can you see it with your heart?”
She slapped the box of pasta onto the counter. “Of course.”
Taryn sighed. “That’s what I thought.”
Ellen muttered a curse. “All right, I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m going to let him stay.”
Where had that come from? Was she so easily influenced that she could change her mind in the space of a second? Shaking, she turned to the window. Her gaze scouted through the encroaching darkness. Kevin’s bent silhouette walked the pasture as if he was searching for something.
She’d forgotten about the trigger. What had started the mad stampede? Apollo was still too hurt to run for the sheer pleasure of it. Where was her mind? Why hadn’t she thought to look for the cause? Was her memory affected as well as her balance and her ability to focus her eyes?
The shroud of evening tightened around the ranch. Shadows lengthened and stretched across the yard like the bars of a cage.
“That’s a good start,” Taryn said. “But don’t do it for me.”
“For the horses.” I’m healthy. I’m strong. I can take care of myself. I can handle having a simple ranch hand doing chores around the ranch.
“Of course.” Taryn sounded amused.
Ellen rolled her eyes. Why was it that married folks were in such a hurry to have you join in their misery? “Go back to your husband and baby. I’ve got a pair of legs to go doctor.”
“Let it never be said I stood in the way of a good vetting.” Taryn’s voice warbled with laughter.
“Tell me again why I called you.”
“For my unbiased opinion about your stubbornness.”
“Right. Remind me not to do that again.”
“It’s a question of balance, Ellen.”
“I know.” And right now, she was on the wrong side of the fulcrum.
Chapter Three
In the pasture, Kevin crouched beside an old feed bag. Blue sat at his side. Stuck in a clump of grass at the edge of the field, the paper wrapping crinkled with each puff of breeze. With a finger, Kevin widened the scrunched opening. A rusty piece of barbed wire fell from the tangle of junk inside.
He followed the line of fence at the back of the field. Blue dogged his every step. Two more bags rolled through the pasture like noisy tumbleweeds. Blue sniffed at the trash inside them—bits of wire, jumbles of old rope, dried horsetail weed. All potential dangers to the horses.
Ellen had set up her grazing fields well. Two were in use. Well-maintained fences with rounded corners kept the horses safe and enclosed. Posts waiting for rails outlined a future third pasture. A dirt road formed a T, providing easy access to all three fields. Each had a hedge of mesquite and oak at one end to provide a windbreak and shade. Each contained an open shed for shelter from the rain. This field had a watering trough. The other had a pond fed by a brook.
Everything was neat, ordered, well kept…safe.
The garbage-filled bags were out of place.
From where he and Ellen had stood in the yard, a small rise of land in the middle of this pasture had hidden the horses resting in the shade out of sight.
Whoever had set the bags free had done a good job. He’d started the stampede out of sight with means that would startle the horses without attracting Ellen’s attention to what had frightened them—at least not right away. Someone had known the horses would be her first concern.
The question was why?
The answer’s there if you ask the right question, Nina’s voice echoed in his head.
Kevin rose. Stuffing his hands in his jeans pockets, he studied the pasture again. “The hard part is knowing the right question to ask.”
What if a horse had tangled a leg in a piece of wire or rope from the bag? Had someone meant to hurt the horses? Or just scare them?
Again, why?
Kevin piled the bags out of harm’s way and signaled to Blue. “Let’s go.”
One thing was sure, he decided as he made his way to the barn, someone had deliberately induced the panic.
He glanced at Luci, Apollo and C.C. huddled by the manger at the end of the field closest to the barn. Why would anyone want to hurt these horses? Hurting the horses would hurt Ellen. Why would anyone want to hurt her?
He’d failed to protect her sixteen years ago. This time he’d get it right. Somehow he had to convince her he had to stay.
Time, patience and understanding the other’s point of view, that’s how it goes, Nina’s voice reminded him.
He was short on all three.
ELLEN SAW to Apollo’s legs. Despite his wild thrashing, he’d only skinned his foreleg. The back leg simply required the usual icing, massage and change of bandage. She fussed over him, then turned him back out with C.C. She groomed Luci—for all the good that would do—then turned her out with the others. Because of her sensitive skin, Luci rolled in dirt as soon as she was released.
Kevin and Blue were still stalking the pasture. What was taking him so long? Her mouth went dry. Her palms itched. She rubbed her wrist with the fingers of her opposite hand. What had he found?
She’d fallen in love with this piece of land the moment she’d seen it. The little house with its sunny rooms and open spaces had reminded her of the one she and Kyle had drawn on the ground one night under the stars—right down to its porch and beds of moss roses. All that was missing was the two rockers on the porch to enjoy the view of their spread after a long day’s work. The barn, the pastures had seemed just right to breed a horse or two and give training a try. Nothing fancy. All she wanted to do was make dependable saddle horses for girls with dreams of riding.
Then Luci had come along. Then C.C. Then Pudge. They’d needed her, and it seemed she’d needed them, too. Watching them heal gave her a sense of purpose she’d almost given up finding.
Now, she reflected as she headed out of the barn, a slight tarnish marred her simple joy. The spiked shadows of the barn, fences and trees creeping black over the pens and pasture seemed to snap at her boots like greedy vampires wanting to suck her energy. Something wasn’t right and she wanted nothing more than to head for the house and hide in its cozy light. Instead, she crawled through the gate and headed toward Kevin and Blue coming her way.
“Got a wheelbarrow?” he asked.
She nodded. “What did you find?”
“I’ll show you.” From the barn he retrieved the wheelbarrow, then led her to the far corner near the windbreak of trees. There, he lifted a feed bag. “Someone wanted to scare your horses.”
Suddenly shaky, she crouched to examine the contents of the bag.
“Barbed
