Page 76 of Freeing the Wild
“You know you aren’t fooling anyone with that, right?”he asks.
I don’t answer.I just offer him another charming grunt as I shovel before tossing a little snow in his direction.He grins and throws some back at me.A heap goes down the neck of my shirt.Oh, it’s on.
Lucky for him, Cole is faster than me and my next shot just misses as he darts over to hide behind Penny.Cole whistles a carefree tune while grabbing a cookie in the process from the plate Penny’s holding.He takes a big bite as he stares me down.I laugh.
“Pussy,” I mutter under my breath.He nods at me like the smug fucker he is; Cole knows I won’t throw snow anywhere near Penny.
“I’ll catch you later,” I tell him,
“And I got my eye on you,” he replies, nodding at Cassie who’s coming toward me holding two cookies.
Her eyes meet mine as she hands them to me.With the snow still falling in the background and the pines behind her, she looks like a Christmas card.Agoddamn Christmas card?Cole’s right.I’m definitely fucked.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Cassie
“We have room for them here.We’ll make room,” Wade says as we all sit spread out in the Ashbys’s living room.“We can take the trailers over after we eat.You boys in?”Wade asks Haden, Cole and Nash.They’re making a plan to pick up Penny’s four now-homeless horses and bring them here, where Haden can care for them.
Haden nods from beside me and Nash and Cole agree to the plan too.The entire Ashby family are at the big house after their return from Florida, where Angel’s Wings picked up another five points toward the derby.Now, we’re just waiting on CeCe, Mabel and Papa Dean to get back with pizza from town.Today was a full day of shoveling and being on hand as the volunteer fire department tore down the collapsed half of the barn roof at Penny Lane and carted the rotted wood and metal off to the county dump.
“Thanks, man,” Haden says to Wade, shaking his hand.
“Of course,” Wade answers.“I had no idea she was struggling that much over there.”
Apparently, the whole town has known about Penny’s work on the farm for years, but no one knew about her financial struggles.
“I haven’t been over there since we found that mare off route 12.You remember that?”Wade asks Cole.
“Yeah.”Cole nods.“Dad called up Will right away, and he and Penny took her in with no questions asked.We found out later the poor thing had been used as a broodmare, and was just discarded on the side of the highway when she wasn’t producing anymore.I heard a few years back that Penny fully rehabilitated her and found her a new home.”
I smile as I listen to them talk and think about Marlow, the rescue horse I instantly connected with my first night at Penny Lane.She was so skittish and afraid.Hearing Cole’s story makes me hopeful she can be rehabilitated too.
“If pizza could talk, what would it say?”Papa Dean asks Mabel as they come through the door.
Mabel is already laughing as she kicks off her boots.“What?”
Papa Dean toes his boots off too.“Probably lots of cheesy things.”
Mabel giggles as they come into the room carrying a stack of delicious-smelling pizzas.
“How do you fix a broken pizza?”Dean asks as Jo goes to take the boxes from them.
“How, Papa?”Mabel asks.
Dean brings his thumb and first two fingers together and makes a terrible attempt at an Italian accent.“With a little tomato paste.”
“My nonna would throw a punch at you for that impression,” Ginger giggles.
“Oooh I like when your nonna gets feisty,” Dean says.
A pang of want hits me square in the chest at the scene before me.This is what my mama and Ivy are a part of now, and it’s something I never realized I was missing in my life: a safe place to call home.
“What’s a pizza-maker’s favorite song?”Cole chimes in, cutting through my thoughts.
Ginger rolls her eyes.“Here we go …”
“‘Slice, Slice Baby’!”Mabel sings, and the room erupts with laughter.
