Princess Pickles stretches her nose toward me, sniffing the front of my jacket with great suspicion.
“She bite?”
“Only if you insult her name.”
“I would never.”
The man laughs.
I lift a hand slowly, waiting for the mare to decide if I’m worthy of her attention. After a moment, she lowers her head and allows me to stroke the soft line between her eyes.
“Princess Pickles,” I murmur. “A powerful name.”
The mare huffs.
Clearly, she agrees.
“You’re a big man,” he tells me. “I have a demonstration starting soon on how to change a horse’s shoe, and my original volunteer had to leave. Care to help?”
“Not at all,” I say, intrigued. “What’s your name?”
“Oh, I’m Rory,” he says with a smile. “I work here and help Ms. Moore with the tasks that are too hard to do on her own. Like changing shoes.”
Rory.
The man Olivia mentioned.
The one she said was nice but not right for her mother.
Interesting.
“Princess Pickles doesn’t look too big,” I say, eyeing Rory a little more closely now that I know he’s here every day with the girls.
“Don’t let her size fool you,” he says. “Princess Pickles packs quite the kick if you rile her up. But I wasn’t talking about her. She’s docile enough that even Livy could change her shoes if the task itself wasn’t so hard.”
“It’s really hard to get the old ones off,” Olivia says from behind me.
I turn to find her standing there with her clipboard hugged to her chest, looking every bit as serious as she had earlier.
“And you have to use a ton of pressure to file down their hooves before you can put the new shoes on,” she continues. “Mama says it takes patience, practice, and pressure. The three P’s.”
“The three P’s,” I repeat.
She nods proudly. “I have the first one down. I’m very patient. I’ve been practicing a lot on Princess Pickles, but I don’t have the strength to use the tools yet.”
“Yet?” I ask.
“Yet,” she says firmly. “I’m still growing.”
Rory chuckles. “That she is.”
Olivia looks up at me, studying me the way only children can. Openly. Thoroughly. Without a single ounce of shame.
“You’re probably strong enough,” she decides.
“I would hope so.”
“Do you know anything about horses?”
