really big until the last three or four days. That being said, the place they finally found to park was a quarter-mile walk to the entrance.
Armed with a map, Charles led the way briskly through what felt like miles and miles of kiosk shopping in the huge main building. He ignored the surreptitious attention he was garnering, for both his looks and, Anna thought, his air of dangerous intent.
Michael’s class was getting its fifteen-minute warning call as they finally found the seats the Sanis’ ranch had reserved in the indoor arena. Anna had been beginning to despair when Charles spotted the mobility cart bearing the ranch’s logo in silver and brown parked tightly behind the rows of blue stadium seats. From there it was easy to find familiar faces.
Anna and Charles found seats next to Mateo and Teri, just behind Maggie, Joseph, Max, Chelsea, and Wade. Max twisted around and grinned at Anna.
“Mackie is a little tyrant,” he said. “She declared that everyone had to see her ride.” He raised his voice to a squeak that was supposed to sound like his little sister. “Ev-er-ee-bo-dee.” He grinned. “And then Michael, not to be outdone, declared that we all had to be here to watch him, too. So Dad and Hosteen are getting the kids and horses ready for the class so that the rest of the crew can watch from the rail.”
Anna thought it seemed reasonable to her: children ought to feel comfortable demanding an audience if they were going to ride in this huge building. The bleachers were empty, but the stadium seating along the arena railing seemed to be pretty full.
“Where’s Mackie, then?” Anna asked. “Her class isn’t until this afternoon, right?”
“She seems to think that Michael might need some coaching,” said Joseph. If his voice was hesitant, the twinkle in his eye wasn’t. “Bossing, more like. It’s a good thing that boy is laid-back or Kage’s household will be hell until they both grow up and go out on their own.”
“She’s got a good heart,” Maggie said repressively.
Joseph looked at her, and Anna saw that he adored the woman who sat beside him. “She’s just like her grandma,” he said, patting her hand. “Tough, straightforward, and determined. You didn’t turn out so bad, Maggie my love. If she’s half the woman you are, the world better watch out.”
“Joseph,” said a stranger who came down the short stretch of stairs until he could stand next to Joseph’s chair, which was on the aisle. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“My grandson’s riding,” Joseph said with dignity. “Where else would I be?”
And the two men started talking about other days and other shows. Horses they’d owned, horses other people had owned. They were joined by an older woman who could have stepped out of the Grand Ole Opry of the ’80s. She glittered in gold and black tiger stripes, wore too much makeup, and had a voice that decades of smoking had roughened to Marlene Dietrich level. She was bawdy and made both of the old men laugh. Maggie leaned sideways and added a sharp remark that showed that she, too, was a welcome part of this group.
They tried to include Chelsea, and she smiled on cue, but she was noticeably tense in the big, noisy crowd. Anna glanced at Charles, who was watching Chelsea, too.
He didn’t look worried, so she sat back and looked around. Directly in front of them, a large group of very well-groomed and glittering horses circled the arena at a very, very slow canter. As soon as she started watching them, Charles whispered in her ear, “Half Arab, Anglo-Arab western pleasure, amateur owner to ride, section one. This is an elimination round. The best of them will go on to the semifinal round. That’s why no one in the audience is too excited about it, except for the cheering sections for each horse and rider.”
“They are very slow,” she said after a moment. “Shouldn’t they be going faster? What if something was chasing them? I think Portabella walked faster than this yesterday. What’s an Anglo-Arab?”
“Half Thoroughbred, half Arab. It was the first of the half-bred Arabs to gain popularity. The Thoroughbred added size, so bigger people could ride. These are almost all quarter-horse or paint crossbreeds, except for the Appaloosa down there.” He paused. “That’s a really nice Appaloosa.”
Joseph, still chatting with his buddies, had apparently been paying attention to them, too. “Still got the eye. That mare won this class the past two