by Karis Walsh
And connected. Rachel slid one hand along Cal’s waist, her ribcage, up to her breast. She rubbed her palm over Cal’s nipple until it grew hard. Cal tried to keep thinking about her relationship with Rachel and their future and the risk of caring about her. But when Rachel pinched her nipple more roughly than Cal had expected and moved her lips to cover Cal’s clit, Cal felt her thoughts and reasons and worries fade away. Until she was left with her body, and with Rachel. With Rachel’s tongue darting over her stiffened clit. With her own hips moving over Rachel’s face. With the shuddering orgasm that started where Rachel was touching her and spread like an electric charge through her whole body.
Cal somehow managed to keep her grip on the headboard, holding herself up until the deepest tremors of her orgasm ebbed enough for her to move back to her place by Rachel’s side. She kissed Rachel’s cheek, her lips, tasting herself and growing hungry for Rachel once more.
“Wow,” Cal said, drawing the word out for several syllables. “Very nice.”
Rachel laughed, twining her fingers through Cal’s hair as Cal kissed along her collarbone and along the top of her breast. “I’m a perfectionist. I’m sure I’ll improve on my next try.”
“You have to let me rest first,” Cal said as she dipped her tongue in Rachel’s navel, feeling Rachel’s grip on her hair tightening as she moved lower.
*
Rachel got less than an hour of restless sleep before the morning sun woke her. Cal was lying on her stomach, the sheets tangled around her legs and a pillow tucked over her head. Rachel was tempted to sift her hands through the gold hair peeking out from under the pillow, reflecting the sun’s light. Or to run her hand over Cal’s toned, sexy ass. But Cal needed her sleep, and Rachel needed to use the bathroom and walk off some of her stiffness. She eased out of bed and gathered her discarded clothing before she quietly opened the bedroom door.
And almost stepped on the black and white pile of dogs lying in the hall. Rachel stumbled over them and hurried to shut the bedroom door again, before Feathers could explode into the room and onto the bed. She got dressed in the bathroom and slipped her feet into her ash-marked running shoes and then let herself and the dogs out the front door. The dogs took off into the adjoining field, and Rachel sat on the stairs and waited for her head to stop pounding.
She felt like she had a serious hangover. Her shoulder and head throbbed, and her brain felt fuzzy from lack of sleep. When she took a deep breath, her throat still burned like it had when she was straining for breath and coaxing the horses from their burning stalls.
The memory was enough to get her back to her feet. She walked toward the main barn, the dogs running a zigzag pattern ahead of her, and squinted in the bright sunlight. She hadn’t checked a clock, but it looked to be about eight. Even in her half-asleep and muddled state, she could appreciate the setting of Cal’s little bungalow. Big leaf maples and silver birch surrounded the small white house and gave it a sense of privacy on the big farm. Large pastures provided a buffer between the house and the polo fields. Rachel hadn’t been able to see much when they had walked here last night, but she had felt a sense of space and peace she usually could only find in the park late at night.
She was greeted by a few nickers as she walked into the barn. One of the grooms from the night before, a woman Rachel hadn’t yet met, popped her head out of a stall at the noise.
“Oh, good morning, Rachel,” she said. “I’m Dana. Your horses are in the next aisle, to your left. They were doing fine when I fed breakfast.”
“Great, thank you,” Rachel said. “I appreciated your help last night.”
“You’re welcome,” Dana said. “Glad to do it. Let me know if you need anything.”
She disappeared into the stall again, and Rachel hurried down the aisle. Bandit must have recognized her voice or footsteps because he had his head out the door and was neighing loudly before she got to his stall. Rachel opened his stall and stepped inside, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning her head on his shoulder. She felt the pressure of tears as his greeting—and the awareness of how close she had come to losing him—overwhelmed her exhausted mind. She stood next to him for several minutes before letting go. He went back to eating his hay, and she checked every inch of his body for wounds. He had a few scrapes and singe marks on his dark chestnut coat, but they had been carefully treated and none of them was serious enough for a vet call. She moved through the next few stalls, examining each of her horses in turn. She came to Fancy last. The mare had the worst of the injuries, a burn near her withers, but it looked like it would heal fine. Rachel squatted next to her and ran her hands over Fancy’s leg. She had some swelling in the joint above her hoof. Trotting across the gravel and fretting while tied to the fence hadn’t done the mare any good.
“I’ll call Tim and let him know to come out here to shoe the horses instead of going to Tacoma,” Cal said. Rachel looked up and saw her standing in the doorway with a mug in each hand. “Coffee?”
“Sure,” Rachel said. She shut Fancy’s door and followed Cal to a bench outside the barn door. Cal looked as if she had had a full night’s sleep, not a mere two hours. Her hair was smooth and sleek in a low ponytail, and she was wearing her breeches and polished tall boots. Instead of the maroon and blue polo shirt she had worn during their match, she had on a snug black T-shirt. Rachel took the mug of coffee and made a valiant effort to stop staring at Cal’s chest.
“Some night, huh?” Cal said. She stretched her long legs in front of her and crossed them at the ankles. Her dogs settled in a patch of sunlight close by.
“Yeah,” Rachel said. She wondered if Cal meant the fire or the sex. She took a sip of the strong coffee. “I’m exhausted.”
Cal laughed. She wanted to touch Rachel. Hug her, rub her stiff-looking shoulders, kiss her until the rest of the world melted away again, like it had last night. “You should be. I’ll bet you’d sleep for a week if you could.”
“Unfortunately, I need to get back to the station. Hargrove will want to talk to me, and I need to get some answers about the fire.”
“Of course.” And Cal needed some space, some time to think. She had woken up and reached for Rachel before she realized she was gone. Cal hadn’t wanted sex, but she had wanted to hold Rachel. Cal was usually the one who disappeared, not the one who woke up alone. She didn’t like being on the other side of the sheets. “Jack unhitched your trailer last night. You might as well keep it here until you’re ready to move the horses again. Do you need me to drive you to Tacoma?”
“No, thanks. I’ll be okay to drive. Look, about…” Rachel’s voice trailed off and she stared off toward the arena. “About today’s lesson. I think the horses need a day off, and I don’t know how long I’ll be at the station…”
“Sure,” Cal said. She figured Rachel had been about to bring up their night together but changed her mind. Cal was relieved. She needed time, too, to gather her thoughts before they talked. And maybe, if they each took long enough to think about it, so much time would pass that they could get by without having the talk. Getting back to business as usual with the team’s training would be a good start on the road to forgetting the night had even happened. “We can start tomorrow. I’ll make sure the horses get turned out in the paddocks after they finish breakfast. It’ll be a little vacation for them.”
Rachel handed Cal her half-drunk cup of coffee. “Thank you. And keep track of what we owe. The city will pay the board bill.”
Cal held Feathers by the collar as Rachel left, to keep the dog from bounding after her. As soon as the pickup had disappeared down the driveway, Cal got off the bench and walked into the barn. She was already a few hours behind in her daily schedule. She’d get the police horses settled into paddocks, and then she needed to get to work.
Chapter Sixteen
Rachel drove through a Starbucks on her way back to the apartment. While she was waiting for her triple venti latte, she got her cell phone out of the glove compartment where she h
ad tossed it after calling Cal last night. She juggled her coffee in one hand and the phone in the other, steering with her knee, as she listened to her six messages. One from each mounted officer, asking about the horses, and three from her lieutenant. Hargrove’s messages all said the same thing, to get her butt down to the station ASAP.
Rachel decided to take some liberties with her interpretation of as soon as possible. She wasn’t about to arrive in Abby Hargrove’s office wearing Cal’s sweatpants and tank top—with no underwear or bra—and smelling like a night of sex. She drove home and sped through a shower before getting dressed. She debated whether to wear civilian clothes or her old patrol uniform since she wasn’t going riding, but she finally decided to wear her mounted uniform of breeches and fitted shirt. Until she heard otherwise, she was the team’s sergeant. She might as well dress the part.
She detoured a short block out of her way to drive past the police yard where she saw her three team members’ cars. What the hell. Hargrove was already pissed, so another five minutes wouldn’t make a difference. Besides, the riders deserved to know how their horses were doing. Rachel drove through the wide-open gate and parked by Billie’s car. She got out of her truck and stared at the shell of the barn, feeling her palms start to sweat. The roof over the horses’ stalls had caved in, and scorched planks from the walls leaned at odd angles. Aside from water and smoke damage, the tack room and office seemed intact. There were sawhorses set up near the arena, draped with saddles and bridles, and as Rachel walked toward the barn, Don came out of the tack room with a saddle on his arm.
“Hey, Sarge,” he said, setting the saddle over one of the makeshift racks before he came over and awkwardly patted her on the shoulder. “You look like hell.”
The words might have sounded like an insult, but Rachel could hear the emotions behind his words and gesture. Relief, respect, gratitude. She only wished he had chosen her uninjured shoulder to maul.
“Thanks a lot, Don. I’m trying to look real pretty for my ass-chewing with Hargrove. I’m sure she’ll find some way to make this fire my fault. How’s the tack?”
She was inspecting the saddles when Billie and Clark joined them. Clark shook her hand rather formally, and Billie gave her a one-armed hug every bit as awkward as Don’s rough pat had been. Rachel understood. They were all big bad cops, and not about to get mushy over their horses, but every one of them was feeling raw after last night’s close call. They were acting as gruff and fake-cheerful as they’d be if visiting a wounded partner in the hospital. All four of them were uncomfortable with the intense emotions they were feeling, but those feelings were definitely there. At least now her officers were looking at her, and not through her like before. She was sorry it had taken a near tragedy to bring them together as a team.
“At least the saddles weren’t badly damaged,” Rachel said, rubbing her hand over the soft leather of Clark’s saddle. There were only some surface stains from the firefighters’ hoses. “But let’s move them to a shadier spot while they dry. It’s supposed to be warm today, and the direct sun might dry them too fast and the leather will crack.”
She picked up one end of a sawhorse and Clark took the other. “I guess you had a good reason for making us clean and oil them after every damned ride,” he said.
Rachel was about to launch into a lecture about the reasons behind proper tack care when her phone buzzed. She answered quickly, surprised to catch herself hoping it was Cal.
“Where the fuck are you, Bryce?” Crap. Hargrove.
“I stopped by the police barn on my way. Be there in ten.”
“No. You stay put, and I’ll come there. Wouldn’t want you getting lost on the way.”
Rachel sighed and walked over to help move another sawhorse. She could make up some reason to get the other officers out of there before Hargrove came, but she didn’t feel like hiding anymore. Let her yell as much as she wanted. If the team were going to be disbanded, Rachel had no reason to stay with the department any longer. And no reason to care how many people witnessed any further humiliation she might face.
Rachel put the team to work with saddle soap and neat’s-foot oil. She showed them how to completely dismantle the bridles so every strap could be thoroughly cleaned. When Hargrove arrived with a spray of gravel, the four were sitting in the bed of Rachel’s truck, surrounded by a jumble of leather reins and nosebands. Rachel dropped her soapy sponge in a bucket of water, wiped her hands on her uniform breeches, and hopped out of the truck.
“Care to explain about last night, Rachel?” Hargrove asked without preamble.
Rachel knew Clark had already told her side of the story, but she kept her voice even as she gave an abbreviated account of her jog, her arrival at the barn, and the condition of the horses.
“Yes, great. So you’re a hero. But care to tell me how the person who started the fire got into this secured lot in the first place?”
“I don’t know. The gate was propped open a few inches when I got here—”
“And who was the last to leave yesterday?”
Rachel stared at her lieutenant. Abby Hargrove’s usually composed features and perfect appearance were showing signs of wear. She had dark circles under her eyes and a few tendrils of auburn hair curled along her too-pale cheeks. She looked like she’d been up all night, but Rachel didn’t have room for compassion. Was Hargrove insinuating she had left the gate open? Or, even worse, that she’d started the fire?
“I fed the horses last night, but I’m sure I—”
“So you admit you were the last one here, and the gate box shows yours was the last key card used. But you have no idea how the gate got opened?”
Rachel felt her face flush, hotter than she’d been last night as she battled to get the horses out. She opened her mouth to defend herself, to scream at the injustice of Hargrove’s accusations, but Billie’s calm voice stopped her.
“No way was it Rachel. I don’t believe it.”
“Me neither,” Don said. “I’ve seen her out here—she never shuts a gate without double- or triple-checking the lock. Never.”
Rachel glanced over her shoulder. The officers were out of the pickup and standing behind her, looking ready to leap to her defense. Their gradual acceptance of her within the fence of this stable yard had been nice, but this was different. They were willing to acknowledge her in front of their lieutenant, and Rachel understood they’d support her within the department from now on. After months of feeling so alone, Rachel suddenly felt an arc of connection with other people—from last night with Cal to this moment with her team. She felt like crying, but for damned sure she wasn’t going to break down in front of Abby Hargrove.
Hargrove looked surprised at the show of force behind Rachel, but after a visible struggle, she seemed to accept their insistence on Rachel’s innocence. “So how do you explain the open gate with no sign of forced entry?”
Rachel noticed the wary glances exchanged by the people around her. They were the five most likely suspects. The ones with access to the stable yard. But they were also the only ones who had a stake in the mounted unit, who needed to see it succeed.
“We’re assuming someone came in and left the gate open,” Rachel said. “But maybe they came in another way and used it to get out. You don’t need an access card to get out.”
“Over the fence?” Billie asked.
As if on a silent cue, the five spread out and started walking the fence line. Rachel started behind the maintenance shed, scanning the chain-link fence and the barbed wire tip-in for any signs of tampering. She had only covered three panels before Clark’s shout brought the team running to where he stood behind the barn.
“Fibers,” he said, pointing at the top of the fence. Small tufts of gray wool were caught on the metal pole connecting strands of barbed wire. “Probably a blanket. And whoever did this climbed over the pole and not the wires, so they aren’t sagging much. We probably wouldn’t have noticed if we weren’t looking for it.”
“
I’ll get the detectives out here to sweep this lot,” Hargrove said, walking back toward her car.
Rachel looked through the fence. This was where she and Cal had talked after their fight about Sheehan, and where they’d met Clare. And now someone had used this as an entry point so they could set the barn on fire. Pretty busy for a vacant lot.
“Now what?” Billie asked when they rejoined Hargrove in the parking lot. “Do we keep training? Or is the unit finished?”
Abby sighed and ran a hand over her forehead, tucking her loose strands of hair behind her ears. “Until we’re certain the mounted unit isn’t being targeted, we should put all training on hold. I’ll get us taken off the roster for the Fourth—”
“No,” Rachel said. She had finally found her place on this team, had finally gotten enough respect to be able to do her job properly. She wanted a chance to prove herself, but more important, she wanted the team to be a success. They deserved it, and the community needed them. “We’ll continue working at Cal’s like we planned. And we’ll ride on the Fourth.”
“Right,” Don said. “We can’t let some cowardly firebug scare us off. Fancy and I are in.”
“Sitka deserves a chance to show off his handsome self to the public,” Clark said.
“Oh, please,” Billie said, laughing. “You just want a chance to parade around in those tight breeches in front of the poor unsuspecting women of Tacoma.”