The Little Dale Remedy

After eating a light breakfast of tea and toast, Maddie locked the cottage door and pocketed the key, deliberately not looking at the trailer as she walked up the pathway and opened her car. When something nudged her from behind, she turned with a start to see Red gazing up at her happily, his long pink tongue hanging from the side of his mouth to reveal a set of dangerous-looking fangs. Somehow, though, she felt totally unafraid. “Hello, boy,” she said, holding out her hand. The giant dog nuzzled her gently, belying his fearsome appearance.

Maddie noticed Meg watching solemnly over by the trailer. She waved, but when Meg just wiggled her fingers in return, obviously afraid to show a response because of her dad, Maddie felt a rush of anger at his unfairness. Where was this little girl’s mother, and why were they living in a trailer, anyway?

It was none of her business, she decided, so she got in her car and drove off. Besides, she wasn’t even interested in Ross’s way of life.

* * *

AT SKY VIEW, Cass Munro was waiting impatiently. “Sorry,” she said as Maddie came in through the kitchen door. “I forgot to ask if you could come a bit earlier today. I have a doctor’s appointment and I’m running late. Jake brought a client in for breakfast and I haven’t even had the chance to load the dishwasher, so if you wouldn’t mind taking Robbie to school and clearing up the breakfast dishes after... He’s all ready to go.”

“Of course.” Maddie smiled, placing her hand on Cass’s arm. “It’s what I’m here for. You just take your time.”

As if on cue, Robbie ran in through the back door with Choco at his heels. “We’ve been right up to the top of the hill,” he cried. “I’ll just get my school bag.”

“And remember to wipe your face,” Cass called after him as he raced off up the stairs.

Forty-five minutes later, Robbie duly dropped off at the village school, Maddie surveyed the pile of clean breakfast pots beside the sink with satisfaction. She was needed here, and it felt good to be needed after being unable to do anything useful for so long.

Her mother had called last night, stressing about how she was eating and whether she was doing too much. Maddie had to admit it was nice to know her mum cared. Here at Sky View, no one knew just how badly injured she’d been. For a long time after the accident, she’d been in a vague, formless, pain-filled place. Then the depression had descended, taking over her every thought...until, after eighteen long months, as she watched a swallow skim across the glorious summer sky, she suddenly remembered that she, too, still had a life—her life. She needed to live it and not just go through the motions. After that day, she’d let nothing hold her back from her ambition to make enough of a recovery to stand on her own two feet and have a future again.

To her surprise, she was glad that Alex was no longer around to hold her back. This was her fight, hers alone, and it had finally begun.

Despite her satisfaction, even by midmorning Maddie was finding it tough to keep going. The nagging pain in her leg and back had become a throbbing ache, and she longed to sit down and take a rest.

“Does it hurt a lot?” Cass asked in a casual tone when she got home from her appointment. “Take a break if you like.”

“No!” Maddie shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m here to work.”

“Then make us a drink and we’ll both take a break,” she suggested.

As they sat at the kitchen table five minutes later, sipping coffee in companionable silence, Cass looked across at her with a puzzled frown. “So...what happened? The accident, I mean.”

Unused to such a direct line of questioning, Maddie hesitated. “I was cycling to work one morning, and someone knocked me off my bike,” she eventually began. “To be honest, I can’t remember much about it, and I’m okay now...except that my leg sometimes aches.”

Cass stirred sugar into her mug then met Maddie’s gaze with sympathy in her eyes. “And that’s all?”

Unable to bear seeing the same sad expression everyone gave her back home, Maddie gritted her teeth. Before she knew it, the Munros would be talking about her in lowered voices, going quiet the moment she walked into a room. Poor Madeline, her whole career ruined...and she was doing so well.

“It’s hardly anything, really,” she said, forcing a bright smile onto her face. “Just a bit of a nuisance. It doesn’t hold me back at all.”

She stood and went back to peeling carrots, pretending she hadn’t seen the concerned look on Cass’s face.

At midday Jake, his dad, Bill Munro—a tall, thin man whose current project was fixing up the holiday cottages—and Jed, the young lad who helped Jake back the youngsters, came in to eat. They sat at the large kitchen table, laughing and joking and talking about their plans. Maddie handed out food and poured tea, desperately trying not to limp as she moved around the large, homey kitchen.

“Sit down and join us, lass,” said Bill, smiling in Maddie’s direction. “You have to eat, too.”

Jake nodded in agreement, pulling out a chair, and she sat, feeling awkward.

“I already told her,” Cass told them. She turned to Maddie. “Get your lunch—I can see to dessert.”

“It’s okay,” Maddie insisted, not wanting the fuss.

“Sorry, lass, you’re overruled,” Bill said, stroking his neat, white beard, his eyes crinkling in a smile. She settled into the chair with a sigh as Jed passed her a plate.

When the talk turned to horses, Maddie found it difficult not to join in. This was so stupid. Maybe she should just come clean and let them all in on the truth, tell them about her ambition to ride again. They’d help her; she knew they would. She didn’t want help, though, did she? She didn’t want people to make allowances, to see the pity in their eyes as they watched her struggle to be even half of what she used to be. She wanted to be respected for what she’d achieved on her own merit; that was why she’d come here—to be treated like a normal human being again.

“Have you done any riding, Maddie?” Bill asked, right out of the blue. She couldn’t lie about that.

“Some,” she told him. “Not for a while, though.”

“Well, then,” Cass said, placing an apple pie and jug of cream on the table. “You can start again while you’re here. We’re always looking for exercise riders.”

“As soon as we get a suitable horse in for you, we’ll get you on board,” Jake agreed. “At the moment, they’re all only half-broken, or too difficult for a novice.”

Novice! Something deep in Maddie’s chest curled in objection. “I’m not—” she began before biting her tongue, “that bad. Just rusty, I guess.”

“I started on Carlotta,” Cass said. “She’s the best. Unfortunately, she’s in foal right now, or you could have tried riding her.”

“In foal to Grand Design,” Jake added, excitement rising in his voice. “We’re going to have one very special foal, I reckon.”

“I know that stallion!” Maddie exclaimed without thinking. “Big bay...quite tricky to handle, but so talented...” She trailed off as she realized her mistake.

Jake frowned. “How do you know that?”

Cass hesitated. Here’s another chance to tell the truth, her conscience told her. “My dad,” she blurted.

Jake sat back, hands behind his head. “Ah, into racing, is he?”

“Kind of.” Maddie got up to start clearing the table, remembering the elation of riding the big bay stallion out on exercise, when he was one of the three she used to “do.” Tears pressed against her eyelids, and she blinked to try to clear them. She had lost so much more than just the riding. She had lost the companionship of her charges, too.

“You okay?” Cass whispered as they bundled pots into the dishwasher.

Maddie nodded. “Yes...thanks.”

“Well, you might want to go a bit easy on my crockery,” she suggested, and suddenly Maddie was smiling again.

“Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

When the men had disappeared out into the yard again, Cass eased herself down onto a comfortable chair beside the stove. “My back aches a bit,” she groaned. “I’ll just sit for a second.”

“You need to rest,” Maddie said. “How long is it now?”

“Just a matter of weeks,” Cass told her dreamily, touching her stomach. “Look, she’s kicking.”

When Maddie hurried over, Cass grabbed her hand and placed it next to hers. “See?”

“And it’s definite...that it’s a girl, I mean?”

Cass nodded, puckering her brow. “To be honest, I didn’t really want to know, and neither did Jake, but...”