Penalty Points (Pine Hollow No. 7)
"Hey there," Lisa Atwood said softly as she opened the stall door and slipped inside. "How's my favorite mommy-to-be?"The resident of the stall, a long-legged Thoroughbred mare, snorted and took a step toward her. Lisa smiled as the horse snuffled at her jeans pockets and then moved her big, velvety nose up and down the front of her shirt."Sorry, Prancer. No treats today." Lisa reached up to smooth back her hair as the horse ran her nose over it experimentally, obviously still hoping to discover a stray carrot or slice of apple. "Just wanted to come for a little visit with you and the babies."She shook her head slightly as she said it, automatically running her eyes over the mare's glossy bay flanks. Prancer was almost three months pregnant, but a stranger would have had trouble spotting the slight swelling of her belly. Even Lisa, who had ridden Prancer for years, had trouble seeing it.She also had a little trouble believing it. Lisa had fallen in love with Prancer, a former racehorse, when the mare had first come to Pine Hollow Stables years before. Since then she had rarely ridden another horse--at least until a few months earlier, when she had left her home in Willow Creek, Virginia, to spend the summer with her father in California. When she'd returned just before the start of her senior year, everything had changed. Prancer had been bred with the Pine hollow stallion, Geronimo, and was pregnant--with twins, no less. The mare couldn't be ridden until her foals were weaned, by which time Lisa would have departed for college.Lisa had been trying to reconcile herself to that fact when she had found out that her father was planning a surprise for her: He wanted to buy Prancer for her once the foaling process was finished. That news had been almost as unsettling as the news about the pregnancy itself. Knowing that the sweet, willing, beautiful Thoroughbred would someday be hers had made it both easier and harder for Lisa to deal with the mare's pregnancy. Easier because she knew that her days of riding Prancer wouldn't be over, even if she went far away to college the next year. Harder because it made her worry more than ever about all the things that could go wrong in the coming months, especially since Prancer was carrying twins, which was very rare and risky in horses. In her seventeen years, Lisa had rarely felt as many conflicting emotions about anything--happiness, terror, anticipation, and worry tumbled through her every time she thought about the tiny foals growing inside Prancer."It doesn't seem to bother you one bit, though, does it, girl?" Lisa murmured, gazing at the mare's calm, wise, gentle face. Without thinking, she stretched her arms around Prancer's neck and stood on tiptoes to plant a kiss squarely on the horse's smooth, soft cheek.