Harvest at Mustang Ridge

by Jesse Hayworth

  “On a day-to-day basis? Absolutely.” Krista took a long, satisfying look around them—from the sprawling ranch house, barns, and guest cottages nestled in their valley, to the ridgeline and the gorgeous mountains silhouetted against the clear blue sky. Despite what Big Skye thought, she was true to her roots.

  “I’m talking about the mustang lottery, and you know it.”

  “Yeah, but it never hurts to remember to be grateful for what you’ve got.”

  “You go ahead. I’d rather look forward to what’s coming next.” Jenny bounced on her toes. “This is going to be fun!”

  Thanks to a progressive new mayor and some state funding, the nearby town of Three Ridges—well, nearby in backcountry Wyoming terms, at any rate—was undergoing a major renaissance, including the resurrection of the decrepit fairgrounds and the county fair that had long been an end-of-summer fixture. And with her usual flair, Mayor Tempe Tepitt—often called Tempest Teapot by those who got in her way—had added a modern twist to the old favorite by cooking up the Harvest Fair Mustang Makeover.

  The premise was simple: Two-person teams would choose a training project from a group of fresh-caught wild mustangs. Six weeks later, the teams and their horses would meet at the Harvest Fair, where they would compete for prizes and bragging rights. Better yet, all the proceeds from the ticket sales would go to a local mustang preserve.

  Last winter when the competition was first announced, Krista and Shelby—aka Foster’s wife, Krista’s BFF next to Jenny, and goddess of all things advertising—had jumped on the idea, even coming up with a new theme week and a plan for the ranch guests to cheer for Team Mustang Ridge in the ride-off. Now, the entry fees were paid, the cabins were fully booked for Makeover Week, and it was time for Krista and Jenny to head for the fairgrounds and pick their mustang.

  She’s right, Krista told herself. This is going to be fun. Win or lose, she and Foster would be adding a new mustang to the herd. She’d be posting progress reports to the ranch’s Web site and social media outlets, so their growing network of guests could stay involved. And Makeover Week was going to be a blast, whether or not she picked a horse that could be turned into a superstar. Still, she had rodeoed through her teens and won more than her share, and even though she was committed to the whole “enjoy today” thing, she had to admit that the idea of competing in front of a big crowd put a stir of excitement in her belly. Not to mention that she had a plan for the prize money—one she thought Big Skye would like.

  “I hope we get a good horse,” she said with a look toward the barn, where Foster and Junior had set up a quarantine pen in the riding ring.

  “Too bad you’re human antimatter when it comes to raffles.”

  “Why do you think I wanted you to come along?”

  Jenny patted the camera bag slung over her shoulder. “Free advertising?”

  “That, and because you’re the lucky one. Maybe it’s the hair.”

  Although they were identical twins, Krista still used braids and ponytails to corral her long, fine blond hair. Jenny, on the other hand, had gone short and brunette, partly so it wouldn’t get in the way of the camera, and partly to distinguish herself from her sister. As if spending nearly a decade filming in exotic locations while Krista stayed home and transitioned Mustang Ridge from a cattle station to a dude ranch wasn’t enough distinction between the two of them.

  “We’ve got a little time if you want to hit the Lady Clairol,” Jenny offered with a wicked twinkle. “I bet Mom’s got some you can use.”

  Laughter bubbled up, followed by a guilty look toward the main house. “Shh,” Krista said. “She thinks nobody noticed.”

  “She can’t possibly be that delusional. Anyway, if I’m your good luck charm, does that mean you’ve decided on your top picks?”

  Krista patted her back pocket, with its folded-up program. “Foster and I swung by the holding pens earlier in the week and took a look. We came up with our top three choices and the bottom five, and I’ve got notes on the others, in case we wind up selecting in the middle of the pack.” Fingers crossed we go early, though, she thought, because she really, really wanted a certain big gray mare.

  “Well, then.” Jenny hooked an arm through hers and aimed them toward the parking lot, where the horse trailer was hitched and the truck was ready to roll. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go get lucky!”

  2

  The fairground took up a hundred or so acres of high-country prairie, with a fringe of pine in the middle distance and the mountains rising beyond, jagged against the blue summer sky. The parking lots and paths were overgrown, wildflowers sprouted around half-repaired concession stands, and the smells of fresh sawdust and new paint mingled with the scent of horses. Trucks and trailers were clustered near the livestock building like cattle jostling for water, and the two hundred or so lottery-hopefuls and hangers-on were crammed into the adjoining arena, waiting for the selection process to begin.

  Thanks to a longer-than-usual line at the diner, where they had stopped for burgers and fries, Krista and Jenny had missed out on the folding chairs and wound up sitting on the three-rail fence at the back, far away from the announcer’s stand, where a cylindrical wire crank-cage held several dozen Ping-Pong balls.

  “They totally stole that setup from Wednesday-night bingo,” Jenny said, pitching her voice to carry over the crowd noise. “What do you think we’re going to be? B-8? Maybe N-31?”

  “How about something in the G’s, for good-looking gray mare?” Krista bounced her boots on the bottom rail as four people climbed up into the judges’ stand. “Here comes the committee, or at least part of it.”

  Tempe Tepitt stepped up to the microphone. She was short and bulldoggish, with steely hair pulled up under a baseball hat that was probably intended to play down the plum-colored power suit, but instead made it look like her head and body didn’t belong together. Behind her stood Marsh and Martin Lemp—a couple of sun-bleached, weathered cowboys Krista had known all her life, and who had been in charge of picking the makeover mustangs from the latest gather.

  It was the fourth person in the small group that caught Krista’s attention, though. “What’s Sam Babcock doing up there?”

  Dark-haired and dressed down in the same sort of jeans-and-a-plain-shirt routine the Lemps were rocking, the thirty-year-old rags-to-riches owner of Babcock Gems looked like he could be just another hired hand. More, he looked much as he had in college—big framed but thin to the point of gauntness, with his hands clasped behind his back to keep his fingers still.

  Or maybe not. Maybe he had changed since then, just like she had.

  “I guess he’s on the committee,” Jenny said, “or donating. Probably both. Trust me, by the time the mayor got done with Nick, he had gone from ‘sure I’ll sponsor one of the prizes’ to doing all the health exams and gelding operations for free.” She slid a look in Krista’s direction. “You okay?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not Sam’s fault that his best friend turned out to be a jerk.” He had warned her, after all. “Besides, that was college. Everybody does dumb stuff in college.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Two words: naked skydiving.”

  “Hey!” Jenny protested, laughing. “That was in the cone of silence!”

  The mayor leaned in, gave the microphone a couple of taps, and then said in a rah-rah voice, “So, what do you say, folks? Are you ready to give me a ten-count, and we can get this party started?”

  That got a cheer, and the crowd chanted along with her: “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .” Krista and Jenny chimed in at six, and when everybody got to “One!” all four big sliding doors on the nearby livestock building rolled open, revealing the horse-filled pens. The crowd clapped and whooped, and a few of the mustangs whinnied as if to say, “What’s going on out there?”

  Little did they know how much their lives were about to change. And while Krista hated knowing how scared and confused the horses would be at going from op
en range to holding pens and now to their new homes, the wild herds were growing too quickly for the shrinking rangeland to handle, making the sales and lotteries necessary.

  When the crowd noise mellowed, the mayor lifted her microphone and said, “By the power vested in me, I declare the Harvest Fair Mustang Makeover officially open!” She paused for another cheer, this one louder and longer. “Today, you’ll be drawing names and choosing your mustangs. You’ll have six weeks to train your horse from the ground up, and when we all get together for the final ride-off, I expect to be blown away. So choose wisely!”

  Krista took another look at the catalog, wondering if the gray mare was really her best bet. At seven, she was older than most of the others, which could mean that her training would move faster . . . or she could be too set in her ways, too used to being in charge of things. The last thing Team Mustang Ridge needed was for their mustang to take one look at the screaming-kid-loaded roller coasters and Tilt-A-Whirls, decide the horsepocalypse had come, and try to round up the others and stampede them to safety.

  “No second-guessing,” Jenny said without looking up from her camera, where she was making the last couple of tweaks in prep for filming the lottery.

  “Taking a minute for a reality check isn’t the same as second-guessing.”

  “It is when you’ve got good instincts.” Jenny turned on the camera and aimed it up Krista’s nose. “What does your gut say?”

  She batted the camera away. “That nobody wants to see my nostrils on YouTube. And knock it off. I’m being serious here.”

  “Go for the gray. First choice is usually right, and all that.”

  Boots bouncing harder on the bottom rail of the fence, Krista focused as the mayor finished reading through the rules and shifted back to her rah-rah voice to say, “In addition to helping bring attention to our part of the great state of Wyoming and getting some well-earned bragging rights, the winning team will take home cash and prizes totaling over twenty thousand dollars.”

  As she ran down the list of sponsors—with Babcock Gems front and center, no big surprise there—Krista craned to see into the back corner of the barn, looking for something that said she was making the right decision. Was it too much to hope for a big foam finger coming out of the sky and pointing to one of the mustangs in a cosmic moment of “Hello, Universe speaking here”?

  Nada. There was never a good foam finger around when she needed one.

  Inside the barn, four guys moved around the pens with the saddle-swagger she associated with lifelong horsemen. Closest to her, grizzled, crotchety old Mel Lemp—an older cousin of Marsh and Martin—was holding a clipboard and glowering like he’d rather be somewhere else. Behind him, two younger cowboys were muscling additional pipe-corral panels into place, building the loading chute they would use to chase the horses onto their new owners’ rigs. And beyond them, over by the gray mare’s pen—

  Krista straightened, feeling like she’d grabbed on to a strand of hot wire while standing barefoot in a puddle. “Whoa. Who is that?”

  “Where?” Jenny swung the camera toward the barn.

  “Don’t—” She bit off the protest, knowing she was lucky to have Jenny’s help in promoting the ranch, even if the whole being-filmed thing sometimes put her on edge. Especially when she was seeing things. “In the back corner. Jeans, dark shirt, brown felt hat.” Which stood out against all the summer straw and brought on a full-body shiver, followed by a whole lot of, It’s not him. It couldn’t be.

  Except that it totally could. Sam was there, after all.

  Jenny zoomed in and hummed. “Hello, he is built. Get a load of those guns!”

  Which argued against it being Krista’s one-and-only ex, who had been wiry rather than jacked. “Is he . . .” She didn’t even know what she was trying to ask—couldn’t think past the sudden buzzing in her ears.

  “Maybe you should pick him when the mayor calls your name.” Jenny dialed up the zoom. “Let me see if I can get his hip number.”

  “Give me the camera.” She needed to get a look at his face, needed to know for sure.

  “In a minute. Oh, yes. Very nice.”

  Krista tugged at her arm. “Give it here.” Someone called her name, but she waved them off. “Hang on just a sec.”

  Laughter sputtered and then swelled, yanking her attention away from the barn and back to the lottery, where most everybody had twisted around to look at her. Realizing she and Jenny had missed something major, she shot out an elbow and hissed, “Ssst!”

  Her sister swiveled around, camera and all, and did a double take. “Um. Hello?”

  “Are we interrupting something?” the mayor drawled over the loudspeaker, looking at them with the oh-for-Pete’s-sake expression worn at some point by every teacher who’d ever wound up with the two of them together in class.

  Intensely aware of the red blink-blink-blink that said Jenny’s camera was getting every nanosecond of this, Krista called, “I’m sorry, Mayor Teap—er, Tepitt. Please continue.”

  “I will . . . as soon as you pick your horse.”

  “I—oh!” Excitement kicked. “Is it my turn?”

  The mayor gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Okay, rewinding.” Holding up a Ping-Pong ball, she pantomimed taking it out of the bingo barrel and intoned, “And now, first choice in the inaugural Harvest Fair Mustang Makeover goes to”—she spun the sphere and read the name inked on it in Sharpie—“Krista Skye!”

  The applause was sprinkled with laughter, and somebody yelled, “Go, Krista! Woo-hoo!”

  Grinning, she shouted, “Well, then, I’ll take hip number forty-one!”

  A murmur ran through the crowd, along with some knowing nods and a couple of Awww noises that said she and Foster weren’t the only ones who’d had their eyes on the gray.

  “Forty-one goes to Krista Skye of Mustang Ridge Ranch,” Mayor Tepitt confirmed. “Best of luck with your new horse!” There was more applause while Martin got the bingo balls bouncing again, and then the mayor stuck in a hand and grabbed one. “Next up is going to be . . . Amos Allwood!”

  As a skinny young cowboy with spidery arms and legs shot to his feet, Krista turned to Jenny and whisper-squeaked, “We got the gray mare!”

  “Whee!” They high-fived, hugged, and did a little seated wiggle-dance to celebrate the lottery win.

  Jumping down off the fence, Krista beckoned. “Come on. Let’s get her loaded and hit the road!” She turned for the barn and started for the nearest open door, but then hesitated, remembering the cowboy in the brown hat.

  She didn’t see him, but he was back there. Somewhere.

  “Hang on. Call me stupid, but I’m just putting two and two together and getting ex-boyfriend.” Jenny grabbed her arm and pulled her close. “You don’t think that was—”

  “No.” Krista said, cutting her off before the name got out there in the universe, tempting the foam finger. “As far as I know, he’s never set foot in Three Ridges. It was seeing Sam that made me think of him, that’s all. The power of suggestion.”

  She hoped.

  It didn’t take them long to get the rig into position—they had both pretty much learned to drive with a trailer in tow, and the aluminum gooseneck was one of the nimblest in the Mustang Ridge fleet. It also had the bonus of being open inside, with padded walls and not too much room for the mare to hurt herself in the panic of being separated from her herd and chased into an unfamiliar metal box.

  “The minute she’s on board, I want you to get moving,” Krista told Jenny, who was behind the wheel of the big white dually. “She’ll be less likely to bounce around in there if she has to focus on her balance. Keep it slow and I’ll catch up.”

  After swinging open the trailer gate and fastening it in position, she headed for where Mel and the two younger wranglers were gathered beside the loading chute, muttering over clipboards. As she approached, another figure stepped out of the barn—big guy, brown hat, shoulders that went on for a mile.

  Krista didn’t l
et herself slow down.

  The cowboy kept his back to her as he gestured toward the horse pens. She caught a glimpse of dark brown hair that had a touch of red to it, making her think of a black horse that had bleached in the sun. Just like he-who-shall-not-be-named. This guy was taller and broader, though, his center of balance high in his chest rather than low on his hips. More like a calf wrestler than a bull rider.

  Exhaling a relieved breath, she approached the huddle just as it broke up, and Mel and the two younger men headed into the barn. “Hi there,” she said to the big guy’s back. “I’m here for hip number forty-one.”

  “Figured you might be,” he said, and turned.

  Krista. Stopped. Breathing.

  Because after all that it-couldn’t-possibly-be-him, it totally was. Wyatt Webb, her one-and-only ex, was standing right there in the flesh. And the bastard looked good.

  3

  A thin trickle of oxygen seeped into Krista’s lungs as she took in the familiar dark brown eyes, angular jaw, and the nose that carried a pronounced bump from one too many face-first landings off a bucking bull. There were those extra inches of height and breadth, though, and a layer of heavy muscle outlined beneath his work shirt. Even his hands were different, wider and thicker, with heavy calluses that didn’t come from reins or ropes.

  He had grown up and done it well.

  Annoyed by the sudden urge to tug at her logo’d polo shirt and wish that she had gone for something more in the makeup department—she looked good, too, dang it—she forced air into her lungs and refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her surprise. Because he had clearly been expecting her.

  Jerk.

  “I need hip forty-one,” she repeated, forcing everything to be level and professional—her expression, her voice, her body language. “The gray mare in the far pen.”

  “She’ll be along in a minute.” He paused, searching her face. “You looked good out there.” A nod to the arena, where a cheer said another name had gotten picked. “Happy.”