Mounting Danger

by Karis Walsh

  The thought of Cal’s lean, toned body lounging in a hot tub, preferably naked, was too distracting. Rachel gave the foal one last pat and walked toward the trees that lined the field. She was about to step beyond them and wave at Cal when she saw another rider canter into sight.

  Cal’s mother? A few inches shorter than Cal, but with the same sharp cheekbones and straight nose. Graying blond hair caught in a tight bun, and the same match-ready riding clothes as Cal was wearing. The two women looked prepared to shoot a Ralph Lauren ad, not ride around in the isolated privacy of their own farm.

  Rachel stood out of sight next to a fir tree, her hand braced on its scratchy bark, and watched the mother and daughter duo run through some practice drills. Yesterday’s conversation with Cal had reminded Rachel of her old long-lost-but-loving mother fantasies, and now she had a chance to witness the real-life version of it. After a few minutes, however, she realized Cal’s relationship with her mother bore little resemblance to Rachel’s imaginary one. The constant stream of corrections and criticisms made Rachel grit her teeth in sympathy for Cal. She wouldn’t have lasted five minutes before she whacked the woman over the head with her polo mallet or, at least, stormed off the field in a rage, but Cal seemed completely unperturbed. She rode through the drills, correcting her barely discernible mistakes with no change in her calm expression. She was either a candidate for a best actress award, or she was so accustomed to her mother’s critique that she wasn’t bothered by it.

  Rachel had played polo for herself, because she loved the sport. But Cal didn’t have the same luxury. Rachel understood a little better what Cal had been talking about yesterday, when she said it was difficult to be responsible for a family name. Calverts and Lanfords dotted every polo magazine, spanning the country and the history of polo in the States. Callan had to live up to both sides of her illustrious family, merging them into a single polo superstar. Did she even like to play?

  Cal cantered after a missed pass and spotted Rachel as she rode toward the sideline. Her face lit up in the first smile Rachel had seen from her since she had been watching the practice. She had seen the same smile on Cal when they had played their “friendly” stick-and-ball match last week. Yes, Cal seemed to love the game, but maybe only when she was allowed to play as herself, not as a branch from her family tree.

  “What’s up, cowgirl?” Cal asked as she trotted over to the line of trees.

  “I came to borrow a few jumps, if you can spare some. I want to see if the horses can handle them.” Rachel stroked the gray’s neck. His coat was barely wet with sweat, even after a strenuous practice, a testament to slow and careful conditioning.

  “Sure. And I wish I could be there to watch you try to convince poor Fancy to haul all four feet off the ground. Ask Jack, and he’ll load them into your truck.” Cal glanced over her shoulder at her mother who looked pointedly at her watch. Cal laughed. She dropped her reins on the gelding’s neck and pulled off her leather riding gloves, running her hands through her damp hair. “I’d help, but this is our mother-daughter bonding time.”

  “Well, try not to bean her with the ball. I’d have to take you to jail, you know.”

  Cal laughed again, with less strain this time as her nose and the corners of her eyes crinkled. Rachel couldn’t help but smile in response. Maybe she had helped make Cal’s practice session a tiny bit easier to bear. She wasn’t sure why the thought made her feel good, but she wanted to prolong it.

  “Can you stick around after the unit’s lesson tonight?” she asked. Why merely tell Cal about her plan to figure out Randy’s timeline on the night of Alex’s murder? Why not include her in the unofficial sleuthing?

  “Sure, gorgeous,” Cal said, clearly—and most likely deliberately—misinterpreting Rachel’s intentions. She leaned against the pommel of her saddle and brushed her hand over Rachel’s cheek before she could move away. Before she could decide whether she wanted to move. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Not the same thing you do,” Rachel said. She took a step back even though Cal had withdrawn her hand and was sitting upright again. “Clare said Randy got a text to go to the park at three, but Alex was shot around one thirty. I have an idea how we can find out whether she was telling the truth.”

  “I knew you believed what she was saying,” Cal said, slapping her gloves against her thigh.

  “I’m not saying I believe her. But I need to know for sure. Do you want to come along?”

  “Of course I do,” Cal said. She put her gloves on again. “Which one do I get to be? Good cop or bad cop?”

  Rachel shook her head at Cal’s eager expression. “You get to be the civilian who has to stay in the car unless she promises to behave herself and not say a word.”

  “Fine, I won’t talk,” Cal said. She picked up her reins and turned her horse away from Rachel. She looked back over her shoulder. “But I’m definitely not promising to behave myself.”

  Good. Rachel tried to stop her response before it fully formed in her mind, but she couldn’t. She was enjoying Cal’s flirting more than she wanted to admit. Maybe because she had so little contact with people in her life right now. Few conversations, no friendly coffee klatches, definitely no physical contact. Loneliness, that’s all it was. Certainly not an attraction to Cal. Rachel walked back to the barn, working hard to convince herself that was true. Some hard work would help her forget Cal’s touch, her beckoning smile. Haul some jumps around, ride some horses. Then Rachel would be back to normal, all shields in place.

  Chapter Nine

  Cal stood in her walk-in closet wearing only a black sports bra and matching hipster briefs. She rifled through the hangers, examining and dismissing each of her shirts. She had riding and dress clothes, but no outfits suitable for a stakeout. She didn’t even know what was suitable for a stakeout. She felt out of her element with Rachel, entering uncharted territory with nothing to wear.

  Her life was exciting but predictable. Long hours of work interrupted by high-speed polo matches and equally turbulent affairs. But the games and the women had started to blend together in her mind. Working with the mounted team was fun because it was so different. Being with Rachel was exciting and more of an adrenaline rush than Cal had experienced for a long time. She pulled out a dark blue silk blouse and hung it up again with a shake of her head. Even her non-riding clothes were in her team colors.

  Maybe it was because Rachel had rejected her advances. So far. Cal had been forced to stick around and get to know the unique facets of her, all the details and depth Cal usually missed as she hurried from women’s beds and back to the field. She loved to win every time she played polo, more for her team and her family than for herself, but no matter how much importance her parents put on her success, she was still playing a game. Her relationships were a game, too. Fun, and over the minute she scored. Rachel had so much more at stake in her life, and Cal saw the way her responsibilities had shaped her character. She was loyal to so many people and ideals. To her foster family and her team. To her convictions and her demanding fight for what she believed to be right.

  Cal lifted the sleeve of one of her polo jerseys and let it drop again. The blue and maroon uniforms defined her identity. Rachel had talked about not having a family to give her advantages in life, but Cal thought she was wrong. Rachel had the advantage because she had created herself. She had been shaped by her foster parents and by her experiences as a child, but she had single-handedly formed her own character. Cal felt as if she had been made by her parents, not raised by them. Pieced together from the Calvert and Lanford sides of her family, just like the name Callan had been coined. She worked hard to live up to expectations, but she rarely set them herself.

  Every time she rode or taught a lesson, she wore the colors of her polo club. Every time she went out or had dinner with her family she wore clothes designed to represent her name well on the pages of a glossy polo magazine. Always surrounded by other people, and always dressing for them.

  Cal
grabbed a clean outfit out of the pile of clothes she wore when she fed and cleaned stalls in the early mornings. She’d wear her usual riding clothes for the lesson and change into her old and worn ones for her night with Rachel. She had noticed a loneliness in Rachel, an emptiness because she had spent too many years without a family and because her teammates and fellow officers seemed determined to shun her.

  But Cal saw the loneliness reflected in her own heart. Family and lovers were close physically, but distant emotionally. Even the grooms—although they welcomed her help and company—never seemed to forget that she was the Lanford daughter and, therefore, their boss. Cal pulled a navy long-sleeved T-shirt over her head, and then she slipped into a pair of stretchy maroon breeches. She felt her anticipation increasing as she thought about the evening ahead. Maybe, after they kept each other company while they tracked down the perp, she and Rachel could find a way to ease each other’s loneliness.

  *

  Rachel moved the two little jumps out of the arena before the unit’s lesson. She had managed to get all four horses over the foot-high obstacles, although Fancy had technically gone through the jumps more than over them. Still, Rachel counted any forward movement from the mare as a small victory. Sitka had been willing but clumsy, and Bandit and Ranger trotted and cantered over the poles with minimal fuss. Rachel’s muscles were adjusting to the new work, and she enjoyed her time alone with the horses. She dragged the last pole to the edge of the makeshift arena as Billie drove through the gate. People. Here to spoil her solitude.

  Cal came soon after, and she greeted Rachel with nothing but a friendly, casual hello. Rachel was relieved since she hadn’t told Cal to keep their meeting with Clare—and the proposed meeting tonight—a secret. There’d be a record proving she had used her computer to search through Alex’s murder reports, but she was sure plenty of other officers had read through them as well. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, but she was too accustomed to staying under the radar if at all possible. If she discovered anything significant, she’d go straight to homicide and tell them.

  Rachel pushed all her worries aside as she rode Bandit through Cal’s drills. He was working well for her, and she found him much more pleasant when she was on his back and not within range of his teeth. But she kept part of her focus on Cal. Not because she looked so striking in her team colors, but because Rachel didn’t want to be caught unaware again. Who knew what Cal was hiding in her pockets and when she’d pull it out to scare the horses again. Snakes, plastic bags, explosive devices?

  She needn’t have worried. Cal had apparently decided she’d proved her point with yesterday’s umbrella stunt, and she concentrated on correcting the riders and offering suggestions. Halfway through the lesson, she told them to untack their horses and come back to the arena with halters and lead ropes.

  “Hey, Bryce.” Clark’s voice stopped Rachel as she was leading Bandit toward his stall, her usual hiding place.

  “What?” she asked. Only a hint of challenge in her tone. She was improving.

  “Sitka’s been different since you’ve been riding him. More…bendy.”

  Rachel had been working the bay through a series of suppling exercises. He’d never be as flexible and light as Bandit or Ranger, but he had been coming along nicely. She was surprised Clark had noticed. And even more surprised he’d brought it up in front of everyone.

  “Just doing my job,” she said. She kept Bandit outside of his stall while she unbuckled his girth and removed her saddle, instead of ducking inside as usual.

  “Fancy, too,” Don added before he turned away from her. Billie caught Rachel’s eye behind his back and gave her a wink. Rachel smiled. Small victories, but they felt very good.

  Cal watched the brief interchange between Rachel and her team. She was proud of her. Rachel had put aside her own pride and managed to finagle Cal into assisting her. She had ignored the spite and sullenness of her unit and continued to train the horses. She was working for something bigger than herself, in spite of the obstacles. Cal didn’t do that. She played polo for her family, but out of guilt and habit, not conviction. And she hated to ask for help. She knew Rachel did, too, but she had done it anyway.

  Cal got an armful of crinkly raincoats out of her car and met the dismounted officers in the arena. She kept one clear plastic coat over her arm and hung the rest on one of the orange pylons. No need to wave them around since she had everyone’s complete attention.

  “We’re going to start desensitizing the horses, so they’ll be ready to face anything the public throws at them,” Cal said. She took Sitka’s rope from Clark and led him in front of the group. “We obviously can’t anticipate every single thing they’ll encounter, but we can teach them two important lessons. One, scary objects are not necessarily going to eat them.” Cal paused while the officers laughed at her little joke. They seemed so different from the angry and defiant people she’d met only yesterday. Much more at ease, and ready to learn.

  “And two,” she continued, “they can rely on us to keep them safe. We’ll use different methods to introduce new things over the next few weeks. It’s up to you as the horse handler to figure out what method your horse responds to best. I’m going to use an approach called flooding with Sitka now. My goal is for him to stand still while I flap this raincoat at him, but I’m not going to force it. Try to pay attention to my timing—when I push for more and when I back off.”

  Cal walked Sitka to the far end of the arena. She kept his rope in one hand and waved the coat at him with the other. He snorted and skittered away from the rustling plastic, but she calmly followed him as he danced in a circle. Every time his hooves stopped moving, even for a fraction of a second, she stopped flapping the coat and praised him. As she had expected, it was only a matter of minutes before she could wave the coat right in his face and he barely flinched. She eventually tossed the coat over his back and he stood as calmly as if she were putting on his saddle pad. She rubbed his neck and led him back to the rest of the officers.

  Cal waved off their applause. To the more inexperienced riders, the display looked like a success. To her and Rachel, the demonstration only pointed out how far the horses had to go before they’d be ready for the Fourth. One umbrella had nearly unseated the whole unit. And one raincoat had taken up half their lesson.

  “Everyone grab a coat and try the same exercise. Spread out in the arena so your horses are free to move without hurting each other. Clark, why don’t you find something new to use with Sitka. Maybe an empty grain bag.”

  Cal looked over to where Rachel was standing with Bandit. She let him sniff the coat before she gently waved it in his direction. Cal wanted to hang out at her end of the arena, watching Rachel’s gentle movements when she was working with her mount—so different from her prickly demeanor when she had to deal with people. Staring at Rachel’s ass and long, muscular legs in her skintight breeches.

  Cal sighed and walked over to Don. He was a poor substitute for Rachel, but he obviously needed more help than his sergeant did. He was trying, though, gamely continuing to flap the raincoat even when Fancy stood on his booted foot and refused to budge. Cal shoved the mare’s shoulder until she moved, and then she took Fancy’s rope from Don. Her gaze skimmed over the other officers even as she showed him where to stand so he was safe from the heavy mare’s hooves. Clark’s movements were awkward, but the patient Sitka was more interested in sniffing the grain bag than in shying away from it. Billie was gently tossing the raincoat over Ranger’s back and around his legs while he stood at the end of his lead rope with an unconcerned expression on his face.

  Once Don seemed more comfortable and able to keep his feet safely out of harm’s way, Cal went back to Rachel’s corner of the arena. Bandit was quiet, one hind hoof cocked in a relaxed posture, as Rachel slid the coat over his back and neck.

  “The two of you seem to be bonding,” Cal said. She rubbed the horse’s forehead and kept all her fingers intact. “And his attitude sure is improving.”r />
  Rachel shrugged. “We understand each other, I guess. He likes having a job to do every day.” She glanced around the arena. “Good lesson today. Everyone seems to be doing well.”

  “Especially Ranger,” Cal said. “Did he have more training than the others when he came?”

  Rachel put the raincoat over Bandit’s head. It rustled when he pricked his ears forward, but he didn’t move. She slid the coat off and rubbed his nose. “Actually, no. He and Sitka were donated by the same woman. She used to compete with them, but she got pregnant and leased them to the department. Ranger is younger and a Thoroughbred, so I would have expected Sitka to be the quieter of the two.”

  “Must be his temperament, then,” Cal said. She took the raincoat from Rachel, taking advantage of the chance to slide her hand over Rachel’s, their fingers briefly tangling together. Long and sensitive, weathered and strong from working outdoors. Cal had a good idea what else those fingers could do. She noticed the slight flush where the open neck of Rachel’s uniform shirt left her throat exposed. Maybe she wasn’t the only one thinking about putting Rachel’s hands to use.

  “Seems to be,” Rachel said. She moved her hand away but stayed still and didn’t put the horse in between them, for once. “To be honest, I think that’s why Alex chose to ride him.”

  Cal smiled. Always slightly out of reach, but never too far away. She must be wearing down Rachel’s resistance. Desensitizing her to touch and closeness. Cal was the one to step away this time.