Snow was beginning to fall gently. The little horse stamped his feet and shook his mane, and a lovely smell drifted up from him. In the background was a redbrick farmhouse, snow drifts in the front yard, a cheery wreath on the front door.
Ace had told her that was her aunt Molly’s house, and that she wasn’t home right now. Happy had been her Christmas gift from her aunt last year.
Morgan thought it took a pretty special aunt to know what a hard time Christmas would be for this child, and to come up with a gift good enough to make a dent in all that sadness.
In fact mischief and merriment seemed to dance in the air around the pony. Finally, Nate loaded her and Ace into a red sleigh. The pony did have bells on, and as it set off, their music filled the air.
And that was about the only part of Morgan’s fantasy that had been realistic. Nate wasn’t even cuddled under a blanket with her and Ace. He walked to one side of the pony, trying to persuade him to keep up a forward motion.
An hour later, Morgan thought she had never laughed so hard in her entire life. She was doubled over she was laughing so hard.
“You have to stop,” Morgan gasped. She was begging.
“We are stopped,” Nate pointed out, not sharing her amusement. “That’s the problem. Unhappy hasn’t moved for ten minutes.”
It was snowing, but it was no longer big, gentle flakes floating down around them. It was coming down hard now, the wind whipping it up in gusts around the sleigh. But even the freezing cold could not dampen Morgan’s enjoyment.
Nate stood in front of Happy, pulling on the pony’s obstinate head, trying to get him to move.
The pony had pulled the little sleigh, with Ace and Morgan in it, only in stops and starts, mostly stops. Ace held the reins, and jiggled them and shouted encouragement, while her father walked slightly behind and to the right of the pony.
Forward movement was accomplished sporadically when Nate slapped the pony’s ample brown-and-white rump with his gloves.
Now, a mile from the house, Happy was no longer startled by the rather frequent popping across his rump with the gloves. Apparently he had decided against forward motion and was not going to be persuaded with glove smacks.
“I think he likes it,” Morgan said, watching the pony sway his rump happily into the pressure of Nate’s hand after every increasingly vigorous smack with the gloves. Happy turned his head just enough that she could see the pony’s decidedly beady eyes half shut in an expression that Morgan had to assume was pure pleasure.
Nate had his hands firmly planted on either side of the pony’s headstall and was leaning back hard on his heels, pulling with all his might.
“Come on, you dastardly little devil.”
Considerable as Nate’s might was, the pony outweighed him by several hundred pounds. Happy planted his own feet, and showed Nate he wasn’t the only one who could lean back!
“There’s a dog-food factory waiting for you!” Nate warned the pony darkly. “One phone call. The meat wagon comes by here on Monday.”
“Please stop,” Morgan begged again. All this cold, all this jolting and all this laughter was having the most unfortunate effect on her kidneys.
“He’s just kidding,” Ace whispered. “He says that every time.”
The pony stepped back instead of forward, pulling Nate with him.
“On second thought, dog food is too good for you,” Nate muttered. “Bear bait. The bear-bait wagon comes by on Wednesday.”
The pony cocked his head, as if he was actually considering this, then stepped back again, yanking Nate backward with him.
“Please,” Morgan moaned.
“It’s time for the apple,” Ace yelled. If she was enjoying her sleigh ride any less for its lack of forward movement it didn’t show in her shining face.
“I am not bribing him to move. I’m just not. It’s a matter of pride with me. Hathoways are renowned for their pride, Morgan.”
But after another few minutes of unsuccessfully playing tug-of-war with the four-hundred-pound pony, Nate sighed and produced an apple, apparently kept on hand for just this purpose.
With a sigh of resignation, he held it at arm’s length. Happy opened one eye, caught sight of the apple and lurched forward.
A terrible move for a suffering kidney.
“Greedy little pig,” Nate muttered, keeping the apple carefully out of the snapping pony’s reach and breaking into a jog.
Morgan howled with laughter as the fat pony stirred himself into a trot, stretching his neck hard to get the apple. The sleigh jolted along behind him, as Nate wisely looped back toward the barn while the pony was moving!
They finally got back to the barn, Happy’s only true ambition demonstrated when that building came back into view and he broke into a clumsy gallop that had Nate running to keep up.
“Give him the apple, Daddy,” Ace insisted when they arrived at the barn door.
Panting, Nate obliged, yanking back his fingers when Happy tried to devour them along with the apple.
Morgan decided then and there you could learn a lot about the true nature of a man from how he bargained with a pony—and from the lengths he was willing to go to make his daughter happy.
Nate helped Morgan out of the sled with a rueful grin. He gave a little bow. “I see I have entertained you.” And then more solemnly revealed, looking at her so intently her face burned, “I like it when you laugh, Morgan McGuire.”
“I like it, too.”
“I’m sure that this was not exactly what you pictured when I promised you a sleigh ride.”
“The truth?” she said. “It’s not. And it was so much better! Except for one thing.” She leaned forward and whispered her urgent need to him.
“Ace? Take Miss McGuire up to the house.”
The door of the farmhouse opened just as they arrived. An attractive wholesome-looking woman with dark hair and a Christmas sweater smiled her welcome at them.
“Aunt Molly!” Ace cried.
“You must be frozen,” Molly said, as she gave Ace a huge hug.
“Actually,” Morgan said awkwardly, “if you could point me in the direction of—”
Thankfully she didn’t even have to finish the sentence, because Molly laughed. “Right there. I’ve jounced around in that sled, too.”
When Morgan joined them again, Molly explained she had been out Christmas shopping when they arrived.
“How was Happy today?” she asked her niece.
“Happy was extra bad for Daddy today,” Ace declared gleefully.
“Oh, good,” Molly said, and they all shared a laugh that made Morgan feel, again, that deepening sense of family, of being part of a sacred circle. She had a sense of ease with Molly that usually she would not have with a person quite so quickly.
“I’m Morgan McGuire, Ace’s teacher,” Morgan said, extending her hand.
“Oh, the famous Mrs. McGuire.”
“It’s Miss. I can’t get that through to the kids. I’ve stopped trying.”
“Miss. Oh,” Molly said, and she turned and looked down to where Nate was taking the harness off the pony. Her eyes went back to Morgan full of soft question.
Questions that Morgan was thankful had not been spoken out loud, because she would have had no idea how to answer them.
There was