Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(60)

She straightened, blinked her eyes, and fluttered her fingers beside them to accentuate the way Barbara Caldwell talked.

“Tonight!”

“What time?”

“Seven.”

“Oh, well, that’s plenty of time. What does she want to serve?”

“Pasta!” Dorothy fairly spat the word.

Sadie hid a smile. How well she knew the disdain Dorothy held for any food that was not plain, home-cooked, and old-fashioned.

Dorothy flopped a tea towel in the direction of the steam coming from the just-opened commercial dishwasher. Sadie went to the wall and flipped a switch. The great ceiling fans were activated, pulling up the steam and clearing the air as Dorothy hustled about, fussing and complaining as she fried ground beef.

“Never saw a woman put on so many airs. Now you know her family ain’t that highfalutin. Pasta! Likely them kids don’t even know what that olive oil coated stuff is. Fresh green peppers. That means Jim has to drive his truck to town, and fuel ain’t cheap. I’ll tell you what, it’s goin’ on my paper when I hand in my hours. I ain’t payin’ the gas outta my own pocket to get her green peppers for that smelly, slippery pasta dish. No way!”

She gave the ground beef a final stir, banged the wooden spoon on the edge of the frying pan, and slid the whole panful of sizzling meat into the large container of vegetable soup.

Sadie held her breath, hoping none of it would fall on Dorothy’s dress front. She was so short and her arms were so heavy, it looked as if the pan was actually higher than her head.

“You better get started, Sadie,” she snapped.

It was bad. When Dorothy talked to her in that tone of voice, Sadie knew she’d better buckle down, keep her head lowered, and work swiftly.

She had just reached for the great wooden cutting board when the door burst open so hard, it banged against the counter top. Jim came barging through, a hand going to his hat, clumping it down harder on his head as he sat down.

“Dorothy!”

“James Sevarr, you slow down this instant! If you don’t pop a blood vessel in your head, I’ll be surprised. What in the world is up with you?”

“I can’t slow down now. You know them wild horses?” He reached up and grabbed his hat off his head, his head white in comparison to the rest of his face.

“Them horses, mind you! Hey, Sadie! You know the bend in the road where that horse of yours come charging across and fell that time?”

Sadie hurried over to the table, her hands gripping the edge. She felt the color drain from her face.

“Yes?”

“I was drivin’ down through—almost exactly the same place—and here they come! They was scared, every last one. Skinny lookin’ bunch. Long hair on ’em. There’s definitely a big, black one in the lead. Looks wilder than a bunch of mustangs. I ain’t never seen nothing like it in all my days.”

He clasped his hat back on his head, shook his hands free of his gloves, and walked over to the stove to warm them, sniffing the pot of vegetable soup.

Dorothy rested her fists on her hips, her feet encased firmly in the shoes she bought at Dollar General in town.

“Jim, first off, decide if you’re gonna wear that hat or if you’re gonna take it off. Same thing with the gloves. And get away from my vegetable soup this instant. Yer breathin’ down into it.”

He brushed her off like a fly.

“And, Sadie, I’m havin’ a meetin’ with the men at the lunch table. We’re getting’ together with the fire company an’ somethin’s gonna be done. We’re gonna round ’em up. At least go after ’em. They’re here, ain’t no doubt about it, an’ they’ve racked up enough of mischief, ’n I mean it. You know that feller down by Hollingworth? Somethin’ ripped into his fence—barb wire strung out all over the place. It’s them horses.”

Sadie was breathless with excitement.

“Oh, Jim! I wish I could go!”

“You can!”

Sadie laughed, her cheeks flushing.

“If I had Nevaeh, I would.”

“Jim Sevarr, don’t you take this here young girl out gallivantin’ after some wild horses. Don’t even think about it!”

The soup was bubbling over and a whole pile of vegetables needed to be chopped, but Sadie didn’t even notice.

Oh, to have Nevaeh, Sadie thought. She knew her mother would never let her go with the men, but to ride Nevaeh like that was all she had dreamed about for weeks. Nevaeh had been like Paris—except in color. But now she would never know how beautiful Nevaeh could become—especially in the summer when he lost all his winter coat, leaving his soft, silky new coat shining in the spring sunshine.

The part of his death that was hardest to bear was the thought of all the rides they could never have. They would have traveled for miles and miles, enjoying the beauty of the Montana landscape which was breathtaking in the spring.

And now he was gone. The truck had bounced back through the snow, and they had winched his large, dead body onto it while the vultures circled overhead in the winter sunshine. Now everything seemed gray and dead and sad, even the sun.

She had ridden along with Dat. He hadn’t wanted her to, but she did. She wanted to make sure that Nevaeh’s leg really was broken as badly as they said. It was, and that gave her a measure of peace. Nothing is quite as final as a grotesquely bent limb on an animal as awesome-looking as Nevaeh. But it was severely broken, no matter if she wanted to see it or not, and he never could have lived a normal life with it.