The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,78

she would sleep for hours. Soon she outgrew the sling.

When she woke in the night, he would bring her to me, then take her again when she had fed and we knew the screams would begin. Often I rose from sleep to find them in the parlor, him rocking her across his knee or high on his chest. But always he motioned me back to bed and held up whatever book he was reading to show me he had entertainment. There were many mornings when I woke to find him slumped in the rocking chair or sprawled across the couch, his book on the floor and his daughter bundled on his chest, the glow of her hair brighter in the light of his reading lamp.

Rosie’s first word was “horse.” As soon as she mastered walking, she learned to scoot one of the dining chairs up to the back door and pull herself up to stand on it. “Hoss, hoss!” she demanded, pointing toward the stable, one hand on her hip. For what seemed like years, this was our morning ritual. She ate her breakfast in tears and red-faced frustration, inconsolable.

One day, her cries for “hoss” lasted through breakfast and into the afternoon. After lunch, I thought I had finally gotten her down for a nap, and I went out to clean the back porch and steps. A set of small footprints in the remains of the morning’s snowfall led down the steps, across the yard, and straight to the barn. Too small to be Gracie. Adam had stabled a new boarder horse, an aggressive sorrel, in the barn to separate him from the other horses in the stable. I ran to the barn. As I opened the door, the door on the other side opened, too. Adam led Darling in.

“You seen Rosie?” I asked.

Before he could answer, we spotted her.

She crouched on the top rail of the back stall, facing the sorrel, her arms spread gleefully above her head. Adam shoved Darling aside. He jerked the sorrel’s stall open and slid in as Rosie whooped joyfully and leapt toward the horse.

The sorrel screamed.

Adam shouted as he threw himself between the horse and Rosie. Not his regular voice but a deep, percussive blast of alarm.

He caught Rosie midway between the horse’s flank and the floor. The horse pivoted, blocking them into the corner of the stall.

Rosie wailed.

The horse erupted, neighing violently. Ears back, eyes rolling, he reared. Hooves smacked the stall wall. Adam clutched Rosie to his chest. He spun to keep his back to the horse.

In the adjoining stall, I pulled myself up to stand on the bottom slat so Adam could pass Rosie over the wall to me. I held my arms out to take her.

But Adam did not seem to see me. He pulled Rosie tighter and took a deep breath. His face changed from alarm to concentration.

A sweet, pure tone undulated through the barn. Then the timbre of his voice shifted through the warm tones into a firm command. Calm and powerful. Solid as flesh.

I clutched the rail to keep from falling. Inches from me, Rosie closed her eyes. Her grip on Adam’s shirt relaxed.

Then silence. The quiet of alert, listening animals followed. One motionless second passed, then the cow muttered. Darling, still standing where Adam left her, whickered. The sorrel lowered his head. His tail swished gently.

Adam handed Rosie up and over to me. She burrowed her face into my shoulder, her weight soft in my arms.

“Shit, that was close,” Adam whispered. He slouched, his head against the top rail as he reached over and touched my head, then Rosie’s.

“You okay?” I asked. He looked up, nodded, and motioned for me to take Rosie in. Then he turned and spread his hands on the sorrel, who now regarded us complacently as he chewed.

Rosie took a long nap and was quieter than usual for the rest of the day.

After that, she shifted from demanding a ride to asking for permission to ride, and though she was still several days from her third birthday, Adam began brief, well-supervised lessons to teach her riding, grooming, and better barn etiquette. I thought she was too young, but Adam insisted, “If we can’t keep her away from the horses, then we need to make sure she knows how to be around them.”

A ride became part of her bedtime ritual. While Gracie bathed, Adam and Rosie rode double. Becky, the mildest of our horses, walked a slow, stately pace. Around and around