nic and Peach for a few moments in silence.

  “I don’t quite understand how she’s done it,” Denny said quietly, “but in all likelihood your daughter has just saved that horse’s life.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Wow.”

  “You know she’s going to want to ride her again.”

  I groaned. “Whatever happened to good old safe and steady Tru?”

  Denny shot me a rueful grin. “Remember my mom putting you on those ponies? I think your daughter has officially discovered her inherited need for speed.” He adjusted the brim of his hat. “This isn’t great timing, G.G., but there was something I wanted to—”

  “She’s cool now,” Nic called, strolling toward us with Peach trailing behind.

  “Keep walking!” I barked. When I turned back to Denny, he was studying me, amused. “What were you saying?” I prompted.

  “Oh, just that I noticed that Patti Smith is playing in San Francisco next weekend. Do you want to go with me?”

  “You have tickets to the Patti Smith show? At the Fillmore?”

  “Well, no. Not yet. I wanted to ask you first.”

  I smiled at him. “I’m sure it’s sold out by now.”

  Denny looked crestfallen. “Shit.”

  After checking to make sure Nic wasn’t watching, I couldn’t resist reaching out to touch his arm. I shouldn’t have done it, though; it only made me want more.

  “Lucky for us, I already have tickets through work,” I said. For the moment, my anger at Nic was displaced by the thought of seeing Denny again soon.

  I’D ALWAYS THOUGHT that I would be able to sense if someone had been in my home without me knowing, but it turned out I was wrong. Or maybe I’d been lulled into a false sense of security by the sight of Bodie, the security guard who stood watch outside. Or maybe I was distracted by the fact that Nic and I had spent most of the drive home from the barn arguing. I stepped through the front door, walked to the kitchen to get a drink of water, and stopped. In the middle of the counter was a vase of dead red roses, their limp, blackened petals hanging from broken stems. The water in the vase was murky; the air smelled of rot.

  When we left for Corcoran Stables that morning after breakfast, there were no flowers in the kitchen. The counter had been clear. I’d wiped it clean myself.

  Nic followed me into the kitchen and wrinkled her nose at the smell. “Yuck,” she said. “Where did those come from?”

  “I have no idea.” The only people who had keys to our home besides Nic and me were Tyler and Simone. There was no chance that either of them had entered the house while we were at the barn and left those rotten flowers behind. I stepped closer to the counter. There was no note, no explanation, just a vase of dead flowers on broken stems.

  “‘Roses are the loneliest flowers,’” said Nic, behind me. “‘If someone gave me roses, I’d consider it a threat.’”

  I turned and stared at her. She was quoting me. I’d said this, or something like this, during a show weeks earlier, in response to a woman who had called and told me that her husband kept treating her like shit and then trying to make up for it with bouquets of roses. I knew Nic listened to the show occasionally, but it was deeply unsettling to hear her quoting me as we stood in our kitchen inhaling the stink of the rotten flowers that had been placed in our home while we were out.

  I had the disturbing sense that the house was holding its breath, quietly watching and waiting. Somewhere in the neighborhood, a driver repeatedly pressed his car horn.

  “We need to go,” I said. With one hand I guided Nic toward the front door, and with the other I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed 911.

  Chapter 18

  The silver lining of the creepy flower incident was that it completely distracted Nic’s mom from how angry she was about the Peach situation. Two police officers arrived and searched the house and determined that nothing had been stolen. Bodie, the security guard, was sure that no one had entered through the front door. There were no broken door locks or windows. Other than the flowers, the house was just as Nic and her mother had left it.

  “Who else has a key to your house?” one of the officers asked Nic’s mother. “And knows the alarm code?”

  “Just my ex-husband and my best friend. Neither one of them would do this.” Her mother kept asking Bodie if he’d seen a woman lingering around the house—an old fan of hers who Nic gathered had given her mother some sort of trouble in the past—but he told her that he hadn’t seen anyone who looked suspicious.

  The officer asked for Nic’s dad’s contact information. By then, Simone had arrived and she, too, spoke briefly with the policemen. After that, it became obvious that their only lingering interest in the break-in was that it had happened to Gail Gideon. It seemed to Nic that her mom signed more autographs than police paperwork that night.

  Simone kept insisting that they spend the night at her house, but Nic’s mom turned down the offer. She said that she refused to be chased out of her own home. Also, she said, Simone was a prime suspect.

  Simone had laughed and said something ab
out how they could rule her out because if she’d broken into the house she would have stolen all of Nic’s mom’s Velvet Underground CDs. This must have been an inside joke between the two of them because Nic’s mom rolled her eyes and laughed. It was the first time since they’d left the barn that the twin lines of worry between her eyes smoothed.

  Later that night, Nic’s mom seemed to finally remember how mad she was at Nic. When she threatened to call Lucas’s parents, Nic talked her out of it.

  “Please don’t get him in trouble,” she said. “His mom is in a really weird place right now and, anyway, it was all my idea. He was only trying to help me.”

  Her mother leaned back into the couch and studied her. “It seems like every time there is some sort of trouble, this Lucas guy is nearby.”

  “Twice, Mom. Hunter Nolan’s car and one time riding Peach at night. That’s it.” She could see that her answer didn’t sit well with her mother, so she hurried to add, “It’s not going to happen again. It’s over.”

  “With Lucas?”

  “No. The lying is over. Not Lucas.”

  TO HER RELIEF, Nic’s mom allowed her to continue riding, but only Tru, and only in the ring with Denny or another riding instructor present. Riding Tru was like holding a pair of her own baby shoes in her hands and marveling at their tidy quaintness, the impossible fact that they had once fit. She remembered the depth of her love for him, but she could no longer summon the same feeling—only a sweet, nostalgic affection for the times that they had shared. When she dismounted and her feet hit the ground, it felt like awakening from a pleasant nap.

  After she put away her tack and groomed Tru and returned him to his stall, she stood in front of Peach’s stall. The horse pressed her face against the bars of the stall and Nic rubbed her forehead. Nic wasn’t allowed in her stall. Denny’s orders. She could feel Denny watching as she pet the mare. She hated that he was disappointed in her and she desperately wanted to earn back his trust, but she could not bring herself to regret what she had done. She saw the way that Denny peered into Peach’s stall now, looking at her almost as though she were a new horse. He would never give up on her now that he’d seen what she could achieve with the right rider. Nic had found a way for Peach to show everyone the horse that she could be . . . the horse that she was.

  Nic wandered back into the tack room. She sprayed Murphy oil soap on a small sponge and began to wipe down Peach’s bridle. If she couldn’t ride the mare, she could at least keep her tack clean. Denny appeared in the doorway of the room. He watched her for a few moments, then sighed and said, “Even if your mom agreed to it, I don’t know that I could let you ride her again.”

  Nic didn’t say anything. She worked the dried sweat and grime from the underside of the bridle crown, her fingers growing numb with the effort.

  “Help me understand, Nic,” Denny said. “Start from the beginning.” He sat on her tack trunk and put his hands on his knees.

  Nic glanced at him, then went back to working on the bridle. “I went into her stall the first day I came back to the barn after the accident. She seemed so alone. She was angry, but scared and sad, too. She knew everyone had given up on her and it only made her angrier—she thought she had nothing left to lose. I just stood in there with her at first, but then I kept going in every day—sometimes just for a few minutes. When she started to trust me, I began to groom her a little. She accepted me. I’m not afraid of her, Denny. I feel like I . . . understand her.” And she understands me, Nic almost said, but didn’t. She had a feeling Denny would know that she meant this, too.

  “Sneaking into her stall is bad enough,” he said. “But I really can’t believe you came here at night and rode her. If something had happened to you, your mother would have been devastated. I would have been devastated.” He rubbed at his chin. “You broke my trust, Nic.”

  At this, Nic felt tears well in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I really am. If I’d thought there was any other way, I wouldn’t have done what I did. But I knew you’d never let me ride Peach, and I knew she didn’t have much time. I heard Javi talking about how no one would ever want her because she was too dangerous to save. But I knew Peach wasn’t . . . isn’t . . .” She trailed off. How could she explain this to him?

  “I can feel what she’s going to do, where she’s going to move, Denny. It’s like I know it even before she does. I know what she’s thinking. I can feel what she’s thinking.” Her face was flushed. She didn’t want Denny to think this was a game to her. She didn’t sneak into the barn and ride Peach as some kind of silly prank. She did it because she had to help Peach. She had never felt so sure of anything in her life. She’d seen Denny with horses; if anyone could understand what she was trying to say, it was he.

  “I don’t know why she chose me, but she did. Or we chose each other. But I understand her better than any horse I’ve ever ridden.” Nic grew quiet. “Maybe it’s because of the accident. Maybe something happened to my brain.”

  “And gave you special abilities?” Denny shook his head. “Nic, you’ve always had a gift with horses. Ever since you were a little girl.”

  This is different, though, Nic thought. She was sure of it. Whatever she had with Peach was something she had never had before. If the accident had done this, she was glad. She loved hearing Peach’s thoughts. It was a special gift, and Nic’s alone.

  She rubbed neat’s-foot oil into the leather reins, softening them. She pushed back her shoulders and pressed down into her heels the way she would if she were riding a horse that was beginning to think about trying to lose her. She felt a fire burn in her belly as the muscles at her center engaged.

  “I want to sell Tru and buy Peach. You saw us out there. You saw how she acted, how she moved. She trusts me. I believe in her. You saw it, didn’t you, Denny?”

  He studied her for a moment before replying. “It’s not every day that I get to see riding like that.”

  A compliment from Denny was hard-won. Nic tucked it away in her mind, hoping she would remember it, hoping it would burn brighter than all of the memories that she had of feeling humiliated and embarrassed and invisible.

  “Will you talk to my mom?” she asked. “Convince her to let me ride Peach again?”

  “I don’t think your mom is the kind of person who can be convinced to do something that she doesn’t want to do.” Denny stood and adjusted the rim of his baseball cap. “But I’ll talk to her.”

  Nic threw her arms around him. “Thank you!”

  As Denny was stepping through the tack room door into the aisle, Nic called after him.

  “You know,” she said, “Peach moves well during flat work, but I have this sense that where she’s really going to shine is over jumps.”

  FRIDAY WAS THE day of their Shakespeare presentations and it turned out that Mr. Hylan’s great surprise for the class was that not only would they take the stage one by one in the school’s theater, but that Dr. Clay and their senior buddies from their Freshman Connection class would be in the audience. Nic turned in her seat in the front row and watched as the seniors trailed into the theater. Lucas took a seat a couple of rows behind Nic’s. He smiled at her and raised one dark eyebrow as though in a mix of sympathy and amusement. They’d hardly spoken in school all week, but every time they passed each other in the halls, they shared a private smile. She would feel his eyes following her as though he didn’t want to look away, and she would think of that moment in his car when he had told her that he thought she was amazing, that he believed in her connection with Peach.

  Not long ago, she would have made herself sick worrying over the Shakespeare presentation and begged her mother to let her stay home from school that day. But now, other than a slight concern that she might forget a line, Nic felt calm. She knew the kids that were sitting in that theater really well. Over the past couple of weeks she had made it her duty to know them, to observe them and to try to understand the people that they were becoming. There was so much goodness in them.

  Nic
wrote about their generosity, their humor, their intelligence, their quiet focus, their infectious energy, their unique and subtle strengths on the KirkeKudos Instagram account. The outpouring of support for KirkeKudos both online and in the halls of Kirke seemed to have beaten the Lurk back into his cave; he hadn’t posted in a week. Nic had overheard classmates hypothesizing about who ran the KirkeKudos account, but so far no one had guessed that it was her. She hoped they never would. She suspected the strength of the posts’ impact depended upon anonymity. A compliment from one person could be ignored; a compliment that seemed to come from the community as a collective settled under your skin in a more permanent way.

  Lila nudged her. “Nic, you’re up.”

  Nic walked up the side steps onto the stage. Without hesitation, without even a momentary stutter, she looked out into the audience of her peers and began to recite the lines of the soliloquy she’d been assigned. It was only once she had finished and was walking down the stage steps that she noticed Lila was holding something low in her lap. It was a cell phone, and Nic was fairly certain that her friend had just taken a picture.

  AFTER ALL OF the students had recited their monologues and there was a brief but enthusiastic final burst of applause, the seniors were dismissed to return to their regular classes. Lucas, pulled into the wave of students leaving the theater, flashed Nic a smile. Nic waved back.

  Dr. Clay caught the exchange and sidled up to her. “Well,” she said cheerfully, watching Lucas walk away, “you two seem to get along swimmingly. Your mothers must be pleased.”

  “Our mothers?”

  The teacher’s face clouded. “Oh, that’s right, I wasn’t supposed to mention it. But there’s no harm, really, is there? Lucas came to me when he first arrived at school and asked to be your senior buddy. He told me that your mothers are good friends, and that they worked together on your mother’s show at one time. I thought it sounded like a fine idea. He’d just moved here and was starting school a few weeks late. I could see how a familiar face would be a comfort to him, and it sounded like something both of your mothers would be happy about.”