No Horse Wanted by LLC Melange Books Page A

honey. Take your shower
and keep your cell with you. I’ll call if I want you to get our
lawyer. Your horse isn’t going anywhere.”
    I nodded and headed for my bathroom. I washed
my hands and arms before I got out my cell phone and put it on the
vanity. Now, it wouldn’t stink like the lice powder. I slid out of
my clothes, piling them on the tile floor next to the hamper. I’d
take them to the laundry room and dump them in the washer right
after my shower.
    I hurried through washing my hair and
showering away the smell. Then, I toweled off and blew dry my hair.
I hustled into clean underwear, a T-shirt and jeans. I didn’t
bother with makeup, which was totally not like me. I always wore
it, even when I did cross-country, but it wasn’t true that I had to
look perfect to go to the barn, no matter what Jack said.
    I bundled my smelly clothes into the towels
and went to throw everything in the washer on the hot cycle. Once
that was done, I checked the meatloaf. It was ready. So were the
potatoes when I poked them with a fork. Same went for the green
beans—they’d finished steaming after Mom turned off the heat. I
wasn’t putting the food on the table to get cold. Dad would hate
that.
    I checked my cell. He hadn’t called. Did we
need a lawyer or not? When I looked out the front window, I still
saw the green and white sheriff’s car. Okay, so Officer Yardley was
still here. Didn’t he have a home? And why didn’t he go there?
    I pulled on my running shoes. I didn’t need
my boots. It wasn’t like I’d be in the stall with Twaziem. I was
just going back to the barn to save him. There was no way I’d let
this guy have him, not when he obviously hadn’t done much to make
the Bartlett brats step up and look after him.
    Dad and Mom came out of the barn with Officer
Yardley between them. I went to meet them. “He’s mine, right?”
    “For now,” Officer Yardley said.
    “For keeps,” I said. “So, what’s it going to
take to make you go away and not come back? How do I make that
happen?”
    “By being polite,” Mom said.
    I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so. Mrs.
Bartlett was dying of cancer and her snarky, nasty grandkids didn’t
feed Twaziem.” I stared at Officer Yardley. “And he left him there
to starve. So, why do I have to be polite?”
    “Because if you’re not,” Dad said, “I’ll
ground you past forever and you’ll lose all your privileges, but
none of your responsibilities.”
    I folded my arms, tapped one foot, and glared
at him, even though it wouldn’t work. Dad was almost as stubborn as
I was. The cop grinned at me, but I didn’t smile back. I just
waited for a long moment, then another one and a third. “He’s
mine.”
    “I can see that you folks are trying to do
right by him,” Officer Yardley said. “And as long as he keeps
gaining weight, I don’t have a problem with him living here. I’ll
talk to Dr. Tomlinson about the prognosis and I’ll also be in touch
with your farrier.”
    “And you’ll leave Mrs. Bartlett alone,” I
said. “She has enough to contend with. She doesn’t need to be
hassled because her family messed up when she was in the hospital
with cancer. Harass them. If you want their addresses, I’ll get
those for you. I have friends who still go to school with
them.”
    He stared at me suspiciously. “Why would you
do that?”
    “Hello? How do you do your job?” I asked, but
I didn’t wait for an answer from him. “The three of them are
rotten, and they had to learn to be mean to animals from somebody,
so you should go after their parents.”
    Utter silence from the three adults who
stared at me, then at each other. I didn’t have a problem ratting
out the three Bartletts. It wasn’t because I was afraid of them. I
wasn’t. I just didn’t like Caine who was overtly cruel or his
cousins who were covertly abusive. Either way somebody helpless
always suffered whenever the Bartletts were around, and it didn’t
matter if it was a