The man behind the desk pointed out the doors to the boy in the white T-shirt outside in the forecourt.
“Your friend out there, he just took the last one.”
Chapter 3
This was a nightmare! It was dark, they were exhausted, they had been travelling for twelve hours straight and there was nowhere else for them to go.
“I’m sorry,” the motel manager said, “it’s been crazy-busy today and I’ve got five horses checked in already – we’ve got no vacancies.”
“Don’t you have anything else at all?” Issie pleaded.
“Well,” the man said, “that last stall I gave to the boy has a partition gate in it. You could always ask him if he’s willing to share the loose box and get both your horses in there for the night.”
Issie looked out of the doors of the motel reception. The boy was by his truck on the forecourt, making a call on his mobile phone.
“I’ll go and ask him,” she told the motel manager. “I’ll be right back.”
The boy had pocketed his phone and was just about to climb back in his truck when Issie rushed over to him.
“Hey!”
The boy looked up at her. She noticed at that moment that his hair was a really unusual colour, somewhere in between blond and copper, and that he had the coolest pale green eyes. “Yes?”
Issie took a deep breath and summoned up her last reserves of good humour and smiled at him. “I’m sorry about what happened in there.”
“That’s OK,” the boy said, “don’t worry about it.”
“My name is Isadora, by the way,” she said and stuck out her hand.
The boy took it and shook it. “I’m Marcus, Marcus Pearce.”
He was about to climb into his truck, but Issie blocked his path. Marcus frowned at her. “Is there something else?”
“Ummm, yes,” Issie said. “You see, the funny thing is, it turns out you got the last stall…”
“Is that so?” Marcus raised an eyebrow.
“… and I was just talking to the guy behind the desk and he suggested that your horse and my horse might, you know, share a stall for the night. There’s a partition gate we can put in so they’d be kept separate and they’d be quite safe.”
“Let me get this straight,” Marcus said. “You want to share my stall?”
“Well,” Issie couldn’t help pointing out, “strictly speaking, if you hadn’t pushed into the queue ahead of me then it would be my stall…”
Marcus shook his head in disbelief and began to get back in his truck again.
“Wait!” Issie said. “Please. My horse has nowhere else to sleep tonight and we’ve come all the way from Los Angeles and I’m jetlagged and I’m just really, really tired…”
Marcus raised a hand to stop her from continuing. “OK, OK. I guess I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I knew your horse was stuck on the street for the night.”
He smiled at her. “It looks like my mare has a new room-mate.”
Avery and Stella already had Comet unloaded and waiting when Issie turned up with a total stranger in a sleek black horse truck.
“This is Marcus Pearce.” Issie did the introductions. “They were short on stalls so he’s offered to let his mare share with Comet.”
Marcus grinned at the sight of the skewbald standing before him. “He’s a cute little guy, isn’t he?” he said. “Where are you taking him?”
“Lexington, Kentucky,” Issie said. “We’re competing in the Four-Star.”
“You’re kidding!”
“He’s only a pony,” Issie said, “but he’s more impressive on the cross-country than he looks.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Marcus said. “It’s a coincidence, that’s all. I’m riding at Kentucky too.”
From inside Marcus’s truck there came a whinny as if to confirm this, followed by the sound of hooves moving restlessly, thudding against the rubber-matting floor.
“I think my mare is tired of being cooped up,” Marcus said. “I’d better unload her.”
He lowered the truck ramp and the girls got a rear view of the mare’s long silvery blonde tail and chocolate brown legs dressed in hock-high white sheepskin floating boots.
Marcus made gentle clucking noises at the mare to get her moving down the ramp, although she hardly needed much encouragement. After being on the road for so long she almost bounded off, her head held high and erect, nostrils wide with excitement as she sniffed the air and looked around.
Issie couldn’t believe how pretty she was. The mare had a long silver-blonde mane that matched her lustrous tail, and her coat was a delicious cocoa colour with dapples in the chocolate on her rump and over her shoulders.
“She’s unusual-looking, isn’t she?” Marcus said as the girls stared at the mare. “She’s a silver dapple.”
Stella wrinkled her nose. “She looks more like chocolate to me.”
“That’s just what they call it,” Marcus said. “A chocolate coat and a silver mane and tail. She’s got three white socks underneath those floating boots too.”
He ran a hand over the mare’s neck. “My groom Annie is supposed to keep her mane short so that it’s easy to plait for competitions, but she keeps letting it grow long because it’s too pretty to pull.”
Issie looked at the long forelock hanging down over the mare’s eyes. “You should at least trim her forelock. I’m surprised she can even see the jumps from underneath all that hair!”
The mare seemed to know that everyone was talking about her. She moved about anxiously, her sheepskin-booted legs never staying still for more than a second. As she watched the mare strutting about, Issie put aside the mare’s striking colour and examined her conformation with a cool, professional eye. The horse was a good size, about sixteen hands high, but lightly built with a lean frame and long legs that were perfect for travelling fast across country. Her shoulders had a perfect slope – the mark of a good mover – and she had exceptionally powerful hindquarters. It was the mare’s face that Issie liked best, though. She had dainty white markings, a tiny white star beneath her silver-blonde forelock, and at the end of her muzzle there was a cute white snip as if she had dipped her nose into a pot of paint and then thought better of it. Her liquid brown eyes were wide set and intelligent.
“What’s her name?” Issie asked.
“Valmont Liberty,” said Marcus. “Valmont is the name of the stable
