Starting Over in Maple Bay by Brittney Joy

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

 

 

 

Jesse had gone to his client’s barn first thing Monday morning, but he couldn’t focus on training horses. His mind was stuck on Hazel and he needed to talk to her. He couldn’t wait to say his piece, so he got in his truck and drove to Frankie’s. When he arrived, Frankie called for him from the arena and asked if he could go with Tommy to grab the two rescue horses. Their owner had just arrived. But what should’ve been a fifteen-minute chore turned into a full-on disaster.

As he and Tommy led the two horses to their awaiting trailer, Hazel appeared from the barn. She wore jeans, a t-shirt, and Rose’s cowboy boots. Her red hair gleamed in the sun and was twirled into a bun at the nape of her neck. She looked beautiful, as always, but seemed preoccupied. She didn’t look his way and walked toward Frankie with papers in her hand. Hazel and Frankie exchanged words, and the conversation seemed off. Were they fighting about something? Just as Jesse contemplated what they could be arguing about, Hazel waved the paper in her hand like a flag. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Jesse and Tommy were directly behind Hazel, leading the horses toward an open trailer. The horses were already on alert, and their owner had mentioned they weren’t the best loaders. The flailing paper tipped Tommy’s horse over the edge and he reared up. Jesse’s horse reacted to his horse-buddy’s explosion.

In a matter of seconds, Tommy was being dragged along the ground, and the horse got loose. Jesse quickly handed his horse off to its owner and went to make sure Tommy was okay, but the little boy was already on his feet, reassuring Frankie that he’d only skinned his elbows. By that time, the loose horse had made a grand entrance into the arena and Jesse lost his breath, knowing they were in an emergency situation. The horse was frantically running, and all the camp kids were in the arena, way too close to danger. Jesse and Frankie moved fast, jumping into the arena as they told the kids to get out of it, but they couldn’t stop the loose horse from sprinting toward Patches and Grace.

Patches moved out of the way of the stampeding horse, but the movement was too quick for Grace, and she ended up in the dirt. Jesse saw Hazel running for her daughter, and he went with Frankie to corner the loose horse. As soon as he had ahold of it, he handed the horse off to Frankie, pulled his phone from his pocket, and dialed 9-1-1.

“Don’t move her. The ambulance is on its way,” Jesse shouted as he got close to Hazel and Grace. Jesse knew Hazel was only trying to help by loosening her daughter’s helmet, but Jesse didn’t take chances with unplanned dismounts. Not after what happened to his sister.

Hazel hovered over Grace and looked at Jesse like she was scared out of her mind. “I think she broke her arm.”

Jesse wanted to scoop them both up and cradle them to his chest. Instead, he knelt over Grace. “Hey, Grace,” he forced his voice to stay even and calm. She was on her back, holding her arm, and grimacing. “I’m going to need you to stay still until the EMTs get here. Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah,” she squeaked through tears. Hazel wiped them away with her thumbs.

“The ambulance will be here really fast,” he added. He knew every EMT in the Maple Bay unit, and they all drove like they were NASCAR racers. “Can you wiggle your toes for me?” Jesse grabbed her boot and felt Grace’s toes move. “Great. Now, how about your fingers?” Grace did the same with her fingers, and Jesse felt a little tension ease from his chest.

“It’s my arm that hurts real bad.” Grace’s bottom lip trembled, and Jesse went into story-mode. It was a trick he’d discovered with Charlie. If Charlie was upset, Jesse could tell a story and, if the story was interesting enough, it would distract her from her tears.

“You know what happened to me the very first time I fell off a horse?” he asked. Grace sniffled, but her big brown eyes were on him. “I tried to make my horse go across a big mud puddle. My sister, Kat, had her horse trotting through the puddle and I wasn’t going to let her one-up me. So, I spent what felt like forever trying to coax my stubborn horse into the water. When he finally gave in, he jumped into the puddle and I plopped right off his back and into the water. I can still remember the sound of my sister laughing when I stood up with a face full of mud.”

Grace blinked her teary eyes, but she was paying attention to him. “You’ve fallen off too?”

More times than he could count, but he wasn’t about to admit that fact right now and push Hazel to never let her daughter on a horse again. “Sure have. Everyone falls off at some point, but it’s what you learn after the fall that matters. You know what I learned after I took a nosedive into a puddle?”

“What?”

“To have one hand on the saddle horn the next time I asked my horse to go into water. That way I could hang on if he decided to jump.”

Grace’s trembling lips slid into the slightest of grins, and Jesse heard sirens in the distance.

“The ambulance is almost here, baby,” Hazel said. “We’re going to go to the hospital and get you checked out, okay?”

Jesse looked up to see flashing lights coming down the driveway and Frankie waving the ambulance over to the arena. “Looks like my friend, Bubba, is driving. You’ll like him. He’s super funny and he’ll tell you all about his silly goats if you just ask him. Don’t forget to ask him, okay?”

“Okay,” Grace said, and she looked a little calmer.

Jesse stayed with Grace and Hazel while Bubba and the other EMT checked Grace over and put her on a stretcher. However, when they loaded Grace into the ambulance, Jesse’s body went cold. Memories he’d suppressed for quite some time snatched up his mind. He’d watched his sister, Sarah, get loaded into an ambulance as well, but Sarah wasn’t crying. She wasn’t breathing either. It was an image he knew he wouldn’t forget until the day he died.

“Jesse?” Hazel put a hand on his arm. He jerked out of his glazed stare. “Thank you for being there for us.”

“Of course. What else can I do?”

“Do you think you could come with me to the hospital?”

“In the ambulance?”

Hazel nodded, and Jesse was touched that she wanted him with her. “Of course, I can.”

Just then, a little silver car pulled up to the barn and Bill jumped out of the driver’s side door. “Hazel? Grace? What happened?” Fear was etched on his features as he ran toward the ambulance.

“Grace fell off her horse. We think she broke her arm,” Hazel said to Bill as her hand dropped from Jesse’s arm.

Bill raced to the back of the ambulance and Jesse heard him talking with Grace. Then he climbed in and turned back to Hazel, “Let’s go. They’re ready.” He waved Hazel over. By this time, Bill’s girlfriend had joined them at the ambulance.

“Go,” Jesse said to Hazel. “I’ll follow you. I can drive Bill’s girlfriend as well.”

“Thank you.” Hazel turned away and climbed up into the ambulance. Bubba shut the doors.