Straight From the Hip(63)
“He’s not a twelve-year-old girl,” Izzy said, aching for her.
“Yeah.” Heidi sighed. “Sometimes I get scared about growing up. About being accepted and stuff.”
“Me, too.”
“What?”
“I have two brilliant and beautiful sisters. Lexi, the oldest, started her own business. It’s a day spa and it’s really successful. My other sister, Skye, runs a foundation. She inherited a bunch of money from our mom and is using most of it to feed hungry children.”
“Wow.”
“Exactly. I’m the screwup. I didn’t go to college and I look for crazy jobs, like ski patrol. I was an underwater welder on an oil rig, which is where the explosion occurred. Now I’m blind and I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Don’t you work here?”
“Sort of. It’s temporary. Until I can get my life back together.”
“What do you want to do?” Heidi asked.
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Me, either.”
“You’re twelve. You get to be confused. I’m supposed to have figured it all out by now.”
“You’re good with the horses.”
“I enjoy working with them.” But she wanted something more. The question was what?
“You’re easy to talk to,” Heidi told her.
“Thanks. So are you.”
Later that night, after Heidi had gone to bed, Izzy went looking for Nick. She found him in his office.
“If I didn’t know better, I would say you were hiding,” she told him as she entered.
“Sorry. I’ve been busy getting ready for the kids this weekend. There’s a lot of paperwork.”
For the thousandth time, she wished she could see his face. She wanted to know what he was really thinking. “Are you worried I’m going to get all girly because we slept together?”
“No. I never worry about that with you.”
She sat down. “Good. Because I’m not. Are you?”
“No.”
She heard the humor in his voice.
“I like Heidi,” she said. “She’s not what I expected. Things have got to be hard for her, but she’s a great kid.”
“Most of them are.”
“She didn’t deserve what happened to her. I guess no one does. I was scared of not knowing what to say or do, but she doesn’t need me to make anything better. I’m just a friend.”
“That’s good.”
Feelings welled up inside her. It took her a second to figure out her point.
“I’m not curing cancer or anything, but I think this helps. This experience. And I’m a part of that. I’ve never been a part of anything like this before. So I wanted to say thank-you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She stood to leave, then turned back to him. “You don’t get involved with the kids who come here?”
“I have other things I need to do.”
“No, you don’t. You should meet the people you help, Nick. You might just be surprised by how good that makes you feel.”
“WHAT KIND OF TREES are those?” Heidi asked the next afternoon when they left the corral and started actually riding out in the open.
“Like I can see them?” Izzy asked with a laugh. “Did you get the whole blind thing?”“Oh, right. Sorry. They’re nice. I live in Southern California. Not so much on the trees there. I thought Texas had lots of wildflowers. I don’t see any.”
“They happen in spring. It’s too hot now.”
Heidi provided a running commentary on everything they rode by, which could have been wearing but was actually nice. She was enthused, happy and acting just like a kid. And it had only been a day. What would she be like after a week or a month in a place like this?
She thought about the facilities already in place. Couldn’t Nick host kids all summer and save the corporate stuff for the rest of the year? Maybe have families visit on weekends, but during the week, kids only? It could work. He would need a full-time staff of psychologists and maybe a couple of nurses, but that was all doable. If it was a summer program, they could hire school psychologists who were experienced with kids and still had the time off.
“Oh, look, Izzy,” Heidi whispered. “Look.”
“I can’t,” she whispered back.
“There’s a deer. She’s so beautiful. I’ve never seen a deer, except at the zoo. She’s real and everything. Look how she walks. She’s eating.” Heidi’s voice rose. “She’s eating and, oh, look.”
Izzy glanced around at the blurry world and waited until the deer had moved on. Heidi urged Flower forward.