Without stopping to think whether or not she should, Leila turned from the window and was already pulling her nightgown over her head. She dressed quickly in the same slacks and blouse she'd worn that day, slipped bare feet into her shoes and ran down the stairs. At the back entrance she remembered just in time to turn off the security alarm before opening the door.
This time she was ready for the warm, wet slap of humidity. What she hadn't expected was the noise. Inside the well-insulated and air-conditioned house she hadn't realized how loud the night was, in this place of so many trees and lush vegetation, so many ponds and fields and streams. All around her the night was filled with sounds- busy sounds, ratcheting, chirping, hooting, clicking, screeching sounds.
After the first surprise, Leila decided she liked the racket.
She unlatched the gate and slipped silently through. And her nice little shivers exploded all through her muscles like slivers of steel. Her scalp bloomed with prickles and her heart rocketed into her throat. All of a sudden the night was full of large warm bodies, wiggling, snuffling shifting bodies, pressing in on her from all sides. As her back slammed against the gate she sucked in air and whispered, 'Oh-good dogs…nice… dogs…'
Something warm and wet slapped the back of her hand-then the other hand as well. She moved her fingers and felt them burrow through silky-soft fur. She could hear coming from the squirming, waggling shapes little whines and whimpers and panting sounds that sounded like laughter. Friendly sounds.
Taking a deep breath and summoning her courage, she pushed away from the gate and took several tentative steps. The dogs moved with her, arranging themselves in front and in back and on both sides of her, keeping just out of range of her feet as she walked. Just like my father's bodyguards, she thought, as the last vestiges of her fear slipped away.
The dogs followed her to the stable door, but made no move to go inside with her. Clearly, they knew this was not allowed.
Although the lights were on in the stable, no one was inside. Finding her way through a stall filled with sweet, clean straw, Leila found herself in the paddock where she had seen the mare, Suki, that afternoon. There, in a corner of the paddock just to the left outside the doorway in which she stood, by the light leaking through the stall's half doors, she could see the mare's pale shape lying on the darker grass. Rueben was there, too, crouched on one knee with his fingers braced on the ground, like a runner at the start of a race.
Leila ventured toward them as silently as she knew how. Rueben glanced at her as she crouched down beside him, but without much surprise-almost, it seemed to her, as if he had expected her to come.
'She's not doin' so good,' he said in a low voice.
'What is the matter?' Leila breathlessly whispered back.
'Got halfway and quit. Happens sometimes. I think she'll be okay, though-just have to give her a little help.'
'Help?'
'Yeah…gonna pull a little bit. She should start pushing on her own then.'
'Should she not be inside, in the stable?' Leila's heart was beating very hard.
Rueben lifted one shoulder in his familiar shrug. 'She's where she wants to be. Horses are meant to have their babies in the open. It's their nature. If the weather's bad, I bring her inside. When it's nice like this, I let her choose.' He pushed himself up from his crouch. Leila did the same.
'What can I do to help?' she whispered.
He nodded toward the mare, who had her head up and was quietly watching them. 'You can keep her calm, if you want. Just pet her… talk to her. Rub her under her jaw, like this…'
Leila nodded and began to move cautiously toward the mare's head, crooning to her softly in Arabic, the language her nanny had used to soothe her when she was a baby. Her heart hammered and her lungs ached as she felt the slick, warm horsehide beneath her fingers, and smelled the familiar salty horse-smell. The mare gave a little whicker of uncertainty as Leila began to stroke her sweat-damp neck, but didn't try to rise. 'Beautiful, noble lady…' Leila murmured. 'You must be strong…you must have the courage of a lioness.'
The mare grunted. Leila felt the surge of powerful muscles, and then a groan that seemed to come from deep inside the mare's belly.
'That's it-she's pushin' good now,' said Rueben after a moment, panting a little. 'Okay…okay-that's good. Let her go-she'll do it herself now, I think.'
Leila pushed herself away from the mare's surging body and scrambled around to join Rueben just in time to see the foal's body slither onto the grass like a puddle of spilled ink.
'Nice filly,' said Rueben. 'Nice big girl.'
'Is she all right?' Leila asked fearfully. The foal had not moved. Leila's heart was knocking painfully; she felt as if she could not breathe. 'Is she…dead? She is not breathing.'
'She'll be okay.' Rueben pulled his white T-shirt off over his head. 'Here-wipe her head a little bit,' he said as he tossed it to her.
Then she was on her knees in the wet grass, trying not to shake as she wiped frantically at the film of mucus that covered the foal's mouth and nose. Sweat trickled down her sides, dripped from her nose and ran stinging into her eyes. She kept making desperate little whimpering noises, but didn't realize then that she was crying. Not until the foal suddenly jerked her head up and shook it hard, her long ears making a slapping sound against her neck.
'She'll be fine now,' said Rueben, as Leila collapsed backward onto the seat of her pants with a loud, quivering sob.
But she was laughing, too. Laughing and sobbing as she gathered the newborn foal's head into her arms and pressed her cheek to its soaking wet hide.
Chapter 8
Betsy and Rueben were in the kitchen when Leila came down to breakfast the morning after the birth of the foal. She'd heard their voices and didn't mean to listen in, but then she'd heard her own name and naturally that made her hesitate.
'I wish you could have seen her, Bets. That black hair of hers-you couldn't tell which was her and which was the filly.'
Rueben's chuckle was lost in a loud metallic clang. 'I wish
'He said it was business.' She couldn't see it, but Leila knew Rueben had lifted a shoulder in his special little shrug.
'Huh. He couldn't cancel it? Just once? What kind of thing is that to do? Go off and leave his bride all alone… And such a nice girl, too. Really sweet, you know?'
Leila had gone into the kitchen, then, and her cheeks were hot and her heart beating fast.
Now it was Sunday afternoon, and Leila was lying on a chaise longue beside the pool, remembering that conversation from two mornings ago, and the moment that followed when she had walked into that room that was flooded with sunlight and the warm smells of coffee and bacon and toast.
Rueben had been at the sink preparing a large plastic bottle with a long red rubber nipple on it for the new foal, because, he said, the mare's milk wasn't comin' in so good yet, and maybe Leila would like to help him feed the baby in a little while. Betsy's eyes had lit with welcome and her smile had been warm.
Leila remembered the strange little lump of yearning that had come into her throat just then, the sting of lonely
