“Helped?” Rachael gave Travis a huge bear-hug. “It made my day. Thank you.” With a quick peck on the cheek, she let him go.
“Not a prob,” he said.
She thought she saw him blush. Had she actually embarrassed the super-confident Travis Baxter? Maybe.
“See ya around, Rachael.”
Just then her cell rang. “Hey, Maysie. I just fed Taffy. She is so cool.”
“I thought you would like her. I told Travis about your wanting a friend for George and all. He thought that was silly girl talk but said you could have her anyway.” Maysie paused. “So did you like the pink halter and lead rope?”
“I loved them. Thanks. Travis said they were your idea.”
“No. Not really. The halter, lead rope, feed, milk, and bottle were all his doing. He knew you wouldn’t have any of those things, and neither of us were sure if your aunt still had the bottle she had used for ole’ lonesome George.”
“Oh, that was really thoughtful of you both. I meant the pink color was your idea. Great call there.”
“Not really. That was all Travis too. At first he had picked this all leather halter and lead rope—super expensive and super masculine. I said, ‘No way. Not for a heifer.’ And then I suggested a green one. It was Travis who finally decided on the pink.”
“Hmmm. He made it sound like you picked the pink.”
“No, that was all him. He probably didn’t want you to know, though. It’s bad for his guy image. He wouldn’t want any of the other guys to know it was him who suggested the pink halter. So don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“His secret is safe with me.”
So Travis has a really sweet side and understands us girls after all. He’s not just a good-looking cowboy who is clueless about the female psyche. This guy has potential. Maybe for Brittany or Ellery? They don’t have boyfriends.
“I heard Colten left,” Maysie added. “How are you feeling?”
Bad news travels fast in this town!
“I was down at first. Now I’m much better. Taffy helped distract me.”
“Good. And she’ll do exactly that. For the first couple of weeks she will require extra care and attention. Then she will get easier, and you can take her down to two bottles a day.”
“Travis said you are the expert when it comes to raising orphaned calves.”
“Sure am. I’ll be by to help you tomorrow.”
“Great. See you then.”
The girls ended their call. Rachael decided to sit with Taffy and get to know her better. She stayed out until dinnertime several hours later. She fed Taffy one more bottle after dinner and then told her, “Good night, little girl. See you in the morning.” She turned off the barn lights and headed inside.
When Rachael came down the hall, she saw her mother’s light was still on. She decided now would be a good time to catch up on any news her mother may have obtained about her father and his case.
Rachael knocked lightly on her mother’s door.
“Come in,” her mother said softly.
Rachael went in and sat on the corner of her mother’s bed. “How’s Dad?”
She hadn’t spoken with her father since her mother’s trip to Palm Beach began last week. She hadn’t wanted to call them. She felt they both needed some privacy and didn’t need to be reminded of any concerns they had about their children. Rachael hoped her mother’s visit with her father had gone well…or as good as could be expected.
“He’s okay. Of course, he’s lonely without all of us there to keep him company. He asked that you and your brother call him tomorrow when you get a chance.”
“Okay. I will first thing in the morning. Have you heard anything new about his case?”
“Not much. The attorney is still working to sort through all of the details, but this is what we know so far.” Her mother took a breath. “Several officers in your father’s company have been implicated in an embezzlement and money-laundering scheme that has spanned the last five years. The individuals involved so far are Susan Anthony, the Chief Financial Officer; Mark Spittanger, the Executive Vice President of Finance; and Sarah MacAndrews, the Finance Director.
“It appears that all of them, with the exception of your father, of course, have been secretly selling off small pieces of vacant land—so small the amounts individually were unnoticeable and easily concealed but when added together over the past five years add to over a million dollars in losses.”
Rachael sat taking it all in. “I don’t understand exactly. How would they benefit from these land sales?”
“In this particular embezzlement scheme they were selling off pieces of property secretly and then pocketing the money. Perhaps splitting the money from the sale of the property between the three of them and anyone else involved. Of course your father is innocent of this crime and has a team of attorneys working to prove his innocence.”
“What about the money-laundering charges?”
“The same people have been implicated in those charges. However, it gets much trickier. In some cases the land sold for much more than was recorded on the company’s financial records. For example, if a ten-acre parcel sold for one-hundred-thousand dollars but was only reported to have sold for seventy-five thousand, then twenty-five thousand was either laundered or fraudulently misreported. We’re unsure which is correct.”
“What exactly is money laundering, Mom?”
“When someone purposely engages in transactions to conceal the identity, source, or destination of illegally gained money. By reporting the sale amounts as less than they actually were, the individuals involved were hoping to avoid detection all together.”
“I’m not sure I really get all of it, but I think I get the general idea. Poor Dad. Has he been arrested?”
“Initially he was brought in for questioning. Then he was arrested and released on bail when they determined he wasn’t a flight risk.”
“A flight risk?”
“Yes. That he wouldn’t run or flee, honey.”
“Oh…and all this has been in the papers and on the news?”
“Yes, honey.”
“I don’t know how Dad can continue with all of this stress.” Rachael felt so badly for her father. She wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t, not in front of her mother. Instead she gave her mother a much-needed hug.
“I think it would be best if we kept this from Michael for now,” her mother murmured. “It’s simply too much to ask him to bear.”
“Of course, Mom. I’m heading to bed. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Rachael closed her mother’s door on her way out and went to the privacy of her own room.
Colten had already known all of this. He must have thought she also knew all of the gruesome details. He is so strong. To stand beside us during this difficult time. I love him.
She picked up her picture frame and read another message from Colten.
I feel the same way too.
11
IT WAS THE LAST WEEK OF SUMMER, and Rachael kept herself busy caring for Taffy. Up every day well before dawn—this mother-cow thing was turning out to be more difficult than Rachael had expected.
Caring for Taffy included a lot more than mere calf bottles, feed, and hay. Rachael enjoyed those parts of Taffy’s daily care immensely. It was the cleaning of the stall she didn’t like. Every day she had to use a pitchfork to clean out all of Taffy’s mess. She would place it in a wheelbarrow and then push the wheelbarrow several yards to dump it in the corner of the neighboring pasture. Aunt Margaret advised her she would need to put down replacement wood chips once monthly as well! Taffy certainly was a smelly little thing. Maybe she would need a bath soon.
I’ll have to ask Maysie. I’m sure she has bathed a cow before—even a baby one.
A bath would definitely have to wait until she had some guidance from Maysie. Rachael decided to focus on simpler ways of grooming Taffy instead. She was now the proud owner of a brush and a curry comb. Once each day she bru
shed Taffy until her fur shined. The mosquitoes were bad this time of year, so she also sprayed Taffy down each night with mosquito and fly spray.
One afternoon, while Rachael was cleaning out Taffy’s stall, she heard footsteps coming into the barn. She looked up and saw Travis and Maysie standing at the stall door. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”
“We came by to see how you were doing with Taffy,” Maysie said.
“I think I have it under control…so far. But she might need a bath.”
“Sure. I have everything we need. Maybe we can do it tomorrow, but early enough in the day that she’ll be completely dry before dark. Otherwise she might catch cold,” Maysie advised.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
Out of the corner of her eye Rachael could see Travis’s grin. Probably all this talk about bathing Taffy. He probably thought washing anything other than his truck was a waste of time.
“It looks like everything is going well,” he said. “Maysie thought for sure you might need our help by now…of course that was after I told her about you trying to get Taffy to take a bottle for the first time.”
“Yep. I’ve come a long way since then.” Rachael felt pretty proud of herself. That is, until she caught sight of her reflection in the glass window of Taffy’s stall. I look awful! My hair is standing on end, and I must smell awful too. Yikes.
Maysie distracted her from her critique. “We’re going riding this afternoon. We thought you might like to join us.”
“Like on my own? On a horse all by myself?” Rachael asked.
“You can do it. Come on, it will be fun,” Maysie reassured her.
“Besides, we’ll put you on a very gentle horse.” Travis grinned.
There was something about the way Travis said gentle that made Rachael wonder what he meant. I guess I’ll find out soon enough. “Sounds great. I just need to get changed. And I should probably get cleaned up.”
“Trust me. You’re fine. The horses won’t care if you smell like a barn,” Travis joked.
So he had noticed. I must reek!
“Travis, she’s not used to getting dirty,” Maysie interjected. “What he meant to say is, don’t bother cleaning up. You’ll smell like a horse and saddle leather by the end of our ride.”
“Come on, you two,” Travis urged. “You’ll want a pair of jeans, Rachael. You shouldn’t ride in shorts. You could get saddle sores.”
Yuck. I don’t know what saddle sores are but I don’t want to find out. She hurried into the house, donned a pair of jeans, and was out the door in a few minutes. She jumped in the back seat with Maysie and they were off.
“Nice, girls. What am I? Your chauffeur?” Travis asked.
“Hey, I was simply being polite and letting our guest have shotgun,” Maysie said from the back seat.
“So what’s your excuse, Rachael?” Travis joked.
“Well, I am from Palm Beach, after all. I like the idea of having a chauffeur…especially a cute one,” Rachael teased.
“Cute, huh?” Travis muttered.
Rachael thought it was better to leave that alone. She hadn’t meant it like that, but Travis was certainly cute.
As they drove, they listened to country music. It had never been Rachael’s music of choice, but it was beginning to grow on her. She couldn’t really call herself a fan, but at least now she recognized a few of the artists.
When they arrived at the Baxter family ranch, Travis parked at the barn.
“Follow me,” Maysie said to Rachael.
The girls headed into the tack room. It was amazingly organized with rope halters, lead ropes of various lengths, both nylon and leather headstalls complete with reins, and an entire wall of saddle pads and saddles on racks. Along another wall shelves housed every type of brush—some of which Rachael had no idea what they were for. The shelves also contained jars of ointment, spray bottles filled with fly spray, mosquito spray, alcohol, and iodine. The next shelf held various grooming products for manes, tails, and overall body hair. Some even had pictures of cows on them. At the end were bottles of what looked like hair spray. Upon further inspection Rachael saw they were types of hair spray for animals, including Show Sheen. There were even containers of hoof polish. She’d never seen so much animal grooming stuff in her entire life. Before today, she hadn’t even known it existed.
These horses and cows will be better groomed than me, given a few more months of stall cleaning and other equally smelly tasks!
Maysie spoke, pulling Rachael out of her zone, and motioned to a beautiful buckskin-colored saddle on a rack that had white-stitch-work detailing and flower patterns etched into the saddle in various places.
“Grab that saddle. It’s our mom’s. She won’t mind if you use it.” Then Maysie pointed to the enormous headstall and reins hanging on the other wall. “Grab those. They are John’s, and you’ll be riding him today.”
Rachael looked at the other headstalls that looked like they would fit miniature horses in comparison to John’s headstall. What kind of huge horse is John? There is no way I’m riding a Clydesdale! She’d thought she could do this riding by herself thing, but she was beginning to hit freak out mode on the inside. At least she could hold it together on the outside. She didn’t want Travis to think she was a complete wimp.
“Okay.” Rachael grabbed the headstall and reins.
“Take those out to Travis. He’s waiting in the back paddock. You may want to come back for the saddle. It’s a little heavy,” Maysie added.
Rachael took the saddle pad down off the rack, as well as the headstall, and walked out to meet Travis at the rear of the barn. Her jaw almost dropped. Travis was petting an enormous male horse she could only assume was John.
Travis must have caught her expression. “No need to be frightened. I promised you a gentle horse. This is him.” At Rachael’s still hesitant stare, Travis added, “Trust me, Rachael. He is big, yes, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He belonged to our mother when she was younger and is now a family pet used only on occasions like these. He is more of a trail-riding horse now, for riders such as yourself.”
“Riders such as myself?” Rachael asked.
“Yes. Without any riding experience. My five-year-old cousin rode him last week.” Travis smirked.
“Oh. Great.”Well, I’m not going to be shown up by a five-year-old! Rachael placed the headstall and saddle pad on the ground, then approached John apprehensively, yet a little relieved.
John turned toward Rachael, extending his nose to sniff her. Rachael reached up and stroked John’s mane. Someone obviously spent a lot of time grooming this horse. Rachael’s guess was that it was Maysie.
“He seems so calm,” Rachael commented.
“Yes. He is Mr. Laid-back. That’s what I call him anyway. All of our other horses are American Quarter Horses used for working—parting and cutting horses mostly. They move quickly, even when they are just walking. We didn’t want you to be nervous, so we chose John. He never moves all that quickly anymore,” Travis said with a hint of a smile.
“Great. Sounds perfect to me!”
“Why don’t you hold John while I go grab your saddle?” Travis offered.
“No, I got it. If I am going to learn to ride, I need to also learn how to saddle a horse on my own.”
Rachael turned and walked back into the tack room to get the saddle. It was up high and required her to actually lift it down. When she did, she couldn’t believe how heavy it was.
“You got it?” Maysie called from around the corner.
“Sure,” Rachael said, not at all sounding sure. She hauled the saddle down and staggered out of the barn toward the general direction of the back paddock. How much does this thing weigh? Fifty… maybe sixty pounds? This is pitiful! I need to get into a gym or something.
As she struggled her way across the grass, Travis approached. He had already put the bridle on and was coming through the gate carrying the saddle pad and leading John.
“Here—let me help you this once.�
� He placed the saddle pad on John’s back. “You need to put the stirrup and girth strap, or cinch, up like this and swing the saddle over the top of his back.” Travis did this in one fluid motion, making it appear so easy.
“Next reach underneath his belly like this and grab the girth strap and bring it up and around to attach to the latigo. Then run the latigo through the left cinch ring, a couple of times.” Travis paused, demonstrating, and then continued, “Like so. Then run the final length of the loose end of the latigo through the D-ring. Some people tie or knot it, but you won’t be doing any hard riding today. I think it will be fine.”
“Maybe you should knot it to show me how, just in case.” Rachael wanted it both knotted and tied…whatever that meant.
Travis laughed but said, “Okay.” He knotted the loose end of the latigo. “You’re all set.”
Just then Maysie came out of the barn leading two beautiful American Quarter Horses. Both were already saddled and ready to go.
“Thanks for saddling my horse,” Travis told Maysie.
“Not a problem. I figured you would be a little while teaching Rachael how to saddle a horse.”
“Wow! You saddled them so quickly!” Rachael was surprised at how strong Maysie must be to saddle two horses that quickly. The large saddle was obviously Travis’s and appeared to weigh about seventy-five pounds. Rachael couldn’t imagine being able to swing it onto any horse’s back.
“Lots of practice.” Travis smiled.
“Whose horse is whose?” Rachael asked.
“The mare is mine,” Maysie explained. “Her name is Pretty Girl. She’s an American Quarter Horse with buckskin coloring. Travis’s horse is also an American Quarter Horse, a gelding named Coal. His color is black, obviously.”
“What about John? What is he?”
“He is an American Quarter Horse too, a gelding. His color is called sorrel, and the small white mark on his forehead is a star.”
“What’s a gelding?” Rachael asked.
“A boy horse that’s no longer completely a boy anymore.”
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