No Ordinary Day , Tate, Harley [best ereader for pdf and epub .TXT] 📗

house. Tell Sandra I said it was okay. We’ve got running water and electricity. Take whatever you need.”

“Thank you, Vince.” Emma smiled at him as Raymond hurried around to hop into the passenger seat. As soon as he shut the door, Emma punched the gas.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Holly

The stiff bristle brush ran through the horse’s fur and Holly smiled. She’d always wanted to learn how to ride—her father talked about his adventures on his family’s farm when he was a kid—but she’d never had the chance. The horse sidestepped as she paused and Holly picked up the pace, brushing the older mare as she spoke softly to her.

“Any chance you’ll let me hop on you and go for a ride?”

The horse snorted and Holly ran her hand across her fur. The muscles rippled beneath her touch. The horse’s ears flicked forward and moments later, Vince rode in, horse snorting and kicking up a cloud of dust. He dismounted with a scowl.

“Everything okay?”

Vince started, unaware of Holly’s presence. All at once he softened. “Holly, thank goodness. Can you take Cornflower to the water trough around the side? She needs a drink. Just put her back in the stall when she’s done.”

“What about her saddle?”

Vince turned toward the main house. “Leave it on for now. I don’t have time to deal with it.”

“Are you sure everything is okay?”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about. I need to find Sandra, that’s all.” He flashed her a pained smile. “Trouble with one of the fields. You’ve got this, right?”

Holly took the leather reins with a nod and Vince jogged out of the barn. He seemed like such a good man. How had her mother ever found someone like him?

She reached up and rubbed Cornflower’s neck. “Thirsty? Let’s get you some water.” She led the horse out of the barn and around toward the water trough. The horse pulled her the last ten feet, dipping her head to get at the water as quickly as possible. Holly tugged on her sweatshirt sleeve. Something didn’t seem right.

Why would Vince rush out of the barn over a problem with the fields? And why would her mother even care? She wasn’t the farming sort when Holly was little and it didn’t appear anything had changed. After a few minutes, Cornflower turned and gave Holly’s hand a nuzzle. “All done?”

The horse whinnied and Holly led her the long way around, skirting the edge of the main house before she planned to loop back toward the barn. As she slipped behind the side of the house, Cornflower’s tail swishing against the shrubs, the front door slammed open.

“You can’t be serious!” Her mother’s voice sliced across the yard.

Holly froze.

“There’s no need to shout.”

“Yes, there is! First you let these people stay the night, then you talk about letting them live here, now there’s blood all over the carpet! This has to stop. Now.”

“They need our help.”

“No, they don’t! They can find someone else to take advantage of down the road. Not us.”

“What about Holly?”

Holly swallowed.

“What about her?”

“She’s your daughter.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

Vince lowered his voice and Holly strained to listen. “I understand if you don’t want Raymond and the other adults to stay, but Holly is family. She’s polite, and kind, and she’s already helping with the horses without being asked.”

“I don’t care if she’s the second coming of Mother freakin’ Teresa and she’s out there curing lepers. I want her, and the rest of her group, gone.”

Vince might have been kind, but her mother’s words punched deep in Holly’s gut. She clutched at her middle.

“You can’t mean that, sweetheart. She’s your daughter. Your own flesh and blood.”

“And I wish like hell she weren’t. Every time I look at that girl, all I see is her good-for-nothing father. Do you know what he promised me before we married? That’s he’d be a doctor for goodness sakes. A real M.D. with patients and everything.”

“So?”

“He ended up a research scientist at some stupid corporation instead, spending all day running experiments on lab rats.” Her voice edged higher. “Rats, Vince.”

“I don’t see what the problem is. The way Emma and Gloria describe it, he was doing valuable work.”

“That’s not the point! He could have been the head of a hospital or a plastic surgeon. He had the grades to become anything he wanted, but when I got pregnant,” she almost spat the word, “he said he didn’t want to be absent from our child’s life. Said residency would be too intense, too many hours. He’d never see his kid grow up. So, he dropped out. Got a job, instead.” Her voice cracked. “We could have had the world.”

“You had a daughter.”

“Exactly.”

Holly’s stomach lurched and she fought the urge to be sick. Tears came hot and fast, welling up behind her eyes.

“I never wanted children, Vince. You know that. It was always supposed to be about us, not some little crying thing that woke us up and demanded our attention. Holly ruined everything.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do.”

Holly wiped her cheeks as the tears kept flowing. She’d always known her mother didn’t like her, but this was beyond dislike. This was hate. She blamed Holly for everything.

After a minute of silence, Vince spoke again. “So, all this time… All these years when I’d ask if you wanted Holly to visit, to come for the holidays or stay for the summer and you told me she wasn’t interested. That her dad refused to allow it. That wasn’t true, was it?”

Vince’s words were laced in disgust. “It was you. You pushed away your own daughter. Your own flesh and blood.”

His tone gave little comfort to Holly. Cornflower nuzzled her in the side and Holly ran an absentminded hand down the horse’s side.

“I don’t know you, Sandra. I don’t think I know you at all.”

“Make her leave, Vince. Make them all leave. Do it today or so help me, we’re through.”

Vince began to argue, but Holly couldn’t listen to another word. Without