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  Horse Crazy

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  HORSE CRAZY

  CAITLIN RICCI

  Melody and her teenage daughter, Kristen, have moved to Colorado for a fresh start. She's still not 100% where she wants to be in terms of her body yet but she is finally comfortable with herself and is living completely as a woman for the first time in her life. To thank Kristen for being so wonderful she promises her daughter riding lessons, something her little girl has always dreamed of.

  While waiting for the lesson to start, she's happy to see her daughter amidst the horses that she loves so much, but Melody does not expect the handsome man who sits down next to her—a man who proves to be Kristen's instructor and idol—to be interested in taking Melody out on a date...

  BOOK DETAILS

  Horse Crazy

  By Caitlin Ricci

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Amanda Jean

  Cover designed by Aisha Akeju

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition January 2015

  Copyright © 2015 by Caitlin Ricci

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781620044803

  HORSE CRAZY

  I slipped my favorite red dress over my shoulders and tugged it down until it touched the bottom of my knees. Though it had been hanging in my closet for over a year, there wasn't a chance to wear it before. No, that wasn't true. I hadn't had the guts to take it out and put it on before. I'd seen it in a department store and snatched it off the rack. The cashier asked me if it was a present for my wife, I remembered wanting to cry as I shook my head and took my new dress home.

  That was a time fresh after my divorce while Kristen and I were still living in Seattle, less than three miles from my ex-wife, her whole family and the firm I used to work for. We'd needed the move for more reasons than location, but through it all, my little girl was a trooper. Especially when her mom demanded that Kristen live with her instead of with someone like me. Her words had hurt but not as much as the idea of losing Kristen forever—and for no other reason than that I chose not to hide who I was anymore.

  I turned away from the mirror in front of me when I heard a knock on my bedroom door. "Who is it?" I called, knowing perfectly well Kristen was the only one in the house and no burglar would be polite enough to knock. Not that I thought a tiny Colorado town with a name as happy as Summer Valley would have burglars. That idea didn't fit with the wholesome, welcoming image of the town I had in my head. We'd only lived here a week, but I knew every street and every store, which wasn't hard to do in a town with less than seven hundred people in it.

  "Mom, we're gonna be late. Hurry up!"

  I smiled as I turned back to the mirror. "You didn't say please," I teased her.

  Something thunked against the door, likely her forehead. Kristen liked to be dramatic. "Please? I can't be late to my first lesson."

  "You won't be late, boo. Come in here and help me out."

  Kristen was short for fifteen, and as she came to stand next to me, I looked even taller than my already five feet, eight inches made me appear. "You're gonna wear that to the barn?"

  I frowned at my reflection and stopped playing with the skirt as I attempted to get it to lie over my slim hips. Hormones had helped, some, but I still didn't have the hourglass figure I really wanted. I was still on them, and likely would be for the rest of my life, so maybe there was hope for those wider hips I saw in magazines.

  "You don't like it?" Suddenly I was second-guessing myself. The dress was modest but the color was bold, and I generally didn't wear bright colors. But Summer Valley was a new place for us, and I wanted to be me. I wanted to wear reds and yellows and not be afraid to walk outside on a summer day wearing a floral dress, a big hat, and sunglasses that were far too large for my face.

  Kristen shrugged and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her scruffy jeans. She was wearing a T-shirt with a horse on it, long since faded from too many washes that proclaimed her to be Horse Crazy in a pretty script. Well, it had been pretty once, but now most of the lettering was peeling off. "Don't you have some jeans or something? No one really wears dresses to a barn."

  Sighing, I walked over and took a seat on the side of the bed. "You hate it." I looked up at her, my beautiful little girl that looked so much like my ex did when I met her at sixteen. We were married at eighteen, had Kristen at nineteen while I was away in the army, and I'd been happy at times. But I'd never really been me.

  Kristen frowned too. "Naw. I don't hate it. You look good. Your left boob is a bit crooked, though."

  I chuckled—no, I giggled, because women giggle—in embarrassment, and fixed the silicon insert of the silky bra I wore. "Better?" I asked her, hoping I'd fixed the problem. Kristen gave me a little nod, and I reached for my shoes but then hesitated. I really wanted to wear the pair of black pumps I'd ordered online last week. They'd only arrived yesterday, and I'd carried them around for most of the day because I'd been too nervous to try them on in case I hated them, while Kristen was at school. But heels would make me even taller, and not many women were over six feet in heels. I picked up my flats instead and started to put them on.

  Kristen snorted and I looked up at her.

  "Wear the shoes you want. Go for the heels. They're sexy." She gave me a little wink and I rolled my eyes.

  "You should not be telling your mom to wear sexy shoes," I reprimanded her as I put the heels on and strapped them around my ankles. I clicked the shoes together and stretched out my legs to see how pretty they were on my feet. I loved everything about them, right down to their pointy toes and the little rhinestone flowers on the heels.

  "And you should be hurrying up. C'mon, Mom. You said I could have anything I wanted since I agreed to move here for a fresh start. And change schools. And leave all my friends. And what I want is to start riding lessons. Like, you know, today, maybe?" Kristen said, her voice very close to a whine.

  She was being a drama queen, not that I could blame her much. Kristen was at that awkward age where she was trying to be more independent and testing her boundaries. Add to that the fact that I felt guilty for dragging her away from everything that was familiar to her, and yeah, she could pretty much get away with anything at this point. I didn't usually pretend otherwise.

  I gave her a tentative smile, knowing that she was right but still being afraid in many ways of going out looking like myself for the first time in my life. Sure, I'd dressed up at home and had even grown my hair longer, though most of the length right now was extensions to give me the extra eight inches I needed to get it down my back and not just to my shoulders. I'd been wearing makeup for the past year in my living room, and secretly I'd snuck into my wife's skirts whenever she took Kristen to soccer on the weekends back when we were still married. But I hadn't gone out like this before, and the difference was huge for me. But we came here to have something different, in a place where no one knew the man I used to look like and where I could simply be myself.

  "How's my makeup?" I asked her, forcing some light into my voice and gathering confidence I didn't really feel.

  She put a hand on her hip and gave me another of those oh-so-typical teenage shrugs I was getting used to seeing from her. "You could use some more gold eye shadow. Or pink would look good too. And glitter."

  My smile grew and I s
hook my head at her as I got steadily to my feet. "No. No glitter today." I went to the mirror and checked my face again. The hormones made any hair a lot less noticeable, but I was still nervous. "Tell me honestly, do I look like a woman?" I asked Kristen as my gaze caught hers in the mirror.

  She nodded. "Yeah. Of course you do. Now, can we please get going? Pleeeaaaseee?"

  I checked my hair again, scrunched it to give it a bit more volume, and then applied some more lipstick. I supposed that I was ready to go, even if I didn't really feel like it. In truth I was terrified. I'd dragged her here, and what if it was all for nothing? What if everyone knew I had been born a man the moment I walked outside my front door? I'd been out there before, briefly, but it'd been to go to the twenty-four hour grocery store in the middle of the night. I'd worn a sweatshirt and sunglasses and had used the kiosk to check out so that I didn't have to see other people.

  "Okay, try to toughen up," I told my reflection before turning away from it. When I went to face Kristen, though, she'd left my room. "Kristen?" I called to her, picking up my purse and car keys before heading out of my room. Hardwood floors and lots of practice made walking in the heels easy enough, though I looked down at the line of stairs to the front door with some trepidation.

  Kristen came out of her bedroom holding a purple velvet box in her hand, and I had no idea what she was doing. But then she opened it and held it out to me, and my eyes got big. "I know your birthday isn't until next month, but I saw this in the mall before we moved here and I wanted you to have it. It's a musical note. You know, because your name is Melody now."

  She had made me cry plenty of times before, like the time she broke her arm, and even though I'd been in the army I still couldn't bear the sight of seeing my little girl in pain. But she'd never made me cry like this before; I could barely see through the haze of tears in my eyes as I blinked away the wetness and reached out to touch the shiny silver pendant and then pulled her into a hug. "You are a great daughter," I told her, placing a kiss on her temple.

  "Yeah, yeah, you're squishing me, Mom."

  I held onto her anyway.

  "You're going to ruin your mascara if you keep crying on me."

  I could suffer through that.

  "Mo-om, please don't make me late. Please, please, please."

  Fine, I could let her go for that. But she had to endure another kiss. I bent down so that she could put the necklace on me and checked myself in the hall mirror as she ran to the front door. I was practically grinning as we left the house and got into my little red sports car that my ex had called part of my midlife crisis. I didn't think about what she'd called me when I'd told her I'd never really been comfortable as a man, and also that I was attracted to them.

  The neighbor boy, I thought his name might have been Todd, waved to Kristen as he got his mail, but she was too excited talking about horses to notice a cute boy trying to get her attention. I hoped that never changed, but I knew better.

  "I can't believe I'll actually be learning about genetics. Like, real genetics. Not the watered down stuff they taught us in biology."

  "Uh-huh."

  I turned onto the main street out of our neighborhood and started driving past the ranches that lined the quiet street. Summer Valley had attracted me because it was a small town, like the kind I'd grown up in, but also because it was the kind of place that had more horses than people in it. Most people, it seemed, lived on properties with at least a few acres on them.

  I hadn't told Kristen yet, but my plan for her birthday in a few months was to get her a horse and keep it on the acre we had. Right now, the back yard needed new fencing and the little shelter would need to be redone, but if she was still into horses at that point I'd help her get it ready. Of course, that was only as long as she realized she'd be the one taking care of any horse we brought home. I knew nothing about them and wasn't all that interested in learning beyond the bits and pieces of the basics I'd managed to pick up from her.

  "Did you know that a sorrel horse has two red genes?" Kristen continued.

  "No. Is that special?" We turned onto a dirt road, and I cringed as little rocks pinged against the undercarriage of my car. Not good, but I wasn't about to trade in my lovely little car for something more practical.

  I saw Kristen shrug out of the corner of my eye. "Derrick thinks so. His favorite color of horse is a sorrel. I wonder how many horses he'll have."

  I nearly drove off the road as I looked over at her. "And please, do tell, who is this Derrick?" I'd been pretty careful about the people Kristen had in her life, and up to this point she'd never mentioned a boy named Derrick. I was instantly in protective mom mode.

  But Kristen rolled her eyes and put one leg over the other as she returned my look. "Derrick Masters. Remember? He wrote that awesome book on horse genetics that's upstairs in my room? The one you got me because there was a horse on the cover and I wanted something horsey for my birthday a few years back?"

  The memory was slowly coming to me. Or rather, I remembered my ex telling me that she'd forgotten Kristen's birthday present, and could I pretty please run out right that moment to get our daughter something she'd love? The bookstore was on my way home from the grocery store I'd been at when she'd called, and the book was the first thing I had spotted with a horse on it.

  "Oh yes, that Derrick," I said, hoping I sounded like I knew exactly who he was.

  "I can't believe you got me lessons with him. Or that he lives in this town. Did you know? Did you plan this whole thing? Because, you know, if you did, that would be pretty stellar." Kristen was bouncing in her seat, looking more excited than the time I'd taken her to a big amusement park for her fifth birthday.

  I nodded and Kristen beamed at me. "That would be great, huh?" Of course I had no clue, but if Kristen thought I was a rock star, for the moment I'd run with it. I didn't get all that many chances to be her hero anymore.

  "So you'll be learning about genetics at this riding center, huh?" I asked Kristen, hoping to show her that I'd been listening to her ramble.

  She nodded emphatically. "Yes. Along with trail riding, western pleasure, a bit of barrel racing, and of course the basics."

  I smiled at her. "Of course." She'd said it as if she couldn't believe she would have to endure learning about them again. "What kind of basics? Like feeding?"

  Kristen shrugged and played with one of her nails as I pulled off the dirt road and onto one that was still dirt but much narrower. "Sure. Feeding, brushing, how to saddle a horse. Oh! I wonder if Derrick will let us ride bareback. I hope so. I'd love to learn how."

  "Honey, maybe Mr. Masters would prefer to be called that instead of you using his first name," I tried to gently tell her. Clearly he was her idol, but I felt a bit odd at having Kristen call a grown man she'd never met by his first name.

  "Nah, I think he'll let us call him Derrick."

  "Why?" I asked her.

  "Because he's cool like that."

  There was such a finality to her words that I wondered how she'd come to believe them so completely. "Just ask him first. All right?"

  "Sure." She gave me another little shrug and dropped her hands back into her lap. "How come you don't like horses?"

  I shook my head and pulled up to a barn. It was white with red trim and a brown roof, just like the picture on the website where I'd booked these lessons for Kristen. "It's not that I don't like them," I told her as I turned off the engine and gathered my things. "They're simply not something I ever took an interest in." I didn't tell her about my fear of heights or how I'd fallen off a pony at a kids' carnival when I was a kid. She didn't need to know all of the embarrassing stories about her mom.

  We got out of the car and I straightened the skirt of my red dress and followed Kristen into the open barn. She walked around like she knew exactly where we were and had been there before, which was obviously impossible. It was charming, though I did have to pull her away from the saddles when she went to sit on one that was on a stand away fr
om the others.

  "Wow! I've never seen a dapple rose gray horse before. Not in person, anyway," Kristen said as she excitedly rushed up to a horse that had its head stuck over the front of its stall.

  "Is that what it is?" I asked her, walking after her.

  "Yeah. See how the gray is a bit darker on her legs?" Kristen pointed and then frowned when I didn't immediately see what she was getting at. "Here, let me show you."

  I shook my head when she made to go into the horse's stall by herself. "Kristen, honey, these aren't your horses. You can't just go into their stalls. In fact, maybe we shouldn't be in the barn at all. Let's find out where everyone else is. We can't possibly be the first ones here."

  She looked disappointed, but she'd have to get over it. I led us back out of the barn as I kept my eye on her to make sure she didn't free any horses while she was attempting to show me something. Kristen was sweet, always had been, but she sometimes didn't understand what she was doing. I figured it was a teenager thing and that she'd become more observant in time.

  We found some people sitting on a row of bleachers, and I sat down next to Kristen after brushing off the warm metal to make sure I wouldn't get my dress dirty. I attracted attention, but by the looks on the faces of the people around me, I knew it was because of my outfit and not who I was. Being overdressed at a barn didn't bother me, and I didn't mind the envious looks some of the women were giving me. I might have even preened a little under them. I was fit, had been since running track in high school, and being in the army hadn't changed that. Not working out as much and taking the hormones had helped me lose most of the bulk, and though I wished I had the kind of curves I wanted, I knew I was pretty. I crossed one leg over the other and put on my sunglasses, content to stay like that in the sun while Kristen chatted with a girl sitting next to her. I was only half-listening at best as they talked about horses and music, forming an easy and instant friendship.

  "Parents, teens, can I have your attention?" I looked up to see a woman in a pair of dusty jeans and a T-shirt with a horse logo on it walking in front of us. The chatter around me slowly died down, and I pushed my sunglasses back on my head to be able to see her better. It was bright, so I could have worn them, plenty of people were, but I didn't like when people tried to talk to others while they had shades on. It was rude, in my opinion.