Run Away Home (3 page)

H
e had to be joshing with Jake, Sam thought, looking between the two.

Kit's remark surely hadn't been a dare, because he just dropped the idea as he climbed out of the truck and took a look around at Willow Springs Wild Horse Center.

“Ain't this a sorry setup?” Kit asked, as he offered Sam a hand getting down.

Sam gave a tight smile and hopped down on her own. Then she surveyed the BLM facility, trying to see it as Kit did.

She saw acres of pipe corrals filled with horses, a wall of hay bales twice as tall as her home, an office building, and a parking lot with white trucks labeled
U.S
.
GOVERNMENT
. This morning's light snow had melted off, leaving mud in low places, but the footing inside the corrals had been designed so that the moisture ran off and the horses weren't standing in puddles.

Brynna worked hard here and so did Hugh and Brynna's secretary, her two permanent staff members. Half of Sam wanted to ask Kit to explain what was “sorry” about it, but she already knew.

Kit was a cowboy. He would protest that the wild horses grazing on his family's ranch were competing for the grass that cattle grew fat on. Still, he looked as disappointed as she'd felt on her first visit here. Sam knew it was because of the horses.

The pipe corrals were filled with mustangs. Mustangs were supposed to be running wild with blowing manes and tails, challenging humans to catch them, confronting each other in mock battles, and defying fences that imprisoned them. Here, nothing like that was happening. These horses looked dull and resigned to captivity.

That's what Kit thought was a sorry sight.

“Wait until you see wild horses trucked in fresh off the range,” Sam said. “Or watch them being loaded into the trailers after the auction.”

From the corner of her eye, Sam caught Jake's expression. There, then instantly gone, it had been a look of disbelief.

Mustangs looked wild and beautiful when they were fresh off the range or being loaded because they
were terrified. Had she really been offering horses' panic as entertainment?

Sam was ashamed. She didn't know what to say.

“Am I ever glad to see some friendly faces.” A female voice floated from the direction of the office. “I never would have let Hugh take time off, but he called me a grinch!”

Sam, Jake, and Kit turned to see Brynna approaching. In her khaki uniform and official nametag, Brynna still managed to look confident and very much the boss, though she was round with pregnancy.

Jake frowned, and Sam remembered how he'd steadied Brynna to keep her from falling the other day. It was pretty clear he thought she should begin her maternity leave now. In contrast, Kit grinned at Brynna as you would at a kitten.

“Brynna, this is Jake's brother Kit,” Sam rushed to introduce them.

“The bronc rider,” Brynna said with a nod. “Welcome.” She extended her hand and clasped Kit's in a firm grip. “You've come to the right place if you'd like a horse to help with your homework.” Her eyes swept the corrals of wild horses before halting on Kit's cast. Her lips pursed with interest, not pity. “Did a bronc do that?”

“Yep,” Kit said. “It's nothing.”

A faint alarm went off in Sam's mind. Twice she'd heard Kit dismiss the injury as “nothing.” Knowing
what she did about cowboys, she wasn't convinced. She'd been with Jake when he'd broken his leg in a riding accident. It had been a compound fracture. The bone had actually stabbed through his skin, but Jake had dismissed the blood and pain and just asked her to find his hat and get it back on his head.

“Are you still riding?” Brynna asked.

“Takin' a little time off for the holidays,” Kit answered.

“You probably deserve it, so I won't draft you to help Jake and Sam move the horses around. You can just watch them and”—Brynna's voice took on a wheedling tone—“shop for a new horse?”

“I might do that,” Kit said.

At first Sam thought he was just being polite, but Kit's eyes drifted to the stallion corral. What if he
hadn't
been joshing with Jake when he suggested a wild horse showdown?

She'd have to worry about it later, because Brynna was rattling off instructions, telling her and Jake to make sure the foals and yearlings were in pens up close where people could see them, to check that the corrals were labeled according to the horses inside, and to make sure each animal had a red and white rope loop holding a number around its neck.

“And though I hate it, I guess you'd better make sure all the older horses—everyone over ten,” she added with a grimace, “are moved out of the adoption corrals. I think that's already done, but Hugh left a
few mature mares and a few burros from southern Nevada, and Norman figured it out.”

“Why's that a problem, now?” Kit asked.

“Congress voted to pull horses over ten years old from the adoption program,” Brynna began.

“That's right. I heard about that,” Kit said, then paused next to a corral. “And these are the studs?”

“Yes, though they're not as feisty without mares to protect or show off for,” Brynna said.

“That red boy's a beauty,” Jake said, pointing at a bright bay stallion that was watching him with pricked ears.

Kit nodded. “Have you finished roundups for a while?”

Brynna made a hum of disapproval and her lips parted, but Kit rushed to explain.

“I'm thinking, if I were to get a wild one, I'd want to imprint him as soon as I could.”

It was only a small movement. Jake's hands still hung at his sides, but when they tightened into fists, Sam wondered why.

“That's a good idea,” Brynna said. She tucked a loose tendril of hair back into her French braid. When she spoke again, it was in a halting, stop-start manner that was totally unlike her. “We have lots of horses here, too many, really….” Brynna shook her head. “I'd like to say we were finished with non-emergency gathers, but my associate…” She glanced toward the office. “Well, he has a different opinion.”
Brynna's sigh lasted a long time. “Just keep in touch, Kit. If we bring in more horses, I'd love you to have one of them.”

“That'd be a first for Three Ponies,” Jake said.

“Then it's about time,” Sam told him, and turned toward Kit. “Your timing couldn't be better, since everyone's so glad to see you. They're not going to say no!”

“Don't know about that,” Kit said. “Comin' home for the holidays is one thing; moving back with two new mouths to feed is something else.”

Jake looked down for a second and Sam saw his fists clinch tighter. She could tell Jake wanted to ask Kit which it was. Was he home for a visit or was he moving back for good? Sam didn't understand the tension between the brothers, but maybe part of it was not knowing what to expect.

 

It didn't take Sam and Jake long to do the herding Brynna had asked for, and Sam left Jake walking around the corrals, checking out horses with Kit while she slung Ace's reins around a hitching rail and walked toward Brynna's office.

It was quiet except for the hum of a computer.

Sam slipped into the office unnoticed. The scent of dust and horses clung to her and she was about to walk back to Brynna's office and slip into the restroom to wash up when she heard voices raised in an argument.

At first Brynna's words didn't sink in, because her stepmother's tone trembled on the brink of angry tears. That was totally out of character for Brynna at work.

“…not my last day…”

Of course it wasn't, Sam thought. Brynna had extended her work time when she discovered Norman White was her replacement.

“That was an informal request.” Norman White's voice was level, but there was a gloating quality to it that Sam knew she wasn't imagining. “And of course you're welcome to stay on, but my wage as your replacement kicks in today.”

Gooseflesh spread down Sam's arms. He was giving Brynna a choice. She could finish up today and leave, or continue to work, taking orders from him.

What would be the point? One more paycheck wasn't enough to keep Brynna working for a man who didn't know what he was doing, was it?

The silence stretched out until Sam wanted to burst into the other room, but she didn't. When Brynna spoke again, her voice was calmer.

“My regional supervisor approved my leave and amended the start date,” Brynna pointed out.

“I'm sure he did, but I'm just following regulations, and my most recent communications with Washington, D.C., say that I begin work as director of Willow Springs Wild Horse Center at one minute after midnight, tonight.”

“Norman, I took my boss at his word,” Brynna said, and Sam heard her shuffling papers now, as if this conversation was merely a nuisance. “I'll go on leave in two weeks, not tomorrow. I have work to finish up.”

Neither Brynna nor Norman were admitting their real motives for being in charge. Norman said he was just following regulations. Brynna said she had too much work to leave now. In fact, each thought the other was dead wrong in their method of running Willow Springs.

In this second silence, Sam heard a crackling sound. A nearly empty carafe had been left in the coffee maker. It was still turned on and the quarter-inch of brown liquid was baking. Sam would have rushed to turn it off if Norman hadn't started talking again.

“It's time to give yourself a break, Brynna. This job is getting too personal for you.”

“I'm not sure I understand what you mean,” Brynna said. The paper shuffling stopped, but her tone stayed cool as she added, “Could you give me an example?”

“We could begin with your bias
against
Linc Slocum and
in favor
of that gray stallion in the Calico Mountains,” Norman said.

“Linc Slocum's applications have been denied because of two documented violations of the harassment and negligence clauses in the 1971 Free-Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act. I can print you
a copy of those regulations,” Brynna offered.

Sam wanted to applaud until Norman corrected Brynna.

“You know that law was revised. It's in limbo now. And when I checked your files, I saw an awful lot of notes on pretty purple paper. Using a cheat sheet from your teenage stepdaughter kind of escalates your treatment of Mr. Slocum to a vendetta.”

They
were
Sam's notes, but she'd done her research in online government documents. Maybe the purple paper had been a mistake, Sam thought, but he couldn't deny what she'd written was accurate.

“Norman, are you aware of the other charges pending against Slocum?”

“The uproar over that Gypsy boy?” Norman said carelessly. “That's not part of our evaluation process and, well…” He gave a humorless chuckle. “You might not want to put yourself into the position of the pot calling the kettle black.”

“I don't follow you, Norman.” Brynna's voice grew quieter and something in her tone reminded Sam of the day she'd seen Brynna strap on her service revolver and tug on a drab olive SWAT team cap to go after horse rustlers.

“I mean,” Norman's voice rose as if he were struggling for patience, “you should have either brought in that feral gray stallion—for crying out loud, everyone knows he was bred and born on your husband's ranch—and paid the trespass fees going back four
years to the time of his escape, or put him up for adoption.”

“There's BLM precedent for releasing horses that could improve herd bloodlines,” Brynna said.

“Sure, that's the reason you stated, but the horse is a troublemaker, and you were only thinking—”

“Thank goodness you're here to explain what I was thinking,” Brynna cracked, but Norman didn't swerve from his tirade.

“You only left him on the range because he's a personal pet of your stepdaughter's who thinks the notion of private horses running free on public land is romantic and stirs the soul.”

“Your timeline's a little out of sync, Norman. Samantha wasn't my stepdaughter when that determination was made.”

“Exactly.” Norman broke the word into three distinct syllables. He sounded as if he believed he'd sprung a trap.

“Once more, I'm afraid you're going to have to spell out what you're thinking,” Brynna said, “because I'm not following you.”

For a minute it was so quiet, Sam hoped Norman had really heard himself and figured out that he'd overstepped his prized professionalism.

“Just what are you implying?” Brynna asked.

“Certainly not that you used that gray to please Samantha and catch Wyatt's attention.”

“That's ridiculous,” Brynna said.

“I agree. I'm certain your emotional instability is more recent, linked to hormones and your pregnancy.”

Emotional instability?

Sam waited. She couldn't imagine what Brynna would do next.

“Norman, I'll hang my decision on the BLM in Washington. I'll e-mail a request for clarification and proceed accordingly. In the meantime, we're just going to have to agree we have different approaches to this job.”

A loud popping sound came from the overheated coffee carafe as it cracked. For an instant, Sam wondered at the coincidence of Jake's broken windshield and the broken coffeepot. But either Brynna or Norman were bound to come investigate the sound, and Sam didn't want to be caught sitting there, eavesdropping, when that happened.

She tiptoed quickly to the door and slipped outside, unseen, but Brynna's voice rose so sharply from inside that she heard her ask, “What's that sound?”

Cracking coffeepot? Tiptoeing boots?

No. Something throbbed from overhead, compelling Sam to look up into the icy blue sky. She saw a glint of metal.

“Norman?” Brynna asked.

“It's a chopper.”

“A chopper?”