Free Catching Calhoun by Tina Leonard Page A

duffel and the cricket to his truck. The duffel he tossed into the truck bed; the cricket he laid carefully in the grass. “Jump on,” he told it. “I’m going to go jump on some eggs and bacon.”
    Somewhere far from Olivia’s motor home. After this afternoon’s exhibit of his paintings, he was going to pack up and return to Malfunction Junction.
    Where he belonged. His own little patch of grass.
     
    “D O YOU THINK Calhoun will come to see our act?” Minnie asked her mother as Olivia finished putting makeup on her dad’s face.
    It seemed to Olivia that Barley bristled under her fingertips. “Unsquinch your face, Dad,” she said. “The white will crack if you keep doing that.
    “No,” she said to the children who eagerly anticipated her answer. “No, I don’t think Calhoun will come. He has to go back home sometime, and we have to hit the road. Tonight’s the last night.”
    Minnie’s face seemed shadowed. Kenny’s eyes dimmed a bit as he glanced at his grandfather. “How are your knees?” Kenny asked. “Are you feeling good?”
    “I’m feeling fine, Kenny.” Barley ruffled his grandson’s hair affectionately. “Don’t you worry about me. I’ve got more jump in me than a cricket.”
    Kenny blinked. “I love you, Grandpa.”
    Barley nodded, and despite the clown makeup drawn around his eyes, Olivia could see the glimmer of unshed emotion.
    “Hey,” Barley told him. “I’ve got a surprise for you tonight.”
    “You do?” Kenny and Minnie asked hopefully.
    “I do,” Barley said. His eyes met Olivia’s in the mirror.
    Olivia tried to smile, but she couldn’t. Her heart was too heavy. The well of sadness was too darkly puzzling. Why should she care if she never saw Calhoun again?
    The smile slipped from her father’s face. Olivia blinked as she realized Barley had read her emotions.
    “Damn it, Olivia,” he said.
    She burst into tears and fled to the back of the motor home.
     
    B UT AN HOUR LATER , Olivia was in full control of herself. She wore her riding costume, a rhinestone-sparkled pair of jeans, a silky white tie top and white boots with fringes. Her expression felt as painted on as her father’s.
    “I’m ready,” she told him, raising her chin.
    He looked at her for a minute, then nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said.
    “There’s no reason to ever be sorry in a family,” she told him. “You’re right. And I’m fine.”
    “Still.” He reached out and softly touched her hair. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way.”
    “It’s all right.”
    They looked at each other another moment, and then she walked out the door to saddle Gypsy. Thekids silently helped her, while Barley closed up the motor home. Olivia’s stiff movements felt unnatural to her. She caught herself glancing over her shoulder toward the open pathway, and then realized she was looking for Calhoun.
    After that, she turned her back and kept her gaze solely on the task at hand.
    She had never been so glad to be leaving a place in all her riding career. Lonely Hearts Station, indeed. Her father had his feelings hurt by a woman who lived here, and now she had bad memories of her own to pack up and take with her.
    She hoped Calhoun was gone by now. She hadn’t left the trailer all day. She hadn’t wanted to run into him before his exhibit was finished. The kids had played Yahtzee with her, and cards, and they’d baked chocolate chip cookies that they’d cut from a roll. It had been a sweet interlude, just the four of them, resting together as a family until show time.
    And now it was show time.
    Time to show herself that she wasn’t the same girl who’d fallen for the last cowboy who’d pretended to give her his heart.
    Thirty minutes later, she had Gypsy in the breezeway of the arena. It was packed tonight, which was good, because Gypsy loved crowds. She seemed to perform best when she had a big arena.
    Barley agreed with Olivia on that. He said Gypsy was a true show horse, born to love the