Pony. He knew all about being lonesome. Figured the girl did, too. Her parents were divorced, and she’d been bundled off to live with her grandparents for a while—no one her own age to hang with. Desperate for attention, she’d been following him around like a lost puppy ever since he’d arrived, and he hadn’t been hardhearted enough to discourage her. Like all kids, she had a million questions, mostly personal, mostly about the past he didn’t want to talk about. Damned if he’d be telling her his sob story. He didn’t want to think about Bosnia, no less share the nightmare with a kid.
He gave Jewel a playful squirt with the hose. While she shrieked with laughter, she stayed put.
“I can help, you know.”
“These boys think they’re hot stuff,”
Frank said, indicating the trio of stallions that had been delivered barely an hour before. “I wouldn’t want a little thing like you to get trampled.”
“Little?” All gangly limbs, she drew herself up as tall as she could and still missed the five-foot mark. “I’m nearly a woman!”
Thinking she’d be insulted if any laughter dared escape his lips, Frank bit the inside of his cheek. “You could do me a big favor, then.”
“What?” she asked, young voice ripe with suspicion.
“Take care of Silver over there.”
He indicated the pasture across from the main house, where an old gelding that had been sent over from a nearby spread stared out at the action he couldn’t join.
He looked lonesome, too.
“Yeah, I saw him come in this morning,” Jewel said. “Why is he all by himself? And how come he limps? What’s wrong with him?”
“He got hit by a truck on a ranch road a while back. This here’s gonna be his retirement range.”
“Hit by a truck?” Jewel’s expression went solemn. “He’s going to be okay, though, right?”
As okay as a thirty-year-old, badly injured horse could be, Frank thought.
What he said was, “He’ll always have that bum hip. Can’t keep up with his pals, so he could use some human attention—lots of good grooming, tasty treats and smooth talk. You up to that?”
Jewel nodded and eyed the mottled white horse. “I’m very reliable. Ask Gran or Gramps. They’ll tell you.”
Gran and Gramps were Dale and Patrick McMurty, the elderly caretakers who lived in the main house with Daniel Austin, head of operations for Montana Confidential. Dale cooked and kept house, while Patrick was a crack handyman.
Patrick also happened to be a retired military man who knew how to keep his own counsel about what really was going on underground at Lonesome Pony—that the ranch was a cover for Montana Confidential, a division of the Department of Public Safety.
Frank dug into a pocket and pulled out a plastic bag filled with apple chunks. Sierra Sunrise nosed his arm and Frank slipped him a treat. He stored a few pieces in a vest pocket and held out the bag.
“You can start with these.”
Jewel’s smile was brilliant. Snatching the offering from his hand as eagerly as had the stallion, she whipped around, her long blond ponytail bobbing.
And, now uninterrupted, Frank quickly went to work. The horses enjoyed the spray of water and soapy scrub. And they didn’t refuse the apple chunks he’d kept back for them. He always carried treats when working around horses. And being big-money boys, these stallions were used to lots of pampering and attention.
He wondered if they’d miss the track. They’d spent their young lives running fast, being caught in the limelight. He knew a little about that, too. But he’d gladly left the limelight to others—so maybe the boys would feel the same.
Besides, Frank thought, catching sight of a pretty golden mare nosing her way through the slats of the pasture fence, they had compensations. The soft-eyed mare peered out at them and whickered flirtatiously. The stallions snorted and stomped and did their best to look studly in return. Frank grinned. The mating dance had begun. Slipping the boys into their own individual paddocks outside the barn, he checked his watch—just about time for the meeting.
Awaiting him was the fancy log house with its wide porch overlooking the pasture, and beyond that, the mountains. He could get used to living in Yellowstone country with its spectacular alpine scenery. The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness lay to the east, the foothills of the Gallatins to the west. A man couldn’t ask for a prettier home.
Or a more unusual one.
Lonesome Pony had been a guest ranch for decades—hence a bunch of rifle and archery ranges and horseshoe pits plus a fancy circular corral for those former Friday night rodeos still lined the fine-gravel walk between the house and barn. On the other side of the property, a hut well-stocked with gear stood near the bend in Crooked Creek, which provided some of the most spectacular fly-fishing in the country. But the oddest thing to Frank was the swimming pool surrounded by cabins, providing separate living quarters for him and the other agents.
At least he would have his privacy, something he treasured after months of enforced communal living in a stinking hole.
Ahead, the McMurtys stood in the small garden to one side of the house.
Wisps of thinning white hair sticking out from the brimmed hat pulled low over his sun-leathered face, Patrick dumped a sack onto the ground. “Are you gonna stand there so you can tell me every move to make, woman?”
“Only if I want you to get it right the first time,” Dale said, fists on her ample hips.
“If you don’t like the way I do things—”
“I know. Do it myself. But if I don’t participate, you’ll think I’m ignoring you.”
“We could try it that way and see for sure,” Patrick suggested slyly.
Frank figured they’d keep things lively for his boss—if they didn’t drive the man crazy with their bickering.
Dale spotted Frank. “I don’t know why I’ve put up with this old buzzard for nearly forty years. He can’t keep a civil tongue around me.”
Patrick mimicked her. “If I did, you’d think I was ignoring you.”
“Sounds to me like true love,” Frank said, pushing back painful memories of his own.
Before the McMurtys could respond, a shrill voice came from the other direction. “No, Daddy! No!”
Carrying his cranky daughter from the cabin area, Kyle Foster, one of the other agents, spoke to her in a low, soothing voice. “Mrs. Mac is going to take good care of you for just a little while.”
The blond moppet screwed up her face and began to wail “Da-a-a-d-dy!” as she fisted his shirt. She looked so fragile pressed against her father’s broad, solid frame.
“Shh, honey. You be a big girl and I’ll let you ride your pony later. You want to ride Ribbons, don’t you?”
Molly
