He shrugged. “The braces are a pain to put on and a pain to wear. Sometimes I let it slide, you know? You do have Wi-Fi, right?”
“Yes, Mickey, even here in the outer reaches of space we have Wi-Fi. See you in the common room in fifteen minutes.” She shut his door behind her.
The other trainee room on the first floor had been given to Mary Anne Howell, since she was the only female. Charlie knocked on her door, which stood ajar.
“Settling in all right?” she asked.
Mary Ann turned away and pulled down the sleeve of her shirt to cover the edge of her glove. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
“It’s Charlie, not ma’am, okay?” Charlie wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to cover up, that nobody cared about her scars. Not quite true. Mary Anne cared. Charlie didn’t know the extent of her disfigurement. The others might not, either.
Upstairs, Sean and Hank had rooms across the hall from one another. Charlie reminded them both about the meeting in the common room. “Short orientation, then lunch.”
O’Riley followed her down the hall, caught her arm and said, “Ma’am, better let me bring the major.”
By that time she’d reached Jake’s room. The door stood wide open, and she could see him sitting on the edge of his bed, his hands loose in his lap, while he stared out the window. What was he seeing? The trees and fields, or something else?
“Hey, Jake, buddy, we’ve got to go downstairs for a meeting,” O’Riley said. “You gotta be hungry.”
Without a word, Jake stood. As he passed Charlie in the doorway, he flashed her a smile so sweet it took her breath away. Watching him walk down the hall and start down the steps, she noticed the limp. She pointed to Sean’s room, followed him in and shut the door.
“Okay, what’s with Major Thompson?”
“He’s a good man.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“He took shrapnel in his knee. Knees don’t ever heal right, so he’ll always limp.”
“Sean, that’s not all. I need to know, if I’m going to train him to drive a horse-drawn carriage and take care of draft horses.”
Sean sank onto his bed. Charlie leaned against the wall.
“All I know, he was wounded in an ambush in Iraq. He got out with a bum knee. Nobody else did. Since then he can’t make decisions.” O’Riley shrugged. “Hard to hold a job.”
“I’ll bet.”
“He was my roommate at our halfway house, so I’ve been kind of looking after him since I went there to learn to use my hand.”
Great. So far, the kid in the wheelchair showed the most potential of the lot.
Sean could crush a carriage shaft with his prosthetic hand. Mary Ann wouldn’t look straight ahead, take off her glove or wear a short-sleeved shirt in Memphis heat because of what must be burn scars on her arm. The handsome rodeo rider with one foot gave every impression of being both bad-tempered and bitter.
And finally, Jake Thompson wouldn’t be able to take the reins on a carriage because he couldn’t make a decision about which way to go.
Lovely.
If she could train these people to drive well enough to land them jobs with carriage outfits after they finished the course, she deserved a medal—she just hoped it wouldn’t be a Purple Heart.
CHAPTER TWO
THE COLONEL LEANED one arm along the rough wood mantel in the big common room while he waited for the others to find places to sit. He was always relaxed with patients and strangers. Not so much with his family. When he noticed them.
“Where’s the major?” Charlie asked. “He came down just before us.”
“I’ll go find him,” Sean said, and started for the door to the stable.
Charlie touched his arm. “You need to listen to this. I’ll find him.”
“But...”
She was already out the door. Maybe Major Thompson had decided he couldn’t endure being so close to other people. Had he walked to the road to hitchhike back to Memphis?
According to Sean, he didn’t have that much gumption.
Several of the horses that weren’t out in pasture were taking midmorning naps in their stalls. A couple snored. Over their snuffles she heard a soft male voice. As she stood listening, her cell phone rang. She snatched it out of her jeans and answered quietly.
“Charlie, it’s DeMarcus. They there yet?”
“Half an hour ago,” she told the farmhand.
“You know I’m not happy the colonel gave me and Maurice two weeks’ vacation, even if he is paying us. You gonna be able to do it all with just those folks to help?”
“I have to try.”
DeMarcus snorted. “Huh. He’s got no kinda idea how much work goes into keeping the pastures cut and the barn clean. You want us to come back? Give you a hand?”
“Give me a couple of days to see if I can manage. I may call you screaming for help.”
“You know you got shavings coming first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I’ve also got three trace mineral blocks and a dozen fifty-pound bags of oats in the back of the truck.”
“Don’t you unload ’em by yourself!”
“I promise I won’t. Bye, DeMarcus. Have fun on your vacation.” She sighed as she stuck her cell phone back into her jeans. Hank, Jake and Sean all looked capable of stacking bags of oats and shoveling shavings. She had argued and argued with her father about giving the regular grooms time off, but he wanted the students to learn to do everything themselves.
“They’ll have to know the basics if they’re going to work with horses,” he had said.
Actually, it wasn’t that big an operation. The new arrivals should be able to handle things with her to straw boss them. Jake was still talking. Sounded as though he was down by the double stall where the stallion Picard held court.
The nineteen-hand black shire was usually a good guy unless you tried to get between him and a mare in heat, but he was still a stallion, given to mood swings from loving to irascible. Always arrogant. For safety’s sake, the rule was that nobody messed with him without backup.
Jake hadn’t gotten the word. She found him inside the stall running a dandy brush over Picard’s shining black pelt, while the big horse leaned into him and sighed in ecstasy. “Who’s a good boy, then?” Jake crooned. “You’re a fine old boy, aren’t you?” His gentle voice warmed something deep inside her.
She held her breath so that she wouldn’t spook either man or horse and waited for Jake to notice her. It was like watching your child play in the gorilla cage at the zoo.
“Uh, Major? Jake?” Charlie whispered.
Jake’s shoulders stiffened, and he dug the brush into Picard’s shoulder so hard the stallion gave an annoyed “harrumph.”
“We’re late for the orientation meeting,” she said, emphasizing the we. “I came to get you.” She held her hand out to him. He opened the stall door and laid the brush on her outstretched palm.
“I broke the rules?” he asked.
Working alone with Picard was definitely against the rules, but nothing had happened. “We don’t generally go into his stall without someone outside in case there’s a mare in season he wants to get to. He can be a handful,