The Horseman

by Anna Jeffrey

  Sarah sighed. She could watch him and listen to him all-day. He spoke so simply and with so much common sense.

  The horse owner sniffed. A tear trailed down her cheek. “You’re saying it’s all my fault? Maybe I shouldn’t even have a horse.”

  “Maybe not,” Sarah mumbled, although from the look of the mare, the woman had probably paid a lot for her.

  The woman on Sarah’s left gasped and glared at her again. “Daisy should behave better. She’s an expensive horse. She has really good breeding. Emily takes good care of her.”

  Sarah shrugged again.

  Troy placed his hand on the horse owner’s shoulder. “Ma’am ... Emily, is it? I’m not telling you this to hurt your feelings or that you shouldn’t have a horse. I want to help you solve your problem. Daisy is a nice horse, a gentle horse. Somebody brought her along the right way. When you put a saddle on her and climb on her back, you’re asking her to trust that she’s going to be okay with you on her back. You have to trust her, too. It’s all about trust. Just be careful you don’t tell her to do something you’re not ready to do yourself and both of you will be just fine. Understand?”

  The woman sniffed and nodded, gave him a weak smile.

  Within six months, Daisy is gonna be for sale, Sarah thought. “It might help if you took some riding lessons yourself,” she grumbled low-key.

  The woman on her left glared at her again.

  Troy raised his mic and moved on to another horse, another owner.

  Chapter 14

  The trip from Camden to Stephenville was a forty-five-minute drive. Drake drove a pickup or an SUV most of the time. Today, he planned to drive his Aston Martin. Before he could back the sports car out of the garage, Steve Logan insisted that he and his new partner, Mike Something would chauffeur them in one of Redstone Partners’ SUVs.

  Drake took orders from few people, but if the security team suggested something he went along, even if grudgingly. Shannon was relieved. Not only was the trip safer in one of Redstone’s Suburbans, the roomy backseat was a more comfortable ride. Her expanded tummy made entering and exiting the Aston Martin a clumsy challenge.

  Drake had awakened in a good mood. Shannon wanted this day to be perfect, but now, after his conversation with Steve Logan, a cloud hung over it. What did Steve tell him? Something about harassment of the Lockhart family, no doubt. What happened to Mandy had upped the anxiety in an already-tense situation. If only someone would figure out the guilty party. The unknowns were so scary.

  They settled into the wide backseat of the Suburban. A scowl on his face, Drake leaned back against the seat, his arms crossed over his chest. Captive for the next forty-five minutes, Shannon could think of no better time to change the subject and talk to Drake about his brother and Mandy. She scooted close to her husband and hooked her hand around his elbow.

  “I know you wanted to drive your sports car, but this is easier for me. I appreciate your making the concession.”

  He had the grace to look sheepish. “I didn’t think about that.” His arm looped around her shoulders and he pulled her even closer. “This is cool. This is a big backseat. We can make out.”

  Shannon glanced at the back of Steve’s head. She moved Drake’s arm and intertwined her fingers with his. “Shh. These guys take one look at me and at Will and think we’ve made out enough.”

  “They don’t get paid for opinions,” Drake grumbled.

  Shannon shouldn’t be embarrassed for Steve to hear their conversation. Except for weekends, she spent nearly as much time with him as she spent with Drake. When she went into labor with Will, only Steve was present. When her water broke and she panicked for a moment, Steve calmed her. Then he drove her to the hospital and stayed with her until Drake arrived from Fort Worth. Tramping around the obstetrics department wearing his gun on his hip, he kept an eagle-eye on everyone who came near her. He probably could have delivered Will without blinking an eye.

  Unfazed, her husband gazed out the window at the sunny landscape. “Listen,” she said. “I need your undivided attention. I want to talk to you about something that’s come up.”

  His attention remained focused on the passing landscape. “You always have my undivided attention, twenty-four hours a day. What is it?”

  “Mandy called me yesterday. She and Pic are fighting over doctors.”

  “And why would she call you? Don’t you have enough on your plate?”

  “I gave her the phone number of my OB doctor weeks ago. Dr. Goodman is the third doctor she’s been to.”

  “Why is she going to so many doctors? And what does that have to do with them fighting?”

  Someone in the family had surely told Drake about Mandy and Pic’s difficulties, but with so much on his mind, Shannon doubted he had devoted three minutes of thought of it. She carried on. “You know she’s not having any luck getting pregnant, right?”

  “I heard something about it.”

  “You know what your dad said about them constantly having sex.”

  “He was joking. Pic works dawn to dark. I don’t think he’s got time to constantly have sex.”

  “They must manage. And nothing’s happened. Dr. Goodman wants her and Pic to make an appointment to visit her together, but Pic doesn’t want to. Mandy would like for you to take it up with him while we’re at the ranch.”

  He turned his head back toward her. “And say what? That’s personal between them. I’m not about to put myself in the middle of it.”

  “But, Drake—”

  “Sweetheart.” He picked up her hand and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. “I don’t want something like this to fuck up the holiday. I want to kick back and relax. I want to shoot a few birds, maybe a hog or two. I want to show Will the livestock and weather permitting, take him for a horseback ride.”

  “Drake, no. He’s barely a year old. He could—”

  “Breeding cattle and horses is the business the ranch is in. He can’t grow up to be afraid of the animals.”

  Why was she wasting breath? Drake’s getting Will onto the back of a horse was inevitable, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. She didn’t try to hide a sigh.

  “Is a disagreement between Pic and Mandy about this really a big deal? Pic’s never said a word to me about having kids.”

  “It’s a big deal to Mandy. All she wants you to do is persuade your brother that for them to see a doctor together is a good idea. And to convince him a female doctor is okay.”

  Drake harrumphed. “How can I do that when I’m not convinced myself?”

  Shannon gave him a look. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. You were there when Will was born. You saw that Dr. Goodman is a good doctor.”

  “Darlin’, I was in a state of panic. I didn’t have the wits to assess the doctor’s abilities.”

  “Drake—”

  “I’m kidding you.” His mouth tipped into his half-grin. “Do you think I’d allow you to see a doctor in whom I had no confidence?”

  He would never not allow her to have a doctor she wanted to see and she had no idea what she would do if he tried.

  Since their wedding, he had come a long way in raising his opinions of professional women in general, but he might never totally abandon his chauvinistic streak. Except for whatever influence his mother might have had on him as a boy, he had grown up in a world dominated by men. He had been mentored by two unwavering misogynists—his father and grandfather—who evidently thought women were good for only one purpose.

  He followed that upbringing by becoming unbelievably successful in industries populated mostly by men. Once, after an expensive mistake by a construction company’s female manager, he said: Women should stick to what they’re good at. If they don’t, they make messes and somebody has to go behind them and clean up after them.

  The cleanup crew was, of course, men. Shannon let the word “allow” pass without a reply, but she gave him a flat look.

  “Uh-oh. Something tells me I said the wrong thing. T
his is one of those female issue things, isn’t it? You’re looking at me like you want to hit me with a skillet.”

  She suppressed an arm-flapping fit and poked his ribs with her finger. “You’re such a devil. I can’t tell when you’re teasing me and when you’re serious. And for the record, I haven’t had a skillet in my hands in months. I’d have to fight Gloria to get hold of one.”

  He chuckled.

  Damn him. He enjoyed throwing her off track in conversations he wanted to bypass. “Don’t distract me. Mandy and Pic need to figure this out and apparently, they need help. Mandy’s talking about doing that thing you do to impregnate horses.”

  The deep line between his brows grew deeper. “AI?” An insincere laugh huffed out of his chest. “My brother would never agree to that. That’s for cattle and horses.”

  Artificial insemination. A topic she and Drake never discussed, but he surely knew that women sometimes got pregnant artificially. She gasped. “Mandy says they do it with people all the time. In people, they call it IUI—”

  “Which is an anacronym for what?”

  “Intrauterine insemination.” She paused, waiting for the information to sink in.

  He turned his head toward the window again and stared out. “Same thing.”

  Lord, he was grouchy today. “She also wants you to talk to your brother about IVF. That’s where they would take eggs from Mandy and sperm from Pic and—”

  “I can figure out how it works.” He turned back to her. “My God, Shannon, can you honestly imagine me and Pic talking about something this personal?”

  “Why not? According to Mandy, y’all have shared...er, share all sorts of personal things.”

  She almost blurted what Mandy had told her about Pic and Drake as teenagers and Pic’s secret collection of porn movies he and Drake sneaked around and watched. They had even let Troy watch them, though he was years younger than they.

  “When we were kids maybe,” he said. “I haven’t had a personal conversation with Pic since before he and Mandy got married.”

  Shannon still had much to learn about her husband, but she did know for certain that he possessed a will of iron. If he made up his mind not to discuss this with his brother, no one would persuade him otherwise. “He looks up to you. Your opinion would be important to him.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said, but he shook his head and continued to stare out the window. Shannon gave a mental sigh.

  They were nearing their destination. More talk about this subject would only aggravate him and her both and she didn’t want to be aggravated on the day she gave him a wonderful Christmas present. “That’s fine. Nothing else I can say about it. I wouldn’t have brought it up if Mandy hadn’t asked me to.”

  After a few beats of silence, he turned back to her, an expression of curiosity on his face. “How would they, um ... get Pic’s ... sperm?”

  “You’re asking me that question? How do you suppose?”

  A few more beats passed. Then he glared down at her. “Pic won’t go along with any of this. My God, Shannon—”

  “I know. I know. I said I have nothing else to say about it. It’s none of our business anyway and all of it sounds kind of risky.”

  “Let me tell you what’s riskier and a helluva lot more important. The bullshit that’s going on at the Double-Barrel right now. Pic needs to be thinking about the lowlife who’s harassing the ranch and the family. Nobody seems to be doing anything to make it stop. Who knows when harm will escalate to people instead of animals?”

  “What about the sheriff? The Texas Rangers? I thought they’re supposed to be geniuses when it comes to solving crimes.”

  “The sheriff is a damn fool and I’m disappointed in Blake and his partner. I’m considering calling his boss and asking for him to be replaced. Having so many security people around night and day is driving everybody crazy and the cost is adding up big time. Christ, I’m wondering if I’m going to have to drop everything and go down there and deal with this myself. Right now, darlin’, whether Mandy has a baby is low on the list of priorities. The next time she calls you, you need to tell her that.”

  Finally. The crux of what was on his mind. Shannon, too, worried about all that had happened at the Double-Barrel just since she met Drake—Kate’s multi-million-dollar barn fire started by an arsonist and her unsettled insurance claim; the unexplained disappearance of numerous cattle; a hit-and-run accident in which she herself was badly shaken up; an irreplaceable family landmark vandalized and no one arrested; horses being shot and worst of all, an attack on Mandy’s SUV late at night. Beyond all of that, Shannon herself was concerned about Redstone Security’s monthly bill. It had to be enormous.

  Finding herself in a different conversation altogether and coming closer to agreeing with her husband than with her sister-in-law, she sighed. “Mandy and I might never talk about it again. I don’t want to get into her and Pic’s personal issues any more than you do. I told her I’d mention it to you. What you do with the information is up to you. Let’s don’t discuss it anymore. This is going to be a great day. You’re going to love the surprise. I want you to be in a good mood.”

  He leaned toward her and kissed her. “I am in a good mood. I don’t mean to make you think I’m not. We haven’t spent a whole day together just the two of us in a while. That’s better than anything I could wish for.” He pulled her close again. “I’m excited about the surprise, sweetheart.”

  As they rode in silence, Drake’s words hit home: ...bullshit that’s going on at that ranch right now.... Who knows when harm will escalate to people instead of animals?”

  Dear God. Would they be safe at the Double-Barrel? Did she need to worry about her own babies?

  “I’VE SENT HIM A DOZEN text messages, but he only texted me back once. He didn’t even wish me a Merry Christmas.”

  Jordan Palmer’s bleached-blond lunch companion, Dorinda Fisk, had been whining and bawling for an hour.

  Sitting at a table in a busy café with a weeping woman was not his idea of a good time. A few diners at nearby tables discreetly stared from the corners of their eyes. He growled mentally. He had no interest in having lunch, dinner or even a snack with Dorinda, but after she called him, wailing about Troy Rattigan dumping her, his curiosity had overpowered his good sense.

  His mind wandering, he glanced around. Elaborate Christmas decorations adorned not just this café, but the entire Galleria mall. Christmas. Ugh. Shit. While he was here, should he pick up a gift for his mother? What could he buy her that she couldn’t buy for herself? Hell, she had more money than he did. ... Still, he had a couple of her credit cards in his wallet. ... He could probably find something. ... If he ever escaped this lunch.

  His plate held a half-eaten pizza slice. He should have ordered soup or a sandwich or something. Even if he were a lover of pizza, which he was not, he wouldn’t choose to eat it in a department store café, even a department store as fancy as Nordstrom’s. Dorinda said she was paying, so he hadn’t argued about the location.

  He slid his plate aside, braced an elbow on the table and propped his chin on his palm. “I’ve sent him a couple of texts myself, Dorinda. He hasn’t replied to me either.”

  She drew a deep sniff and pawed inside a giant purse that had some designer’s initials on it. The monstrosity had probably cost as much as a month’s rent for Jordan’s shitty apartment. Or hell, for all he knew, it was a knock-off. She pulled out a tissue, dabbed at her eyes then blew her nose. Under the fluorescent lighting, large diamonds glinted from rings on both of her hands. She wore rings on five of her ten fingers.

  “If his text wasn’t to wish you a Merry Christmas, why did he send it?” he asked her. “What did he say?”

  “He told me not to text him anymore unless I talked to Blake Rafferty.”

  A sharp pang knifed through Jordan’s midsection. Fuck! The Texas Rangers was a serious law enforcement organization with whom no one with a brain played games. They nailed people’s asses when no o
ther cops could. He straightened from his relaxed posture, leaned across the table and spoke in a stage whisper. “That’s out of the question, Dorinda. I hope you told him to forget it.”

  She frowned. “Don’t be silly. Even if I wanted to talk to some Texas Ranger, Duncan’s fixed it so I can’t.”

  Duncan Fisk, Dorinda’s husband, was a powerful United States Senator who sat on several committees. Before that, he was a prominent personal injury lawyer in Dallas. His influence had long tentacles. Over a year ago, at Fisk’s request, the governor had restrained Blake Rafferty and his partner from interviewing Dorinda. Even so, if a Ranger had a valid case, he could interrogate anyone he chose, including the governor himself. The fact that Rafferty and Dawson hadn’t taken that step where Dorinda was concerned must mean that they were still looking for evidence.

  That bit of knowledge settled a modicum of relief within Jordan and he relaxed, but only slightly. Rafferty was like a dog with a new rawhide bone. He would just keep gnawing. Sooner or later, he would dig up something that enabled him to override the restraining order that protected Dorinda. No point in alerting her to that fact and causing her to faint. Hell, she might drown in her own tears, right here on the floor of the Marketplace Café.

  She sniffed loudly. “Duncan and the governor are old friends, you know. Chuck’s been taking orders from Duncan for a long time. He’ll do anything Duncan tells him to.”

  Helps to have friends in high places—an axiom Jordan never forgot.

  Governor Chuck Garner and Duncan Fisk both were career politicians. Which one was the most corrupt was an ongoing debate in the Texas news media. Garner was the worst governor Texans had elected in years and Duncan Fisk was probably the most crooked Senator.