Cowboy Crazy

chapter 29



Sarah strode past Lane as he held open the passenger door to his pickup.

“I’ll take my own car,” she said. “That way I can just go.”

He gave her Malibu a scornful once-over. “That car’s not made for the ranch roads. You’re going to get a flat.”

“That’ll be my problem.” The old car was like her—tougher than it looked. Besides, she doubted the ranch roads were much worse than the lane to the Love Nest.

She was wrong. The Malibu bottomed out twice on the rutted road. Deep truck tracks were carved into the surface, frozen, then dried to rocklike permanence. She steered to one side so at least two wheels were on a level surface, gritting her teeth as weeds scraped her door.

There was nowhere to turn around, and stopping would bring Lane to her rescue. He’d take her to the ranch and she’d be stuck there. She didn’t want to spend any more time in the company of horses than she had to. Or in the company of Lane Carrigan.

He turned onto a weed-choked two-track after about a quarter-mile, passing under a massive log ranch gate decorated with a set of elk horns flanked by two mule deer racks. It was atmospheric but not ostentatious, so it didn’t prepare her for the view as she steered the Malibu around a rutted bend in the road.

The barn rose up before her, tall, ancient, and weathered. Wide, welcoming doors at the front slid open to either side, offering a glimpse of the shadowed interior. A hay door at the top framed stacks of gleaming straw.

Generations of ranchers had embellished and added to the basic edifice. On one side, old lean-to additions tilted against its solid mass like chicks round a hen, but on the other a modern new addition stretched out, with wide windows over dutch doors that indicated nearly a dozen individual stalls. A few chickens and something that looked like a pheasant pecked in the driveway, adding a homey barnyard feel.

Old corrals built of a haphazard assortment of poles and boards created a free-form patchwork that stretched from the barn, undulating over the hills like a roughly stitched quilt. Linked in a complex network by every imaginable type of gate, each square was polka-dotted with horses in colors ranging from black to palomino. The corrals gave way to a pasture surrounded by miles of crooked, weathered fence, with more horses scattered over the yellowing grass that stretched to the horizon.

The place looked like a picture-book ranch—or a scene from her adolescent fantasies of some future paradise. She felt like a goose-girl again, a barnyard princess, and this was her kind of castle.

The house, though, was less of a dream and more of a nightmare. Someone had concluded that if big was good, enormous was better. The result was a place so grandiose that it looked absurd. The high stone front was set with massive carved doors that looked large enough to admit a herd of cattle. The stone section was topped by a cathedral-style log edifice that was mostly windows. Two-story log-and-stone wings flanked the center, and a round tower rose from one side. The top story of the tower was even higher than the cathedral roof, and it had windows all around. Sarah could only imagine the view from inside.

She heard Lane’s truck door slam behind her and the crunch of his boots on the gravel drive.

“Grandaddy grew up poor.” He gave the house a rueful smile. “He wanted to make sure everybody knew how much money he’d made.”

She shot him an irritated look. “You thought Trevor had to have this all to himself last night?”

He looked away, squinting toward the corrals as if he hadn’t heard her.

“This place must sleep about fifty,” she said.

“There are only twelve bedrooms. Each one has a different theme, so its fun to switch around.” He shrugged. “I wanted to give him his privacy. I hadn’t warned him I was coming.”

“You didn’t warn me either, and I had to keep a lot closer quarters with you.”

“Yeah, that worked out pretty well.”

“Dog.” She suppressed the urge to smile as he stepped up to the corral fence and rested his elbows on the top. Joining him, she propped one foot on the bottom rail and watched three horses sidle toward them. There was a pretty sorrel with a white blaze, a slightly bony palomino, and a roan that didn’t look to be much more than a yearling. The sorrel stretched her neck as she approached, testing the air.

“They’re gorgeous,” she said. “Well, except for the palomino.”

“That’s Tony,” Lane said. “He had a rough time. He’ll be a good-looking boy once he gets some food in him.”

“Poor thing. But they’re all quarter horses, aren’t they?”

“I’m partial to ’em.”

She couldn’t really blame him. The horses all had strong hindquarters, broad chests, and beautiful heads, wide at the forehead and tapering to an almost delicate muzzle. Their eyes were curious and soft, and she felt an urge stirring inside her—an urge she’d managed to suppress for over a decade.

Lane watched her stroke the sorrel’s nose, the corners of his eyes crinkling as his smile widened. “That’s Sadie,” he said. “She’s my project horse right now. Just turned three and learning fast.”

“She’s beautiful,” Sarah murmured.

“Want to ride her?”

Sarah pulled her hand away and stuck it in her pocket. “Nope. I told you, I’m scared.”

“You don’t look scared.”

“It only happens when I try to get on.”

It was the closest she’d come to telling anyone about what had happened, but Lane’s phone interrupted with a loud beep, startling the animals into jerking their heads back.

“I have to take this.” He turned toward the house as he flicked the phone open. “Be right back.”

***

Once they figured out she wasn’t bearing food, the horses lost interest in Sarah and went about the usual equine business of standing in the sun, rolling in the dirt, and taking turns nibbling the itchy spots on each others’ withers. She watched them a while, then moved past a couple of empty corrals toward the back of the barn. The sun felt good on the back of her neck, and the scent of green grass, hay, horse manure, and that indefinable mix of sage, dirt, and pine that defined Wyoming brought back memories of her childhood. Some of the horses reminded her of the ones she’d ridden in her childhood—chestnuts and bays, palominos and blacks. Even the path they were walking was familiar, a dirt trail pounded flat by the passage of boots about a foot from the fence line. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she kicked away a few loose stones and followed it for a while.

She was so lost in her memories that she didn’t notice where she was until she thought of Lane and looked back. He was nowhere to be seen, probably because she’d turned the corner of the barn and made her way past the farthest corral to a high-fenced round pen set off by itself.

Nostalgia squeezed and softened her heart. She’d spent some of the most meaningful hours of her life in her stepfather’s round pen. It was where you taught horses the basics—where you taught them to trust and work in partnership. Circling the walls, she reached the gate and glanced inside. There was a horse standing in the center of the pen, staring at her. She stared back, sucking in a quick, stunned breath.

Flash.

She’d lost her mind. Or maybe she’d really gone back in time. Because this was Coppertone Flash. Once you worked with horses long enough, they became as distinct from each other as humans. No other horse reflected sunlight with that gleaming shade of copper-penny red. No other horse had quite the same breadth between the eyes, the set of the ears, the tapered muzzle.

This was no flashback, no fond memory. This was the past rising up like a ghost from the grave in the form of a horse, stamping one foot and blowing as if he recognized her. She put a hand to her forehead in a vain effort to combat a dizzy spell and the horse lifted his head, startled.

“Flash,” she whispered.

He was just as she remembered him, his coat bright, the color tarnishing gradually to black on the legs and muzzle. His dark skin deepened the shadows that defined his powerful muscles, and the copper glow gave added definition to a build that was already incredible. He was a big horse, probably sixteen hands, with the solid presence only quarter horses had. He swung his head toward her and she saw the long-lashed eyes considering her as they always had, making up his mind whether he’d cooperate today. Evidently he decided he would, because he turned and walked slowly toward the gate, taking his time, his black mane fluttering in the breeze.

She couldn’t breathe. She needed to get her heartbeat under control. Horses sensed your mood, and hers was a mixture of wonder and fear that probably echoed the horse’s feelings as he paused with one hoof raised, poised to flee.

“Flash,” she whispered. “It’s okay.” She turned her body slightly away from him and looked away, resisting the temptation to make eye contact. Stallions sometimes saw that as a challenge, and Flash had been wild and unpredictable—even ill-tempered at times. But Roy had taught her that no animal had a truly bad nature. Every quirk of character had its roots in something—a past trauma, an ache or pain.

But they had never found the root of Flash’s problems. He’d been fast to flinch and quick to kick from the day they’d bought him. Roy had been convinced he could figure out what was bothering the horse and turn those hair-trigger reactions into something positive. But though Sarah had been able to ride the horse in several rodeos and rack up a few wins on him, Flash never really changed. No matter how they pampered him, he always seemed to be under some kind of strain, his coat shining with a little too much sweat, his muscles rippling and twitching with nerves. Once in a while he’d explode, seemingly at nothing, but Sarah had always managed to avoid the flailing hooves.

Her stepfather hadn’t been so lucky. But despite what had happened to Roy, Sarah had never seen Flash as a killer. When he kicked, it was out of fear or pain; they just could never figure out what was scaring him or hurting him.

Roy would have forgiven him. Roy forgave easily, totally and unreservedly. It was a quality Sarah envied and had never been able to imitate.

“Take your time. Easy.” She was soothing herself more than the horse. He watched as she got a grip on her nerves, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth. If you thought about your breath, you centered and slowed, and a calm spirit drew horses like magic. If you were genuinely at ease, even the most frightened horse would want to trust you.

She kept Flash in her peripheral vision and tried not to think about the past, but the images flickered in her mind’s eye like a runaway movie on a tattered screen. She heard Roy’s shouts, saw him bleeding in the dirt at the bottom of the ramp. She remembered swinging the trailer door closed on the trembling horse before racing to the house to call for help.

Panic, loss, and regret swirled through her heart as she gripped the top rail of the fence with white-knuckled fingers. She’d mourned Roy in the weeks that followed, but privately, in her sixteen-year-old heart, she’d mourned the horse too. He’d been a teenaged girl’s dream, the stallion only she could ride, and she’d wept to think of some other trainer making him into the miracle she’d been praying for. She hadn’t known what had happened to Flash, and she’d told herself she didn’t care.

But the truth was, she’d cared a lot. And all that caring had simmered for years behind the mask of indifference she’d put on the day the check came.

Surely the buyer knew he’d stolen that horse. Flash’s conformation and bloodlines were unbeatable. He’d been remarkable in the arena on his good days, stopping and spinning with textbook perfection. She’d been sure she could ride him to a championship if she could just find the key to calming him. If she’d just had a little more time…

Breathe, she told herself Breathe. Breathe slow. Breathe easy. Gradually her grip on the fence loosened and she felt her equanimity return. Along with it came her old confidence—a confidence she’d only ever felt with horses. Working with people was an effort; working with horses had been intuitive and easy.

The horse was three feet from the gate now. Stretching his neck, he sniffed the air in front of her face and took a step closer until they stood face to face, sharing breath. She closed her eyes.

This was the point in getting to know a green horse she’d always loved—the moment when her mind and the horse’s melded in a silent communion that was filled with promise and understanding. But in Flash, there had always been an underlying agitation, like a white-water stretch frothing over stones in a stream. It was a part of himself he hadn’t been willing to share, a secret fear he hadn’t let her see.

This horse didn’t have that. His mind was as smooth as a summer lake. It was obvious his confidence in himself had never been shaken. This animal’s past was nothing but cool breezes and sun on the meadow.

Somehow, somebody had saved her horse.