by Karis Walsh
“Don’t pretend you don’t want to do the same thing,” Clark said.
“Well, Lieutenant?” Rachel asked as the officers’ laughter died down.
“Okay. But stay safe, and if anything unusual happens you report it directly to me.” Hargrove gave Rachel one of her laser glares. “I said you weren’t right for this job, Bryce. That you’d be a detriment to the team. Prove me wrong.”
“So what now, Sarge?” Clark asked as Hargrove drove away.
“Now we finish cleaning those bridles,” Rachel said, turning toward her truck to hide the grateful tears that threatened to overflow after her team’s display of support and protection. “We don’t want you out there trying to flirt while your horse is wearing dirty tack.”
*
Cal stowed her saddle, protected by a maroon-edged blue cover, in the tack compartment of her trailer and shut the door securely, turning just in time to see her father come out of the clubhouse and head toward her. Henry Lanford had the long stride of a man who had spent his life walking next to fast, high-strung horses, and the confident air of someone who not only played the sport of kings, but had actually shared the field with princes.
“Ready to go?”
His tone held less question and more assumption, but Cal nodded anyway. She climbed behind the wheel of her truck and started the engine while he got in the passenger seat and fastened his seat belt. She hadn’t left the barn’s parking lot before he started talking about the merits of her string of ponies, enumerating their strengths and weaknesses and evaluating their ability to hold their own in Virginia.
Cal easily joined in the conversation, adding the information she had picked up while riding in the team’s tryouts to the astute observations he had made from watching videos of them. He had offered to postpone their planned horse-buying trip after the events of the night before, but she had wanted to go. Anything to keep her distracted and not thinking about Rachel.
It didn’t work, though. Half of her mind was focused on the debate about Raven and whether she’d be speedy enough for high-goal play, but the other half—well, maybe more than half—refused to pay attention to anything but the memory of naked Rachel. Cal was confused. She and Rachel had been steadily growing closer, forming a friendship. But somehow sex had had the opposite effect. She felt the sudden distance between them like a gnawing, aching loss.
Cal maneuvered the large trailer through the pristine white gate of the nearby dressage training farm. She slowed down as the inevitable barn dogs came flying out to greet her, barking and swarming around her truck with tails wagging. A tall woman came out to rescue Cal from the pack as they climbed out of the truck. She was wearing gray jodhpurs and a quilted black vest, with her steel-gray hair in a neat bun at the nape of her neck.
“Sorry about the chaos,” she said as she tried in vain to grab collars. “I’m Deborah. You must be the Lanfords.”
Cal bent down to play with the dogs while Deborah and her father discussed the horses she had for sale. Cal was happy with her string of horses, but Henry was correct—she needed six solid mounts if she wanted to fit on her new team. He was also right about Raven. As much as Cal loved riding the game little mare—and as linked as she’d always be with Rachel in Cal’s mind—the horse wasn’t as finished as she needed to be. Not even up for discussion was Cal’s young gray gelding, Casper. She bit the inside of her lip, forcing her attention onto the pain and off the sting of tears. She had picked out the colt as a two-year-old and had done all his training herself, but he was far too young and too inexperienced to go to Virginia. She wouldn’t have the time or space in her new life for training a green horse, at least until the season was over.
Cal gave the dogs a final pat and followed her father and Deborah into the barn. She was just weepy because of the late night and the stress of nearly losing Rachel and the team’s horses. After a good night’s sleep, she’d be back to her normal self and able to objectively evaluate not only her horses, but Rachel as well. Anyone would have reacted to the near tragedy with an overflow of sentiment, and she was no exception.
Cal played her role to perfection. She discussed the three horses with her father, checking joints and tendons and evaluating conformation. She got on each one and trotted and cantered around the arena, swinging her polo mallet in wide arcs as the remembered sound of Rachel’s moans threatened to eclipse the thud of hoofbeats. Yes, it had been a remarkable night. Yes, Rachel’s body had been every bit as delightful as Cal had imagined.
But no, the night hadn’t meant more than sex, a release of Cal’s long-repressed desire for Rachel and the normal reaction to a stressful event. Cal dismissed the first horse as too stiff and uncomfortable to ride, but the second was perfect, well trained and ready for the rigorous schedule they would face. After a short trial, she dismounted from the third horse, a young chestnut gelding, and handed the reins to Deborah. She had felt a nice connection with him, but he needed more miles before he’d be up to her new team’s standards. He’d only hold her back.
Chapter Seventeen
Rachel arrived at Cal’s farm before the other officers. She wanted a chance to talk to Cal about their night together, although she still wasn’t sure what she needed to say. They had come together in a time of stress, for mutual comfort. Rachel was sure neither of them had any illusions about the relationship beyond that. She would be going back to Cheney—or maybe staying with TPD if the trend of acceptance started by her team caught on—and Cal would be chasing high-goal championships across the country. Rachel couldn’t see any gray areas beyond those facts.
So why was she so reluctant to see Cal? Why hadn’t she come back to the farm to spend another night with her since the sex had been so much more satisfying than she had expected? The first night had no real meaning beyond the physical. And Rachel couldn’t think about Cal’s touch without getting so wet she needed to change her underwear. So why hadn’t she given in to her near-constant desire and come to the bungalow for more of Cal, more of her tongue and taste and magic?
Rachel turned onto the now familiar drive and slowed to a crawl as she approached the barn. In case one of Cal’s dogs ran in front of her truck, she convinced herself, although they could have walked faster than she was driving. Maybe she hadn’t come back last night because she would have been admitting sex with Cal had meant more to her than it should have. She had tried to remain distant, just let herself be connected skin to skin after so many months of solitary confinement in her department. But Cal had gone deeper, beyond Rachel’s desire for simple social contact and straight to her core. She should have known better, should have seen how her longing for family and permanence and home had somehow—so wrongly—gotten tangled up in Cal.
Rachel parked in the shadow of a huge old maple tree. The police trailer was hitched to Cal’s truck and parked in front of the barn. Rachel sat in her beat-up Dodge and forced herself to really look around. To see the money and history in this place. Cal’s pickup was a glossy maroon with thin blue and gold stripes along its side. Probably custom detailed, in her team’s colors. Cal’s clothes, her farm, her truck, they were all surface details, so different from Rachel’s faded and worn versions. But they only managed to highlight the true differences between them. Rachel needed to work for her reputation, her apartment, her insurance payments. No one would take care of them for her. Cal worked equally hard, but with a different driving need. She was struggling to stay at the top of her game, to stay in the limelight where her family had predetermined she live. Rachel struggled every day to stay out of the downward trajectory her life had been on before she met Nelson and Leah.
Rachel could understand how the expectations of Cal’s family were stifling and difficult to bear. But Rachel couldn’t give up on the idea of a family based on love and acceptance and loyalty. She had pictured herself coming to Tacoma, finding a community in the department and a partner in her home. When everything had fallen apart, she had turned to Cal. And Cal had been there for her. A frie
nd when Rachel had been so lonely. A coconspirator in Rachel’s search for the still-missing Skunk. An invaluable resource as Rachel tried to stay afloat in a job she wasn’t qualified to perform. She was in danger of falling for Cal, of seeing more in their relationship than friendship and sex and a way for Cal to blow off steam between polo matches.
Rachel climbed out of her truck when she saw Cal in the barn’s doorway. She had come a long way in two weeks. She had gained Lieutenant Hargrove’s grudging respect and her unit’s acceptance. She was learning how to lead, how to trust her knowledge of horses, how to temper her ideas of right and wrong in a world devoid of absolutes. She was grateful Cal had temporarily stepped into her life, but now she was ready to move on.
Cal watched Rachel walk across the parking lot, so sexy and confident in her police uniform. She could picture Rachel riding along the waterfront or through the park, with the handsome Bandit to emphasize her strength and beauty. Damn. She’d have women falling all over themselves to get to her. Cal was glad she’d be far from Tacoma, out of the state, by the time Rachel started doing regular patrols. The combination of uniform and horse and power would be attractive on its own, but add Rachel’s tall, dark, and gorgeous looks to the mix and no woman would stand a chance of resisting her.
And why would they want to? Cal had learned firsthand—Rachel’s sexiness wasn’t an empty promise. She was as lethal in bed as the weapon strapped to her hip. Luckily Cal was the kind who could appreciate Rachel’s attributes, enjoy her skills, and then walk away the next day. The only reason she had lain in bed awake last night, hoping Rachel would show up at her door, was because she appreciated a good lay when she had one. She wouldn’t have minded a second round.
Who was she kidding? She’d take a third and fourth round, too. Maybe more. She needed distance, and she needed it fast.
“Are we going on a field trip?” Rachel asked when she got to the barn.
Rachel’s tentative smile and the way she nervously ran her hand through her short hair made her look too adorable. Forget about distance. Right now Cal wanted less between them, not more. She checked her watch to see whether she had time to drag Rachel back to her bungalow, into an empty stall, into the hayloft before the other officers arrived. Ten minutes? She could make it work.
“You have the trailer hitched,” Rachel said when Cal didn’t answer her first question. “Are we going somewhere?”
“My father has a friend in the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department,” Cal said, trying to get her mind back onto the lesson she’d planned for the day. “He’s going to let us bring the horses to the shooting range. It’s the closest we can get to simulating the sound of high-powered fireworks.”
“Brilliant,” Rachel said. “I should have thought of something like that. Is it okay to bring Fancy?”
Cal shrugged off Rachel’s praise, but she was surprised by how pleased she felt. She always enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment when she created an exercise for one of her horses and succeeded in solving a problem. She had felt the same satisfaction as she worked with the mounted riders, but hearing the admiration in Rachel’s voice made the feeling even stronger.
“The abscess wasn’t very deep, so Tim was able to drain it today and relieve the pressure when he shod the horses. She’s doing much better, and we’ll only be walking around the range, so I think we should bring her. We…you don’t have much time before the Fourth.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be here to meet the farrier. I had to talk to the detectives about the fire. It took longer than I expected.”
“Any more info about it?” Cal asked as she walked into the barn with Rachel following. Talk of the fire only made her nervous, but she couldn’t show it. She had come too close to losing Rachel, and the lingering concerns let her know she cared too much. She needed to move to her new team with a clear head and no long-distance ties. She’d never be able to concentrate on her game if she didn’t. And she had worked too hard to let one night with Rachel make her lose sight of her goals.
Bandit had his head over his stall door, and he nickered when they came into sight. Rachel walked over to greet him. “Whoever it was climbed over the fence from the vacant lot behind the barn, but we don’t have much more. They’re trying to connect this with other arsons, maybe find some more clues that way.”
Rachel straightened Bandit’s forelock, fidgeting with his hair like she had with her own. “Should we talk about what happened after the fire? About us?”
“Us?” Cal repeated, buying herself some time before she answered. For a moment, she wondered if Rachel felt they had something more than a one-night stand. And she was even more curious to find out what her own reaction would be if Rachel did want more.
“Well, not us,” Rachel said, looking at Bandit’s mane as she untangled it with her fingers. “But what happened between us. I mean…I understand how people react after traumatic situations. I see it all the time on my job. But I wanted to make sure you—”
“Oh, of course. Don’t worry about me, cowgirl. You know I’ve been looking for an excuse to get you out of those uniform pants, but now they’re back on, so we’re back to normal.” Forget the past and move toward the future. The next conquest, whether in polo or the bedroom. “Hey, come see my new horse. A couple of mine are still too young to compete on my new team, so I needed a more seasoned horse to bring with me. He’s a stunner.”
Rachel agreed. The blaze-faced bay was absolutely stunning. He stood still as a statue while Rachel and Cal walked around him and discussed his conformation. Rachel’s thoughts were distracted even as she talked about the gelding’s low-set hocks and powerful hindquarters. She could hear the excitement in Cal’s voice when she talked about her move, but it sounded too bright and harsh to Rachel’s ears, matching the inflection Rachel heard in her own voice when she responded to Cal’s enthusiasm. And she heard the low, gentle tones Cal used when she spoke to her young gray gelding and stroked his neck as they passed his stall—the horse Rachel had seen her schooling in the field, and one she’d be leaving behind when she moved. The conflict between Cal’s voices was striking, but Rachel didn’t want to dig deeper into Cal’s true feelings about her move. Instead, she focused on the crunch of gravel in the parking lot, relieved to hear her team’s carpool arriving.
The flurry of preparations for their road trip was a welcome distraction for Rachel. Cal outfitted each horse with boots to protect their legs during the trailer ride and while they were at the range. The team’s saddles were still being treated for water damage, so she spent a few minutes finding the right saddles to fit both horse and rider in each pair. Rachel enjoyed that part the most. She was perfectly capable of determining saddle fit, but she let Cal take care of her, like she did with the other riders. Cal definitely took a more hands-on approach with Rachel, and the brush of her hand against Rachel’s crotch and ass was very arousing. By the time Rachel dismounted and stowed her saddle in the trailer’s tack compartment, she was so wet she wanted to drag Cal behind the barn and fuck her before she lost her mind. Virginia, future, and differences be damned.
Fortunately, Cal moved away from her and lowered the trailer’s ramp before Rachel could act on her foolish impulse. She went into the barn and stood in Bandit’s stall for a few minutes, taking deep breaths and fighting off the vision of Cal with those tan breeches around her ankles. Finally, she led him to the trailer. Ranger and Fancy had already been loaded, and Rachel waited while Sitka climbed willingly into his place. She led Bandit up the ramp and secured him to the trailer’s tie rope.
Everyone piled into Cal’s king cab, the three officers leaving the front passenger seat for Rachel as if it was her natural place. She’d rather have squeezed into the backseat and not sat next to Cal since she was already feeling hypersensitive to Cal’s nearness, but the nervous riders’ questions about the lesson and how to handle the horses near guns made the drive to the range seem even shorter than it was.
Cal drove through the open gate at the ra
nge and parked next to a line of Pierce County patrol cars. She went to find her father’s friend, leaving Rachel to organize the riders and horses. The pop of pistol shots was a steady background noise as Rachel unloaded the horses one by one. They had been so relaxed and easy to load at Cal’s farm, but now—around the sharp and unaccustomed noises—they were agitated as they danced down the ramp. Even Fancy snorted and circled at the end of her rope, her tail waving like a flag in the air as she tried to figure out the source of the noise, the source of danger. She spun in a circle, bumping heavily into Don, but he kept his cool and moved out of the way of her hooves.
Rachel flashed forward to the Fourth. The officers wouldn’t be any use on patrol if all they could do was lead the horses through the crowds, plunging and spinning and endangering everyone around them. She tried to focus on Bandit, on getting through this first small step without worrying over the thousand steps to follow.
She pressed her hand against Bandit’s quivering side, asking him to move away from the pressure. Then she led him in a series of circles and figure eights. Back up, move forward, move sideways. Quietly taking control of his movement and pulling his focus off the loud noises and onto her. Eventually he gave her his full attention, trotting across the parking lot, circling, coming to a halt, reassured by her unconcern and by the familiar patterns of movement.
Cal paused at the edge of the gravel lot and watched Rachel work with Bandit. And she wasn’t the only one. Clark, Billie, and Don were paying attention to Rachel’s quiet movements and mimicking them with their own horses. Within ten minutes, without Cal or Rachel saying a word, all four horses were following their handlers through random movements, as unconcerned about the gunshots as if they were the now-familiar horn of the ferry.
Cal stepped forward and the four horse-and-rider pairs circled around her. She explained what they’d be doing the rest of the day, as they moved from the parking lot to the actual range—first leading the horses behind the officers as they did their target practice, and eventually riding close behind them as they fired their weapons. The close-range work with firearms would be helpful not only to prepare the horses for the fireworks they’d encounter, but also as training in case one of the officers needed to fire a gun while riding. Cal heard the catch in her voice as she suggested they should go to Tacoma’s range sometime and practice shooting from horseback. The thought of Rachel in any situation dangerous enough to require gun power was more upsetting than she cared to admit.