Country Girls Do It Better... Book 1 Of The Healing Through Horses Trilogy

Chapter 16

I couldn't sleep that night. I lay awake, tossing and turning, getting tangled up in the sheets.

        After changing positions for the sixth time in the last five minutes, I sat up. I glanced at my clock. 3:47 a.m.

       There was no way that I was going to get any rest, so I decided to get up and do something. I threw on one of my dad's ARMY sweatshirts and quietly and opened the door.

       Well, almost quietly. I hadn't tightened the hinges in forever, or oiled them for that matter, and it let out a loud, high-pitched squeak. I stopped moving. My dad was a light sleeper, and his room was right down the hall. There was no way he hadn't heard  that.

       But to my surprise, and relief, His snores still resounded through the halls. He snored like a freight train.

       I padded out to the kitchen, my fuzzy socks muffling any sound I would have otherwise made.

       I could hardly see through my sleep-deprived eyes, so I couldn't find my boots. I bent down and looked under the table. Nothing. I checked in the pantry. (Don't ask why.) Nothing. Finally I spotted them on the rug by the door. I pulled them on, almost falling over in the process. Maybe I should've sat down.

       When I had gotten them on, I stepped out on the porch. The fall air was cold, but the sweatshirt was warm enough. I took a deep breath and immediately felt more alert.

      I made my way out to the pasture and sat on the fence. The light bulb on the side of the barn emitted enough light that I could see the horses. I saw Ozzy with her head down grazing. She didn't see me.

      I tried to take note of every little detail.

      The way that Chance lowered his ears a little every time one of the other geldings got too close. Chance is a little bit territorial. Ozzy would get a wild hair every once in a while, and take off running. It would last for about thirty seconds, but she covered the whole pasture in that time span. She would add in random little hops and jumps to her routine, sometimes full out bucks.

        When she ran, Her tail would stream out behind her and her mane looked like wings lifting her up. She was a very fast horse, and there were times when it looked like her hooves didn't even touch the ground. When we first got her, and my dad saw her run, He said She was the fastest horse he had seen in person.

       Ozzy completed her third... I didn't even know what to call it. She stuck her nose out in the air and sniffed. As if smelling me, she whipped her head around and nickered. She lowered her head and shook it as she trotted toward me. (A/N: If you own an Arabian, You probably know what I'm talking about here. :D)

      She stuck her head directly in my lap, trying to eat the ties on my sweat pants.

      "Hey sweetie. Good morning." I said as I rubbed the whorl in the middle of her forehead. "You can't sleep either, huh? Though I'm guessing not for the same reasons..." My voice trailed off and I shook my head to stop the unsettling thoughts that came back from last night.

      She pulled her head off my lap and went back to eating the grass underneath where I was perched on the fence.

     She tilted her head, trying to fit as much of her nose under the fence to try and get the grass on the other side. Soon, she got bored and went back in to the middle of the field.

     I sat there watching the horses for at least another hour before the sun started peeking above the trees.

    I decided that I should probably go in and start getting ready for school. I wanted to skip so badly.