tired, that’s all.’
‘Remember. I’m here if you need me,’ Sarah said.
Maddie buckled her seat belt and backed the Land Rover out of the driveway, glancing briefly in her rear-view mirror as she paused at the junction with the main road. Emily had come out to find her grandmother, and as Maddie saw the two of them standing together, she was suddenly struck by how very much alike they were.
And the resemblance went beyond the physical; at nine years old, Emily already had the same quiet, self-contained composure as her grandmother. She and Sarah were made of the same unbreakable steel. Even as a baby, Emily had never seemed to need Maddie the way Jacob and Noah did. She’d lie outside for hours in her pram at the sanctuary, placidly playing with her own fingers and toes. When Maddie had been at her lowest ebb after Jacob’s birth, Emily had quietly found ways to amuse herself, never complaining or demanding attention. She lived in a world of her own, perfectly content with her own company.
Maddie never had to worry about Emily. It was the boys she found so exhausting, and so hard to manage. There were times, although she would never admit it out loud, when she couldn’t help thinking how much easier life would’ve been if she’d stopped at one child, like her mother.
Later that morning, Maddie leaned on the split-rail fence along the edge of the bottom paddock, watching as Izzy took Finn over a five-bar jump and landed him neatly on the other side. Both horse and rider had seen better days, but they were still poetry in motion.
On the far side of the jump, a photographer with a floppy boy-band fringe snapped away.
‘Did you get what you need?’ Izzy called, as she pulled Finn up.
The photographer fiddled with his lenses. ‘One more time?’
Finn’s chestnut flanks rippled in the sunshine as Izzy took him over the jump again. He was a former show-jumper, one of the most beautiful horses Maddie had ever seen. He’d probably earned a great deal of money for his owner, before the trophies had stopped coming and he’d been sold and then resold and finally dumped by the side of the road by an unscrupulous dealer, abandoned without food, water or shelter. When he’d arrived at the sanctuary, Maddie had been able to count his ribs, and his feet were in such a bad state, he could barely walk.
The photographer snapped away as Maddie fed Finn some Polos. She was grateful when he left.
‘Please tell me we don’t have to do that again soon,’ she grumbled to Izzy, as they led Finn back up to the yard.
‘Play nice,’ Izzy chided. ‘The Courier’s promised us two pages if they like the photos.’
They certainly needed the publicity. The sanctuary’s finances were in a perilous state; when Maddie had first started working here full-time eleven years ago, there had been seven members of staff, plus a couple of pony-mad teenage girls trading riding lessons for sweat equity. Now they were down to just three: Bitsy, the last remaining stable-hand, a gruff, weather-beaten woman who’d worked at the sanctuary since she was sixteen; Isobel Pyne-Lancaster, who spent most of her time circulating the begging bowl around her smart friends; and Maddie herself.
It was a daily battle just to keep their doors open. Maddie couldn’t bear to turn any horse or pony away, no matter how short of funds they were. But it cost thousands of pounds a month just to keep the sanctuary running. Some of the money came from riding lessons and the odd gymkhana, but the rest came from donations. Maddie might find it difficult to ask for something for herself, but when it came to her horses, it was a different matter. In that, she supposed, she was just like her mother.
Maddie fell in love with horses the way most women fell in love with men. Ironically, she’d never been a horsey child; Sarah had never had the kind of money that supported ponies and riding lessons and gymkhanas, and even if she had, it wasn’t the kind of posh, braying world they mixed in. But when she was eleven, her mother had dragged her along to a fundraiser at a local stable yard for people who’d been severely injured in riding accidents; not the most auspicious introduction to the equestrian world. She’d been absolutely terrified: of the stamping and whinnying, the huge, iron-clad feet that looked like they could crush her in a heartbeat, of the horses’ sheer size.
But then one of the stable girls had given her a carrot and led her over to a vast, orange sofa of horseflesh called Paul. ‘Hold your hand flat,’ the girl had instructed, as the horse snorted and nuzzled her shoulder. ‘He won’t bite.’
Paul had bared his great yellow teeth as if laughing at her. Maddie had frozen, too petrified to move, as his huge velvety nose snuffled against her hand. With the delicacy of a dowager selecting a cucumber sandwich, he’d taken the carrot and whinnied with pleasure, butting against her arm as if in thanks.
Maddie had gazed up at him in rapture, her heart swelling with joy. He liked her! He liked her!
It had been the start of a love that’d had no equal until Emily was born.
Maddie had spent her teenage years in jodhpurs, with straw in her hair and dirt under her nails, mucking out stables at a nearby horse sanctuary in return for riding lessons. At one point, she’d dreamed of being a jockey. She was the right height and had the necessary slim, wiry build, and over time, she acquired the technical skills, but eventually she’d had to accept she just didn’t have the killer instinct. It took strength and guts to hold on to 1200 pounds of horseflesh thundering along at forty miles an hour. Horses could smell your fear, and she’d never quite mastered hers. Instead, she’d got a degree in animal welfare and started working full-time at the horse sanctuary. Later, after Benjamin’s death, she’d used her small inheritance from her father to buy out the owners, two retired vets, when it’d become too much for them to manage.
Finn had been her first rescue horse. He’d obviously been viciously abused as well as shamefully neglected, and when he’d arrived at the sanctuary, he’d had no idea how to respond to affection, backing away in fear when she tried to stroke his nose. He’d circled his stable endlessly, grabbing mouthfuls of hay and spitting them out over the door and biting his own shoulders. She’d had no idea horses could self-harm until then.
It’d taken months of persistent, loving patience to calm him enough to even get a saddle on him. But, in the end, he’d become her greatest success story. She always put her most nervous riders on Finn. He was like a huge armchair. He understood their fear, because of what he’d been through himself.
Izzy led Finn into his box. ‘Mads, I need to talk to you,’ she said, as she came back outside and bolted the stable door behind her.
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Maddie said, with a lightness she didn’t feel.
‘Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think we should consider selling the lower meadow,’ Izzy said, as they crossed the yard. ‘Our cheque for feed this month bounced again. The south stables are leaking, and if we don’t fix the roof soon, it’s going to come down. Bitsy hasn’t been paid for two months, and I know you haven’t taken a penny in almost a year. We have vet bills, hay bills, the rates are due.’ She stopped as they reached the small Portakabin that served as the sanctuary’s offices. ‘We’re sinking, Maddie.’
Maddie
