Claiming Christmas (Alex and Alexander Book 3) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  About the Author

  With thanks to Cory, my partner always.

  Happy Holidays to all of my readers — you wanted more Alex,

  And that’s the greatest gift I can ask for.

  Copyright 2013 Natalie Keller Reinert

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The phone was ringing and I wasn’t answering it.

  I’d stopped answering my phone two weeks ago and honestly, I couldn’t have been happier with my decision. It had been a long hot summer, even if I had spent it in Saratoga and not in Florida, and now I just needed to relax. No more people crowding me, whether in the barn or on the phone.

  And it was wonderful, this hermit life. No more owners with pie-in-the-sky requests and questions they could have figured out for themselves if they had spent thirty seconds in the company of Google. No more supplement salesmen trying to pitch me the latest and greatest in equine supplement breakthroughs “that test clean, we guarantee!”

  No more little kids calling to ask how much riding lessons were.

  That one was always particularly annoying, although, if I was perfectly honest with myself, I could remember running my finger down the listings of stables in the Yellow Pages, calling each and every likely-sounding business name in the category, asking that very question with the same tremulous voice.

  But, again, chances were that kid had access to a decent search engine that could have told her which stables offered riding lessons and which stables taught horses to run very quickly.

  So I didn’t feel as guilty when I said, every single time: “Listen, kid, we don’t teach — this is a racing stable, okay?”

  No, I wasn’t mean.

  I was brisk.

  But I wasn’t dealing with any of those annoyances anymore. I was making a clean break from technology. Well — not quite. I was still using my phone for practical matters, like checking the weather radar, and scrolling through Twitter for racing news. When thunder started rumbling, I was already strolling back to the house, the horses in and the barn doors closed. When some big-shot trainer did something stupid or some top-of-the-line three-year-old colt was suddenly retired to stud “completely sound” I was the first to read the press release and come to my own (skeptical) conclusions. I enjoyed knowing the weather, and I enjoyed knowing everything before Alexander, so in this regard, my phone had really become indispensable to me.

  But I wasn’t answering it for anyone. I just wasn’t up to talking to people at the moment. Call it a phase.

  I talked to the horses, though. It was a very peaceful sort of conversation, my horse-human dialogues. I spoke, and they blinked, or sighed, or snorted, or did nothing at all, and it was perfect.

  And I talked to Alexander, although at the moment I strongly suspected I didn’t want to do that — just judging by the expression on his face.

  Alexander was glaring at me from across the kitchen with the sort of half-disappointed, half-exasperated expression he reserved especially for me and badly behaving older horses. As if we — myself and the older horses — should both know better, but were choosing to be bad solely to put him out. It wasn’t true — well, it might have been true of the horses, but it wasn’t true of me — but he was certainly entitled to his opinion. Especially since he got the short end of the stick. If I was the hermit, Alexander had to pick up the slack. And neither of us were precisely social butterflies by nature.

  But Alexander was the good one, as usual, and he picked up the phone. “Cotswold Farm,” he said in a mannerly tone, despite the fact that it was our house number and it was seven thirty in the evening. Every hour was business hours with Alexander.

  I went into the living room and turned on The Weather Channel.

  I was just getting into some extensive coverage of a weather system that was impacting the Northern Plains with high winds and a mixture of rain and snow when Alexander came into the room. I didn’t look up. “It’s going to snow like hell in Chicago,” I predicted happily. “In October. Who lives like that? Don’t you have a friend up there now?”

  “He moved,” Alexander said, sitting on the sofa next to me. He leaned on the sofa arm, away from me, and rested his head on his hand, flicking his eyes disinterestedly towards the television. “To Barbados.”

  “Smart move.” I went on watching the meteorologist describe the falling barometric pressure at the center of the storm, located approximately ten miles from Nowhere, North Dakota. “How do they know the barometer is falling? There’s nothing out there.”

  “Satellites,” he said absently. “Weather nuts living on farms.”

  I looked over at him then, noticing that he wasn’t fully present. “Who was on the phone?” I asked, suddenly concerned.

  “Linda.”

  “Linda who?” There were about forty-seven Lindas in the Ocala Thoroughbred community. Some were wives of prominent breeders and owners; some were sport or show-horse trainers; one owned the Linda’s Tackeria and Feed Store in Lowell. I liked Tackeria and Feed Store Linda best of all: she was about fifty years old, had platinum blond hair, and only wore denim jackets adorned with air-brushed western scenes of cacti and sunsets. No pearls or polyester pant-suits for that Linda. The fact that her accent was pure Appalachia made her that much better, in my opinion. But there was no chance that was the Linda he was talking about — I was fairly certain she didn’t even know my name, let alone have any reason to call us at seven thirty at night.

  Alexander shifted on the couch, reached beneath him, and pulled a dee-ring bit from under the cushion. “What the hell?”

  I took it from him, only a little embarrassed. I had been wondering what became of that bit for a week and a half. “Which Linda, seriously? There’s like a million.”

  “Linda Swanson,” Alexander clarified, eyeing the bit in my hand. “From Stonewood Stables. Are you going to explain the bit, Alex?”

  “No.” There really wasn’t anything to explain; it had been in my jacket pocket from a quick bridle change the other morning and I must have pulled it out and forgotten about it while I was watching TV. But I enjoyed him trying to guess scenarios that involved a bit and the living room sofa. “Are you going to explain why Linda Swanson is calling you late at night?”

  He sighed and flung his head back. “It’s not even eight o’clock at night.”

  “She’s old. She goes to bed early.” Linda Swanson was probably all of sixty, but her coral lipstick and teased mass of cropped white hair did not do her any favors.

  Alexander ignored my nonsense; he was good at that. “She called on behalf of the Rodeo Queens.”

  “The Queens? Oh God, what do they want?” The Ro
deo Queens were a clique of wealthy racehorse widows who had designated themselves the premier do-gooders in town. We weren’t short of equestrian-related philanthropy in this town, but the Rodeo Queens were a breed apart, as tightly knit as their twin-sets and apparently about as knowledgeable of horses as they were about the dangers of tanning oil — just the name alone, Rodeo Queens, made absolutely no sense. Not a single one of them had anything to do with rodeos. Their husbands all made their money in racehorses. “Their name makes zero sense, do you realize that? Do they even know what a rodeo is?”

  Alexander waited.

  I subsided. “How can we help the fine ladies of the Rodeo Queens tonight? Do they want to have a fundraiser here? Because they can’t.”

  “Why would they want to have a fundraiser here? Don’t be silly. No, it’s something… it’s interesting. It’s like a wish-granting situation. They grant a Christmas wish every year. There’s a little girl who has had a rough time of things, and they picked up her case, and it turns out her wish is to go to the races with you and see Personal Best run a race.”

  I was so astonished, I couldn’t think of anything snarky to say. I just turned and stared at Alexander. He looked back at me with a faint expression of triumph, as if he’d been waiting for my dumbfounded reaction.

  “I can’t understand it either,” he chuckled after a few moments had passed. “Obviously this girl knows nothing of your disposition.”

  “I have a lovely disposition.” I considered throwing a handy pillow, merrily embroidered with riding crops and spurs, at his smirking mug. “It is outdone only by my exquisite conformation.”

  “Your legs are too long,” Alexander said dismissively. “You’ll never stay sound.”

  I burst out laughing and threw the pillow at him anyway. He caught it and hugged it around his middle, grinning at me. “What’s that about your temper? Anyway, listen to me —” and his face grew serious again — “Linda’s coming over on Tuesday to have a chat with you about having this girl down to Gulfstream with you at the weekend.”

  I stopped laughing. We had Personal Best in the Loxahatchee Stakes next weekend. It was meant to be his last race as a two-year-old, before we brought him home and gave him some downtime for December and January. He had been in training pretty consistently ever since the Saratoga meet, and had brought home a win and a couple of near-misses. He hadn’t made it to the Breeders’ Cup, but there was always next year. I didn’t feel like going all the way to California anyway.

  But having some kid hanging around — I didn’t like that idea one bit. Especially if it meant I had to deal with Linda. “No way.” I turned my attention back to The Weather Channel, where a handyman was demonstrating how to make a fitted window screen. “Since when do windows come without screens?”

  “Not everywhere is Florida,” Alexander reminded me. “In some places, you can open your windows and you won’t even get dengue fever.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s a big world.” Alexander leaned his head back again and closed his eyes. “Alex — listen.”

  I stiffened.

  “You have to stop this.”

  “Stop what?” He was being purposefully vague.

  “Stop ignoring the phone, for starters.”

  “And for seconds?”

  “Maybe start interacting with humans in the world again?”

  I pretended to think about it. “No, I’m good, thanks.”

  “Alex.”

  “Alexander,” I intoned dramatically, and gave his thigh a good-natured squeeze. “Humor me in this. I am taking a vacation from the world. Shouldn’t everyone get one of those every now and then? I promise you can have one as soon as I get back.”

  “You’re going to help Linda out with this,” he said implacably.

  “How am I going to drag some kid around at the track? I have work to do. This isn’t like a beach weekend or something.”

  “You’ll hardly be alone. And she’ll be chaperoned. You’re just going to show her around a bit and then give them someplace to stand out of the way.” Alexander had on his I’m-the-One-Being-Reasonable face. It made me crazy. “I thought you’d be honored someone’s big wish is to spend the day with you.”

  Hardly. “I thought everyone wished to go to Disney World.”

  “Not everyone, apparently.”

  “I would wish to go to Disney World.”

  “Well, you’re you. It’s only natural that you’d like to take a break from yourself for a day.”

  I lunged for the pillow, intent on giving him the beating he deserved, but Alexander managed to not only hang on to the pillow but get an arm around me in a bear hug, pulling me tight across his chest. I shrieked with laughter and threw myself forward and we both went tumbling off the sofa and onto the floor, where I managed to knock my head on the coffee table and saw stars, which kind of ended the hilarity for the night. The fact was, we were just too old to wrestle on the floor like teenagers. So we took it upstairs, like the civilized adults that we were, and I forgot all about Linda the Rodeo Queen, and the anonymous girl whose Christmas wish was to visit me and my racehorse.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Kerri thought it was hilarious, of course. “Have you ever even talked to a kid? I’ve never seen you anywhere near one.”

  “I’ve talked to a kid,” I snapped, which was pretty impressive because I had a mare’s tail draped across my collarbone and over my shoulder. I spit a horse-hair out my mouth and resolved to keep my mouth shut while Dr. Dee had her arm inside the mare. But Kerri, nice and safe at the mare’s head, thought baiting me in such a compromised state was pretty fabulous.

  “Is it possible that you are actually child-repellant? I’ve never even seen a kid come near you. Like, even at Saratoga where there are kids basically everywhere, you have this bubble around you. Wow, Alex, seriously? Kids hate you. This might end really badly. Maybe you better say no.”

  “I can’t say no,” I said matter-of-factly. “It’s for Christmas.”

  “Do you even celebrate Christmas? I had you pegged for a hates-holidays type, as well.”

  “Of course I celebrate Christmas.” But I didn’t, not really. Aside from buying the grooms turkeys and sticking a few red bows on the farm gates, Christmas was another day on the farm. Horses still needed feeding and cleaning up and training. They still got hurt, they still kicked down fence-boards, they still ripped the piping out of pasture waterers and flooded the fields. It was hard to be passionate about a holiday with the workload that we had. “There just isn’t much time to bother with it, is all.”

  “That and no kids to bother with.”

  “There’s that.” The mare yanked her tail, trying to get it out of my hands, and I took a firmer grip. “I have enough kids with all these horses, anyway.”

  “Something a crazy cat-lady would say,” Kerri observed. “If they were cats.”

  “Are you calling me a crazy horse-lady?”

  “Maybe I am. You’re just going to get older and scarier and have more horses and the neighborhood kids will never get a ball that goes over your fence.”

  I gritted my teeth. The vet pulled her arm free of the mare with that tremendous wet sucking sound that never leaves your ears after the first time you hear it, and stripped off the lube-streaked glove. “All set.”

  “Thank God,” I said, dropping the tail. “Kerri, you’re on tail duty next time. I’m the boss and I’m done with this.”

  “You said doody!” Kerri howled from inside the stall, walking the mare back in and turning her to face the doorway.

  “What are you, five years old? Shut up.”

  “I was just testing you to see if you could handle humor. Kids love the humor. Bad news, you failed.” She came out of the stall and slid the door closed, wrapping up the lead-shank in her hands, and made a face at me, sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes.

  “Whatever,” I said, because I am the queen of comebacks.

  Dr. Dee stared. She
was new to the team at our vet clinic and didn’t know that we couldn’t behave normally to save our lives. “It’s Kerri’s fault,” I told her.

  “It’s Alex’s fault, always,” Kerri informed her gravely.

  “Mare looks good,” Dr. Dee said desperately. “I’ll give you a call if we find anything.”

  She fled the barn.

  Kerri grinned at me. I just shook my head.

  “So tell me again,” Kerri began, as we went rattling down the barn drive in the golf cart. “This is a Make-A-Wish thing?”

  “No… I thought so too.” When Linda had come over to discuss the kid who wanted to spend the day with me, she had explained that Wendy Ludwig had had a hard time of things — her parents had been killed in a car accident, and she was living with her grandmother in a single-wide trailer in Citra since she was little. But now her grandmother was having health problems too — Linda wasn’t specific, and I didn’t ask — and someone called the Rodeo Queens and asked them to take her on as their yearly Christmas Wish recipient. “She’s just had a really rough life, orphaned and her grandmother’s sick, and she loves horses but she can’t have one, obviously, because there’s no money… so apparently she told the Rodeo Queens that her Christmas Wish was to go to the races with me and see Personal Best.”

  “Seems like the Rodeo Queens got off cheap this year. Didn’t they save a farm from foreclosure for the Christmas Wish last year?”

  I laughed. Kerri was so wonderfully cynical these days. I was rubbing off on her, for better or for worse. Mainly worse. Being my assistant could only end badly for a person. “They’re going to do something else for her. Riding lessons for a year, or for life, or something.”

  “That’s more like it.” Kerri turned the golf cart towards the training barn. It was quiet up there now, all the horses napping or working at their hay-nets. The grooms would be in their apartments napping or watching the races from the satellite feed. Two o’clock in a racing barn is a peaceful time. “You know I can’t go with you, right? I have a breeding seminar all day.”