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ANOTHER SCHOOL YEAR had begun and Belle still didn’t have a teaching job.
Before summer ended, Barb invited her to meet with the rest of The Pancake Club bunch for breakfast again early one morning, so she could talk to Kristin. “Mind if Belle joins us this morning?” Barb asked the group nonchalantly when Belle walked up to their table. Without waiting for a reply, she pulled an extra chair over from the neighboring table and placed it next to Kristin. “Can we get another cup of coffee here, Sami?” she called.
Belle sipped on her coffee while Barb explained what Belle wanted. Kristin asked Belle a few questions about her experience, then said she hadn’t actually heard of any openings. “But I can give you the website to check and the name and phone number of the woman I talked to when I applied here. It’s a little late in the year to apply for a fulltime teaching position, as you probably know, but you could at least sign up for substitute teaching.”
Belle thanked her profusely when everyone left to go to work, and that night after dinner, though tired as usual from her physically draining job, forced herself to get on her computer and look at the school district’s website for employment. She’d downloaded an application and printed it out. She intended to fill it out the next night after work, but took a minute to briefly look it over. Oh boy. Just as she feared, halfway down the first of three pages, it asked for her total years of teaching experience, if it was full-time teaching under contract, regular or special education, and if not, she needed to explain if it was substitute, part-time or other.
She wondered what they meant by “other.” Student teaching? Para-educator? Daycare? Her experience at the Girl Scout camp? She’d put down all of them and hope for the best.
“I heard from Gavin today,” Barb told her as they sat in the lodge’s dining room having lunch a couple weeks after school started. Things were slow that day for Dirk. He didn’t have anything scheduled for the afternoon, so he and Belle drove straight to the Saddle Up after their morning appointments.
“Really? Does that happen very often? I mean, that you hear from former ranch guests?”
“Sometimes, but he actually called to make reservations for a week next summer. He asked about you.” Barb grinned.
“Oh?” Belle tried not to look too pleased.
“Yeah, he wondered if you were teaching. And...he said he sure wished you were Gabby’s teacher.” Barb frowned. “I guess she’s not doing well in school.”
Not doing well? Belle wondered why. She knew the girl was emotionally fragile, but she seemed to do so well with the horses, and though Gavin told her Gabby had meltdowns, Belle hadn’t seen it. She wished she could talk to Gavin or maybe even Gabby.
“I have his phone number of course,” Barb’s voice broke into her thoughts.
“Did he ask me to call?”
“No, but I think he told me all this because he knew I’d tell you.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Barb. Maybe he was just venting. He works at home, you know. He probably doesn’t have anyone to talk to during the day,” Belle responded, not wanting to get her hopes up. Besides, he probably wasn’t interested in her, just her professional opinion maybe...as a teacher.
“I don’t know, Belle. I really got the feeling he wanted you to know. I have his email address too. If you don’t feel comfortable calling him, you could email. Then he can respond or not. Here”—Barb reached over and tapped a few keys on her iPad, read something and then tapped some more—”I just sent it you. Now you have it and you can email him or not, up to you.” Barb smirked.
“Thanks, I guess.”
As Dirk drove Belle back to her parents’ farm after lunch, he asked how she was doing with the teacher job search. “Though I don’t want to lose you as an assistant, I know it’s not what you went to school for,” he said sympathetically.
“It’s just so frustrating,” she told him. “Job-wise, it’s no better here than in Seattle, and now I’m over thirty and back to living at home with my parents!”
They rode in silence for awhile.
“I don’ t know why I didn’t think about this before...” Dirk began. “When I was doing my internship in Stanwood, one of our clients told me she volunteered at a place somewhere on the eastside where they used horses as therapy for people with disabilities—children and adults, I think she said. I got to thinking, Barb said that little girl, Gabby, hardly ever talked, but she seemed really happy when she was up on Smokey. Do you think that might be something her father could look into? I don’t know much about it, but it couldn’t hurt to check it out.”
The house was quiet when Belle walked in, with her mom still at work and her dad and brother probably tinkering on some farm implement in an outbuilding. She headed right for the desk where she kept her laptop, pulled the lid up, and logged onto the Internet. The program Dirk mentioned was called “equine-assisted therapy” and the place he’d talked about was a “therapeutic riding center.” She read the information on their website and learned that the riding center’s mission included “improving the minds and spirits of children with disabilities.” She needed to tell Gavin about it.
Belle opened up her email and found the one from Barb with Gavin’s email address, then wrote a message to him, including the website address for the therapeutic riding center and the information she felt was especially pertinent she’d cut and pasted. She wrote that she’d heard from Barb that Gabby wasn’t doing well in school and maybe this was something he might want to look into since she did so well with Smokey. She hoped he didn’t mind that she’d asked Barb for his email address. Then she hit Send.
As Belle continued to search the Internet for more information on equine-assisted therapy, she glanced at her email inbox that’d she’d left open on the screen—just in case. After an hour of reading, her eyes grew tired and she decided to close her laptop and do some chores around the house. To her surprise, she’d been so absorbed in her reading, she’d missed a new email...from Gavin!
He wrote that he was happy to hear from her and glad she’d asked for his email address. Yes, Gabby wasn’t doing well and in fact the school district suspected her of having a disability and wanted her to have an evaluation to determine if she was eligible for special education services.
After they’d sent messages back and forth a couple times, he wrote, May I call you? I’d like to ask your opinion about some things and this writing back and forth takes a lot of time.
Sure, she responded, and gave him her phone number.
“Hey, Gavin,” she said when her phone rang immediately.
“Thanks for agreeing to speak to me,” he replied in a weary voice.
Belle was appalled at how down he sounded.
“Of course. I’m so sorry things are so rough for Gabby...and you too I’m sure.”
“I’m okay. I’m just so worried about her. They think maybe she has PTSD from the emotional trauma of being there when her mother died, when her world changed from safe and protected to fear and uncertainty. We’re waiting for her to be evaluated, but meanwhile she’s miserable, barely says a word to me and cries a lot in her room.”
“Does she go to school every day?”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t want to. She cries the whole time she’s getting dressed and I have to carry her to the car, and then into the classroom. It breaks my heart to leave her there.”
“And the first few days of school are important for setting routines.” She thought for a moment. “Do you think it would help her to be around a horse? Have you had a chance to look at the information I sent?”
“Yes. I read it before I replied to your email. It might help, but as I said, I she feels comfortable with you and Smokey. I’m not sure a strange horse and people she doesn’t know will work for her.” He sighed.
“Tell you what. How about if I go check the place out?”
“Oh, I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask, I offered.”
“You mean you’d drive all the way to Seattle?
“Sure. I haven’t been back there since I moved back to Mercy Ridge. My friends keep asking me to come for a visit.”
“Well, if you want to stay here, we have room.”
“Thanks, but I’ll crash with my old roommates. They’ll want me to go out with them. Things are slow right now, so I don’t think Dirk would mind if I took a day or two off. How about this Friday? Would that work for you?”
Gavin sighed again. “That would be great. I’ll tell Gabby this afternoon...no, maybe I’d better wait till you know for sure you can come.”
“I don’t anticipate any problem, but I’ll send you a text when I know for sure, okay?”
“I really appreciate this, Belle. You have no idea how much.”
Belle left the farm early Friday morning for Seattle. Four hours later, after a stop to buy gas and stretch, she arrived at the apartment on the outskirts of town she’d shared with three friends. Despite wanting to help, Belle hadn’t known how she’d feel about returning to Seattle. It brought back memories of hopes and dreams dashed, her failure to find a teaching job, of a love lost and the reason she’d had to return home to live with her parents. She mentally shook those thoughts from her mind, grabbed her phone off the dashboard, got out of the car, a little stiff, and sent a text to Gavin:
I’m here. Gonna throw my bag in the apartment and then I’ll be on my way.
We’ll be here.
When she’d stopped for gas on the way, Belle noticed a coffee shop and could hardly contain herself. Seattle-style coffee? She’d headed right over and decided to try something she’d never tried before, a pumpkin spice latte. It was delicious. In fact, she could probably use another coffee drink now to get her through the day. And that pumpkin one was so good, she decided to get another. She bought one for Gavin too. She hoped he liked pumpkin. Her dad and brother didn’t. She and her mom didn’t mind, it left the holiday pies for just the two of them to devour. In fact, she usually ate pumpkin pie for breakfast the next morning. What the heck, if he didn’t like the pumpkin-flavored coffee, she’d reheat it in the microwave later. If her girlfriends wanted to go out tonight, by then she’d need another jolt to keep her awake.
When Gavin answered the door, Belle held the coffee out to him and said, “I hope you like pumpkin lattes.”
“Are you kidding? I love pumpkin. Mom usually makes an extra pie on Thanksgiving just for me. Thanks!” He grinned and took a sip. “Mmm. Oh, excuse me. Come in.” He held the door open wider. Gabby’s in the kitchen finishing her cereal.”
“I brought something for her too, if you think it’s okay. Hot chocolate.”
“Sure, she’ll love that. Come on, follow me and you can give it to her.”
Belle followed him into the house, through the living room and into the kitchen.
“Gab, look who’s here!” her father announced.
Gabby looked up, saw Belle and smiled.
Belle turned around in the front seat of Gavin’s car as they pulled up to the therapeutic riding center, to see how the little girl responded at the sight of horses. She felt happy to see a huge smile on Gabby’s face.
All three of them walked in to the office and met the facility manager, one of the instructors and a couple volunteers. They were shown around the barns and grounds and Gabby petted a small horse as volunteers groomed it, then got it ready to be ridden. Then they watched as one volunteer led the horse up to a concrete mounting block with a ramp and a girl a little bigger than Gabby, was helped into the saddle. The volunteer led the horse out to the arena, while two other volunteers walked on either side of the horse and the instructor followed.
Belle, Gavin and Gabby watched the session for awhile, until Belle felt she had a good idea how it worked, then she turned to Gavin. “Seen enough?” When he nodded, she asked, “Ready to go back to the office?”
Gavin looked down at Gabby who held his hand. She seemed fixated on the horse as it carried the little girl slowly around the arena, the four adults nearby. “I think Gabby could stay here for hours, but yeah, we’d better go. Come on Gab.”
And that’s when Belle saw Gabby’s meltdown.
“No! Wanna stay here!”
“Come on Gab, we have to go talk to the nice lady in the office,” Gavin replied in a quiet, firm voice.”
“No!” Gabby tugged her dad’s hand and tried to pull away. Tears began to roll down her face.
“Gavin, if you want to stay here, I can go back and talk to them, maybe get some information and forms to fill out for you.”
“If you would, I’d be grateful. We’ll meet you back at the car,” he answered with an embarrassed look.
“Okay, I won’t be long.” Belle felt bad for him, but supposed he’d been through the meltdowns many times. She wanted to tell him not to be embarrassed, but right then it was too hard to talk over Gabby’s loud cries. Maybe the horses and people were used to it, but she didn’t know, and neither did Gavin.
When she joined them a short time later at the car, Gabby was crying quietly in her booster seat, while Gavin sat next to her talking softly and mopping at her face with his handkerchief. Belle wished she had better news to give him.
“Gabby, I have something for you.”
The little girl turned big, sad eyes to her.
Belle held out the plush stuffed animal she’d hidden behind her back that she’d purchased in the office, a black horse with the riding center’s name printed on a red ribbon saddle on the horse’s back. She was rewarded by the sight of a little hand that reached out and accepted the proffered gift, and the sound of a sniff instead of cries. “How about if I sit back here with you while your dad drives us back to your house?” When Gabby just nodded, busy with the horse, Belle backed away from the car so Gavin could get out.
“You’re a lifesaver,” he told her as he stood up. He reached for his wallet.”Here, let me at least reimburse you for the stuffed animal.”
“No, it’s my gift to her.” It was also her spending money for the trip, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. Besides, she didn’t know how he’d feel after she gave him the bad news. When he opened the driver’s side door, she put a hand on his arm. “Gavin, wait. I need to tell you something.”
He paused and looked at her. “Yes?”
She spoke quietly so Gabby couldn’t hear. “I got the forms for you to fill out, but...it can take up to two years to get into their program.”
“What!” he barked out with a look of astonishment on his face.
“I’m sorry, she said. I should have asked before I got your hopes up.”
“No, no, it’s not your fault. You were just trying to help. And you drove all this way...I’m the one who needs to apologize, not you.”
“Well, I should have asked when she could get in...” Belle said, absentmindedly pushing her glasses up on her nose.
“Well, we tried.” Gavin sighed. “I’d better get you back so you can at least have a good visit with your friends and your entire trip won’t be wasted.” He moved to get in the car.
“It wouldn’t be wasted anyway, Gavin. I’m happy to see you and Gabby again.”
Gavin’s frown turned to a smile. “I’m glad to see you too, Belle...oh, and, um, Gabby too of course. I mean, Gabby’s happy to see you.”
Belle put her hand back on his arm. “I understood what you meant.” She smiled back at him.
As he drove down the gravel driveway away from the facility, Belle looked up from talking to Gabby and met Gavin’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Hey you two, I’m starved. How’d you like to get some lunch at McDonalds?”
“That’d be great. I could go for a burger and fries. How about you, Gabby?” Belle asked.
When Gabby nodded, Gavin said, “Okay, burgers and fries it is. I think I saw a McDonalds on the way here.
Minutes later, he drove up to the fast food place and they headed for the door. Gabby, with the stuffed horse held tightly against her with one hand, reached out the other for Belle’s. When they walked inside, she pulled Belle over to a booth, while Gavin went up to the counter to order and pay for their food. Belle tried to shove some of her gas money at him, but he insisted lunch was on him. “I’d like to take you to some place nice to thank you for all you’ve done, but”—he looked at Gabby—”this isn’t a good time to do that.”
For one long charged moment, they just stared at each other, and Belle felt her stomach do a little flip.
“I understand. It’s all good,” she replied. She knew she had feelings for him, but other than being grateful for her help with his daughter, could it be Gavin had feelings for her?
Later, at home, Gabby lay down for a nap with the stuffed horse she called Smokey, after she gave Belle a big hug goodbye. Gavin walked Belle out to her car.
“I’ll do some more research, Gavin, and see if there are any other therapeutic riding centers in the area. And this time, I’ll ask about availability before you make a trip out there.”
“You don’t have to do all this, Belle. I appreciate everything you’ve done for us already.”
“I know, but I want to, and I have the time. Not much happening on the job front for me right now anyway,” she said ruefully.
“How long will you be in town? I still owe you a decent meal. I’m sure I could get my mom to stay with Gabby if you’ll be around.”
“I need to head back Sunday morning. I’m not sure what my friends have planned. We’ll probably go out tonight.”
“How about tomorrow, then? I’ like to take you somewhere for a nice dinner.”
“Sure, that sounds good.” This time, what she saw in his eyes made her heart soar. The next thing she knew he’d leaned toward her and they kissed...really kissed.
And then he stepped back. “Great. I’d better confirm with Mom that she can babysit, and you should probably check with your friends on their plans. What’s a good time for me to call you later?”
Belle smiled all the way back to the apartment.
She walked inside, flipped on a light and sat down on the ratty old sofa, and then brought out her laptop to do some more research while she waited for her friends to get home from work. She could kick herself for not asking the right question when she contacted the riding center. This time she would. She got on the Internet and searched therapeutic riding centers in the area...and got her second dose of bad news that day. There weren’t any other facilities in the county, or even anywhere near to being close by.