All the King's Horses (2 page)

As we walked onto the porch, John said, “Dustin lives on that side.” He gestured at the door on the far right of the wide porch. As he started toward the left side, he said, “And this side is yours.”

“Interesting setup,” I said.

“Well, we built the duplex so the kids had places to stay,” he said. “It was cheaper, you see, building one instead of two. But our daughter decided she didn’t want to stay on the farm, so we decided to use her half for farmhands. Ain’t a lot of other places for someone to live around here, and it meant we didn’t have to convert the barn office into an apartment, so it worked out nicely.”

He pushed open the door and made an “after you” gesture.

I went inside and looked around.

The cabin was small but cozy. It was pleasantly decorated in a country style that matched the old, probably antique furniture. From what I’d heard about Eastern Washington’s winters, I had a feeling that wood-burning stove would come in handy in a few months.

Not that I planned to be here that long. I didn’t think so, anyway.

“I hope this will do for ya.” John took off his weathered old cowboy hat as he stepped inside. “Ain’t exactly a New York penthouse, but it’s what we’ve got.”

“It’s fine.” I took in my surroundings. In fact, I liked the tiny place. It was small, and it was—more or less—mine. After sharing a house that was simultaneously way too big for two people and entirely too small for Sam and me, this was perfect. Turning to John, I said, “It’ll be just fine. Thank you.”

“Good, good.” He put on his hat and inched toward the door. “Well, I’ll let you get settled in. In the morning, I can show you around the farm.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He went back up to the main house while I grabbed a few things out of the truck. Not a whole lot—I hadn’t brought much anyway—but just the bare minimum to tide me over until tomorrow. Then I went into the tiny, warmly decorated bedroom that was mine for the foreseeable future.

Just the sight of the queen-size bed made me doubly aware of how exhausted I was. Every muscle ached, and my eyes were heavy like I’d just come home from a grueling, weeklong competition. Time to get some sleep. I could deal with thinking and all of that when the sun came up.

I went into the bathroom and, without looking in the narrow mirror above the sink, washed the concealer off my face. It was only when the water swirling down the drain was clear, devoid of even a single trace of color, that I forced myself to look at my reflection.

The bruise had faded, but not by much. The edges had expanded a little, radiating out from the darker center that covered my cheekbone, and the farther they reached down my cheek and up to my eye, the lighter they were. At least it was more of a sickly blue-green today rather than the deep, furious purple it had been the morning after. Another week or so of applying and reapplying concealer—wonderful when I’d be working outside in dusty summer heat—and it would be gone.

My gaze drifted from the bruise to the leather string suspended around my neck and dipping beneath my collar. Swallowing hard, I reached up and pulled it out from under my shirt, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end when my gold wedding band caught the light from the single bulb above the mirror. The heavy ball of lead that had taken up residence in my stomach sank a little deeper, and I let my gaze flick back and forth from the ring to the mark on my face.

One would go away on its own. The other, only when I took the initiative and took the damn thing off. And left it off this time.

Sighing, I let the ring drop onto my chest, wondering how a band that thin could be so heavy. One of these days, I’d take it off. Maybe even get rid of it.

But tonight, I just… I couldn’t. Not now. It was too soon.

Too soon? I should have taken this thing off years ago.

Maybe so, but I had my limits. Skipping town and blowing off Sam’s funeral pushed those limits, but taking off the ring? I wasn’t ready for that yet.

I closed my hand around the ring, the metal cool against my skin and the guilt hot in my otherwise numb chest. Closing my eyes, I could still hear the rumble of his motorcycle fading into the distance. I could still taste the venomous whispered prayer that it would be the last time I heard that sound, that he really wasn’t coming back this time.

Guess you should be careful what you wish for.

John met me outside the next morning to show me around, and my God, was I in a different world. King’s Ranch was the polar opposite of Dover Equestrian. It was like being on another planet, and not just because Eastern and Western Washington may as well have been Mars and Earth. It was dustier out here, with areas of sparse desert-like areas interspersed with the grassy pastures and huddled clusters of trees, as opposed to the blanket of evergreens and lush fields that covered the western side of the state.

At Sam’s insistence, our facility was far more immaculate and coordinated than any working horse facility could realistically be for more than ten minutes. He wouldn’t even tolerate the natural wear and tear on cross-ties, rubber floor mats and the white-painted walls. Two of our five full-time employees did nothing but keep up on his never-ending “fix, paint, dust, replace” list.

If he’d ever set foot on this property, Sam would have been horrified. The barn wasn’t flawlessly painted and kept, but it sure wasn’t what I would have called rundown. It showed its age in a few places—faded paint, some uneven spots in the packed-dirt aisle, a few chewed doors that didn’t quite hang straight on their rails—but what building full of half-ton termites didn’t have a few teeth marks? Well, besides one where a co-owner went crazy whenever anything showed the slightest disrepair. Heaven forbid a barn look lived-in.

Just walking through this place, where horses had kicked and gnawed here and there, I couldn’t help feeling more weight sliding off my shoulders. Like it was finally settling in that I didn’t have to ride on eggshells anymore.

John continued showing me around. The indoor arena was attached to the side of the barn by a short aisle. It was a nice-size arena with excellent footing, but there wasn’t a jump in sight and certainly no letters on the arena walls for practicing dressage tests. From what I’d gathered in the thirty seconds I’d spent reading up on this place before jumping on the available job, Dustin King mostly bred, raised and trained stock horses. Some for competition—both western pleasure and working western—and some for use on ranches. He probably had as much use for jumps and dressage letters as I did for chaps and cattle chutes.

The sliding door at the end of the barn groaned as John pushed it open. Fences extended as far as the eye could see over rolling hills, and there was an outdoor arena and round pen not far from the barn, but immediately outside the rear door was a smaller pasture with a single horse in it. The boards and posts were dark brown, almost black, and gave off that familiar more-bitter-than-sweet odor of creosote.

John led me to the pasture and rested his elbow on the fence. Beaming at the horse on the other side, he said, “This is Ransom. King’s Ransom. He’s Dustin’s foundation stud. Ain’t ya, buddy?” He patted the stallion’s neck as Ransom put his head over the fence.

Ransom had a lovely quarter horse profile. In fact, he was a beautiful stud all around. Dark bay, almost the same color as the boards penning him in, without a speck of white on his face. Fit and stocky, with good solid legs and big, well-proportioned hooves instead of the little teacup feet a lot of quarter horses had these days.

He was friendly too. When I held out my hand, Ransom searched my palm for treats, brushing his prickly chin whiskers across my skin.

“He’s gorgeous,” I said, wondering if my voice sounded as flat to John as it did to me.

If it did, he didn’t notice. He just patted Ransom’s neck again and said, “He is and he knows it. Throws foals that look just like him too. Three of his babies are headed to the world championships this year. One’s defending a title there.”

“Impressive.” And he was, but as I watched Ransom examine my hand like a curious puppy, I wondered when simple things like this had stopped making me smile and swoon. There was a time when I couldn’t interact with a horse without feeling some kind of warm, fuzzy connection. Now? I felt nothing. I knew enough to draw my hand back before lips became teeth, and I knew how to reach up and mechanically stroke his neck without startling him, but…that was it.

Maybe, I’d told myself when I’d sent the e-mail inquiring about this job, I could find that connection again. Every horseman in my family would be horrified knowing I’d gone from a respected trainer to a lowly—in their eyes—farmhand, but my gut feeling, impulsive as it may have been, said this was the way to go. A Hail Mary to bring back a piece of myself that may have been dead already.

This could work. It
had
to. And in its own way, this made perfect sense. Now that I wasn’t interacting with the horses as their trainer, I wouldn’t be asking anything of them. They wouldn’t be asking anything of me. Maybe that would clear the way for me to reconnect with them.

Or maybe it was just a convenient excuse to take off and disappear for a while.

I winced. My husband’s untimely death was hardly something I should be calling “convenient”. Truth was, I should have left long before that night, and I—

Enough, Amy. It can’t be changed.

“Ms. Dover?”

I shook my head and looked at John. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted to have a look at the rest of the property?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

He showed me all over the vast acreage, explaining when and where various horses were turned out. There was a schedule in the barn, he assured me, but it was good to know where the gates were and which gates required some jiggling and swearing to get open. New ranch, new routine.

New ranch, new horses too. Paints, quarter horses, even the odd Appy grazed in the broad, grassy fields. There were some thoroughbreds and I swore I saw an Arab too, so I guessed those were clients’ horses. Boarders, maybe.

I really was in a different world now. Dover Equestrian may as well have been on another continent instead of two hundred fifty miles and some mountains away. The place even smelled different—dust and grass instead of pine trees and beauty bark—and the air was dry and hot instead of cool and wet like I was used to. I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing here.

“
That’s not fine, Amy,
” Mariah’s voice whispered in my ear. “
That’s going off the deep end.
”

“
Well, maybe that’s what I need to do, then. Maybe I need to go off the deep end.
”

And here I was. If there was a deep end, this was it, and I hoped to God I wasn’t just digging myself into an emotional—and professional—hole I’d never be able to get out of.

A flicker of sunlight on metal turned my head, and I looked to see a black-and-red pickup with a sleek, matching two-horse trailer pulling a dust cloud down the long driveway.

“That would be Dustin,” John said in his thick Texas twang. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

Chapter Two

Dustin

I was lucky I didn’t snap off the goddamned gearshift when I put the truck in Park. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have cared. That or I would have just been more pissed off than I already was, so whatever.

I shut off the engine and picked up the travel log from the passenger seat. I’d write down the mileage later, but at least wanted to jot down the time before I forgot.

Behind me, the trailer shook as hooves slammed against rubber mats. I closed my eyes and sighed. God help me, if I had to drug these two to get them
out
of the trailer, I’d drive back to Klamath Falls just to choke the man who’d given them to me.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, tossing the travel log back on the seat before grabbing my hat and getting out of the truck. I brushed some dust off the black felt brim just to do something with my hands that wasn’t putting a fist through a wall.

With my hat on and blocking out the blazing sun, I looked at the trailer. A twinge in my left side reminded me of every place on my rib cage that was probably black-and-blue by now, and my right kneecap still smarted. And that was from
after
the gelding had been sedated.

Calm down,
I ordered myself.
Just calm the fuck down and take care of the horses
.

Calm down. Right. Easy. Especially when every breath reminded me of the debacle of getting the horses into the damned trailer in the first place.

The trailer rocked, and the stomping and snorting made me curse into the dusty summer wind. I willed myself to stay completely calm. I could release my frustrations later. Now was
not
the time.

Most of the commotion came from the left side of the trailer, so I went around to that side, stepped up onto the running board and opened the top door above Blue’s manger.

He swung his black head out, nearly knocking me off the running board. His eyes were wide, showing damn near as much white as brown. His nostrils flared, and he snorted loudly, the sound echoing off the nearby barn and startling him.

“Hey, easy,” I said softly, and slowly held out my hand. “Easy. Calm down, buddy.”