Almost Home. Debbie Macomber

coat reaches my ankles. I resemble an overgrown caterpillar. I’ll take the extra vitamin C and green tea you sent, and I’ll do the earth mud mask …. I love you, too ….”

      Chapter Seven

      Gina Martinez is actually quite famous for her pet-communicating skills. She speaks to animal lovers at conventions all over the country. She’s even been on talk shows and has written newspaper articles about her abilities. She 100 percent believes that she can talk to animals and is quite persuasive.

      She was especially persuasive the next night, when she got me and Brenda in our black burglar outfits once again and drove us down a dark and bumpy road on the south side of the island for the rescue mission. Gina was dressed in purple, head to foot. I have no idea why. Reuby was there, too. He wore black.

      “Don’t take any pictures with your cell phone, Reuby,” Gina warned. “None. We can’t have any evidence.”

      “Got it, Authority Figure. It wouldn’t be cool to be the guy in court who has to tell the judge his mother is a horse thief, he’s got the evidence, and she should go to jail.”

      Gina rolled her eyes. “No wonder your hamster says you drive him crazy, Reuby.”

      I sighed. Now I could add “horse thief” to my resume.

      We watched the dilapidated house and rickety barn where the poor horse who was “battling depression and enduring anxiety attacks” lived. I didn’t know about the anxiety attacks, but there was no disputing Gordon the horse was underfed, sickly, thin, weak, and uncared for, as I had noted days before on our spy mission.

      Red Scanlon, a cantankerous drunk whom everyone on the island hated because he was a cantankerous drunk, would soon leave for the local bar on his bicycle, that was a given. Twice he’d parked his truck sideways in the middle of the main street of the island and passed out after a foray to the bar.

      The second time it happened, with Red locked up in the jail, someone took the truck and exploded it in the middle of a field. The insurance paid out, Red got drunk again, rammed the drugstore with his new truck, almost rammed a kid, and whaddya know, his truck mysteriously ended up in a lake. (Perhaps we did that).

      The chief made sure he lost his license, locked him up again, fined him to the high heavens, and now mean Red was allowed a bicycle.

      When the cantankerous drunk bicycled off five minutes later, we horse thieves pulled our black-knitted hats over our entire faces with only our eyes and mouths showing and went for Gordon.

      Gina turned on the light in that sagging barn as soon as we walked in, and that pathetic, bony horse met my eyes. I wanted to cry. I went over and hugged him with my black gloves.

      “I’ll get the trailer,” Brenda said. Though the black hat covered most of her face, I did not miss the tears in her eyes.

      The next morning the chief was out hunting down the horse.

      Everyone knew that Gina had taken it. About ten people called Gina telling her the chief was on his way out to her property. How did they all know this? The chief stopped by Marci’s Whale-Jumping Café and announced quite loudly that old Red Scanlon’s horse was missing and he knew where he might find it. Apparently Red had roused himself and called in the loss that morning.

      The chief took his time eating his eggs and bacon with three cups of black coffee and pretended not to notice when half the place took out their cell phones.

      When Gina got notice, she trotted Gordon over with Reuby to my place through the field and forest separating our homes.

      Brenda and I met them halfway. I grabbed the reins. Brenda and I were still in pajamas, our hair flattened and sticking out in strange ways. Gina had fed the horse the night before—“I thought he’d never stop eating!”—and had brushed him out. “He says his self-esteem is growing exponentially!”

      “Hey! Can I come over to walk the dogs today, Chalese?” Reuby asked, fiddling with his eyebrow ring.

      “Anytime,” I said. “You can visit the cats, too. I’ve hardly paid them any attention, and they’re getting cranky and spiteful.”

      “Radical. I’m going to take their pictures with my cell phone and put them on my MySpace page.”

      “Fine by me. Shoot away.”

      Brenda and I led the horse with better self-esteem into my dilapidated but clean barn, rustled up fresh food and water, then wearily climbed the stairs to the porch and dropped into the Adirondack chairs to watch the sun warm my land.

      “The horse stealers prevail,” Brenda said, fists shaking victoriously in the air. “We were probably horse rustlers in a previous life, guns hanging all over our hips, big pink cowboy hats, spurs on our silver heels, golden lassos swinging all around.”

      “I think you’re right. I have often felt a real bond with lassos,” I mused. “Horses. Cowboys. The Wild West. Stagecoach drivers. More cowboys.”

      “I think ya got your own cowboy right now, my friend,” Brenda said. “He’s a winner, sweetie. Smart, nice, tight ass, good teeth. Try not to get that suffocating feeling around him, will you? You can do this, you know. To relax, why don’t you dress up as a pirate? That’s what I did the other night with Chatham. I even had a gold ring in my nose. Chatham was the wench.”

      “Man, Brenda. You are one wild woman.”

      “It’s stimulating to let my creative streak out in the bedroom, hon. It’s a rush for the libido.”

      “I think if I dressed up, I’d be a flamingo.”

      “A flamingo? What are you talking about? Geez, Chalese, why don’t you dress as a giraffe? Or a snake? That’d be about as much of a turn-on as a flamingo!”

      “I admire flamingos. They’re flexible, they can wind around each other’s necks—”

      The ring of my phone interrupted my flamingo thoughts. “Hide the horse, hide the horse, the chief is coming your way,” Gina yelled. “Hide him!”

      “Hide him!” I screamed back as Brenda leaped off her chair. “Where? You have the trailer!”

      “Put him in your kitchen.”

      “My kitchen! I can’t put him in my kitchen! Too small.”

      “Hurry!” Gina screamed.

      Brenda and I were up and running in our pajamas again, our hair flattened and sticking out in strange ways.

      Turns out the dining room was a good fit, although the cranky, spiteful cats were not appreciative of this new guest.

      Funny enough, after the chief checked my barn and property, he never thought to hunt for a horse in the dining room.

      Later, a friend of Gina’s came by with a horse trailer. Gordon was on the mainland and in a cozy horse shelter with a sizeable donation from me by eight o’clock that night, working on his self-esteem.

      “That can’t happen again, Chalese,” Aiden told me the next day, trying to keep the smile off his face. “I’m sorry. My fault. I never should have kissed you.”

      I pulled my robe closer to my body. It was eleven in the morning, after all, and I had a deadline. I knew of other writers who didn’t peel their pajamas from their bodies until their kids got home from school. At least I’d had a shower and brushed my teeth.

      “Uh …” I said. “Am I supposed to say thanks? Thanks for apologizing? Thanks for not kissing me again? Thanks for coming by and telling me you’ll never kiss me again?”

      “I don’t need the thanks, Chalese, but I want to apologize.”

      How surprised would Aiden be if I all of a sudden ripped my robe open and wriggled about naked like a flexible flamingo?

      Nah. Couldn’t do that. Too much stomach, too much