Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle (42 page)

I wasn’t sure if I should say anything. What was there to say? His father had had an affair, and he’d forced his lover—Malcolm’s mother—to give up her child. Plus, the daughter Malcolm thought was his wasn’t, and the woman who raised him wasn’t his real mother, either. She’d had an affair, and his father had murdered her lover. Talk about putting the fun back in dysfunctional—the Malcolms made the Parkers look normal.

“Hell of a day,” I said.

He nodded, but when he spoke his voice sounded far away. “Helen said she’d always planned for me to get that letter after she died.”
 

I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for her all those years living nearby and watching her son be raised by someone else while she raised another woman’s kids. She hadn’t wasted any time changing her mind. I didn’t blame her. She could finally have a real relationship with him, if he wanted it.

“So, with everyone else concerned gone, she decided to tell you?”

“It explains so much,” he said.

Like all the cookies she baked for him.

He took a deep breath, hooked his arm around my neck. “I’m sorry I was so rude that first morning when we went riding,” he said.

Whoa. That was an abrupt change of subject. Okay, I could take a hint. We were done talking about the hard stuff. For now.

“I wasn’t exactly a peach, myself. But why were you so unpleasant?”

“I wanted to impress you. But I couldn’t because you already had everything done.”

“That’s funny.”

“Funny ‘ha ha’ or funny ‘peculiar’?”

“Both. I had everything done because I wanted to impress you.”

He chuckled, that tender sound he’d made on the phone the night I invited him up to see the kittens.
 

“I was already infatuated with you,” he said.

“Even though I can’t tell a bull from a…what did you call it?”

“Heifer. A cow that hasn’t had her first calf yet.”

“As I recall, I didn’t say much of anything those first days.”

“No, but you were thinking, I could tell. Your face is very expressive. It’s what you didn’t say that interested me.”

“And what didn’t I say?”

“This place sucks. I want to go home, right now.”

I laughed. “I was thinking that.”

“Exactly. I wasn’t sure why you restrained yourself, but I liked that you didn’t say it out loud. I started to really fall for you the night you showed me the kittens. When you didn’t say how scared and alone you felt. But I could see it. No, I could feel it, inside of me. All I wanted to do was to hold you, but I didn’t think you’d go for that.”

“I wouldn’t of. But just having you there made me feel better. And that scared me, too. I started falling for you then, but I was trying really hard not to be infatuated with you. What got me was the next night when we went back to the barn after supper, and you didn’t say how much you love this place and how scared you were of losing it.”

“You could see that?”

“Felt it. Inside.”

He pulled me into a hug and kissed the top of my head, and we stood like that for a while.
 

A few minutes later, he asked, “Why don’t you have your psychic ability on your resume?”

“What psychic ability?”

“What do you call your dreams?”

“Annoying.”

“They helped solve a couple of murders, and you saved Nicky.”

Yeah, right. And the sooner they stopped, the better. I’d had enough murder and mayhem to last a lifetime.

I pointed at the stars. I could see the Milky Way, and imagined in winter, the sky would be even clearer. “Is that why you named this place Winterlight?”

“Good guess, but no.”

He said nothing else, but I sensed him smiling.
 

“Sooooo?” I prompted.

“Sew buttons, that ought to keep you in stitches.”

I hip-checked him. He grabbed my butt.
 

“Oooh, no underwear. I like that.”

Men. Sheesh. I swatted his hand away and pointed at a firefly. “Is that the winter light?”

“We don’t have fireflies around here in winter.”

Right. “So, why do you call this place Winterlight?”

“Sometimes, in the winter when it’s very cold… ” he trailed off. Not far away, a cow mooed. “You’ll just have to be here this winter to find out.”

“I have to stay here for months, mucking your stalls and riding your horses and doing God knows what other kinds of dismal farm-related chores you think up, just to find out what Winterlight’s winter light is?”

“Whatever it takes to keep you here.”

“Can I smart off to the boss?”

“You are the boss. I told you that your very first day. But I warn you, the weather conditions aren’t always right for producing the winter light.”

“You mean I might have to stay even longer than a year?”

“If you can take it—and me—for that long.”

“I can take it.” I locked elbows with him to lead us inside. “And you.” I squeezed his arm against me. “But let’s ride forward on the buckle, okay?”

We mounted the steps. He opened the old screen door.

“I like the sound of that,” he said. “Especially if you ride in front so I can…keep an eye on you.”

He made another grab for my rear end, and I let him.

“You’d better be careful, though,” he continued. “If you stay too long, this place might grow on you. It could start to feel like home.”

The truth is, I was beginning to understand what Penny meant about finding my true home.
 

“Actually,” I said, as we started upstairs. “I like the sound of that.”

About the Author

Candace Carrabus spent her formative years in the saddle, just imagining. She still rides horses and writes stories—frequently simultaneously—and many of these stories are imbued with the magic and mystery horses have brought to her life. She shares a farm in the midwest with her family, which also includes several four-legged critters.

She is busily working on the next Dreamhorse Mystery.
 

Candace loves to hear from readers. Connect with her today to keep up to date on her progress and upcoming releases:

Contact at
candacecarrabus.com
 

Follow on Twitter: @CandaceCarrabus

 
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Also by Candace Carrabus

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The Man, The Dog, His Owner & Her Lover

A Witting Woman novella

Coming Soon

The Good Horse, The Bad Man & The Ugly Woman

A Witting Woman Novella

Read on for a sneak peek of
The Good Horse, The Bad Man & The Ugly Woman
…

The Good Horse, The Bad Man
 

& The Ugly Woman


1


Monday morning, Maureen’s high-fiber granola arranged itself into the word
Help
.
 

While waiting for the cereal to get just a little past crunchy, she’d stared out the window at the downpour beating petals off her petunias. Spring had been wet, and summer promised more of the same. The grass needed mowing, but the yard squished when she walked on it. If the sun came out today, steam would make her unruly hair frizz completely out of control.

Difficult to muster even a thimbleful of concern one way or the other. For any of it.

When she looked back at her bowl, ready to dip her spoon, there it was, floating neatly atop the milk.
 

Help
.

She blinked. Still there. Was someone drowning in her breakfast? She groped for her phone to take a picture, but her satchel of a purse fought back, and by the time she wrestled the tiny device from its cavernous depths, the letters dispersed.

She frowned at the bowl, then glanced around, listening. No one else in the house. Gordon was away on business, as usual. Their youngest, Gideon, was at college, or better be. And Gordon Jr. probably tended the twins while their mother went for her morning run.

No, no one was playing tricks on her. Except maybe her imagination. She’d heard stories from other women—women of a
certain age
—about weird things happening when the body began to change, when hormones once again took the female form hostage. Certainly, sleep had been elusive, and her wretched boss just kept piling on the work. With Gordon gone more often than not, Gordon Jr. a new dad, and Gideon in his third year of engineering school, she’d welcomed the extra hours, the distraction, and had been working late.
 

That must be it, she decided as she brushed her teeth. Overwork, not enough rest, hormones.

Nothing wrong.
 

She squinted at her reflection and combed more mousse into her fuzzy hair. It didn’t help. More gray strands every day also didn’t help. She sighed.
 

Nothing wrong.

Nothing right.
 

She pushed the wordy cereal out of her mind thinking there’d better be a good bonus or maybe even a raise in her near future. She’d use it to visit her grand babies. Gordon wouldn’t mind. He couldn’t muster enthusiasm for much of anything lately, either.

The interior of the car held a whiff of mustiness after sitting in a hot, stuffy garage all weekend. She cranked up the air-conditioning and punched radio buttons, settling on the oldies, catching the tail end of a Rolling Stones fave before the Beatles launched into
Help!

Maureen stamped the brakes and spilled hot coffee down the front of her new blouse. Their neighbor, Mrs. Jones—they always shared a laugh about the Smiths and Joneses living right next to each other—waved from her front porch. Absently, Maureen waved, dabbed at her chest with a tissue, then continued.

Her eyes darted between the radio and the road ahead. Sweat snuck past her antiperspirant. She didn’t believe in messages from the unseen, wasn’t even sure there was an unseen, or any of the other new-age claptrap spouted by their receptionist, Jasmine. It was just a weird coincidence. She changed the station and listened to news the rest of the way to the office.

Where it quickly became clear, her day was not going to get better. The wretched boss leaned her tall, blonde self against the door jamb of Maureen’s office. Courtney Wednesday Murphy—honestly, what were her parents thinking?—tried to look casual, but an impatiently tapping foot gave her away.

What now?

Maureen squeezed past without a word, Courtney’s signature floral scent smelling as stale as the car had.

“I need your help,” Courtney said before Maureen got her purse stuffed in the bottom desk drawer.

Maureen’s head snapped up as her boss shut the door and approached, holding out a folded piece of paper. Another weird coincidence, that choice of words. That’s what her rational brain insisted. But her not-so-rational heart kicked up a notch. She stood frozen, halfway between sitting and standing, staring at the folded paper as if it contained her death sentence.

“Everything you need to know is right here.”

“Everything I need to know about—”

“I probably won’t have cell service,” Courtney rushed on. “But if you have to, leave a message, and I’ll try to get back to you in a couple of days.”
 

She spun on her stiletto heel, and Maureen could only gape at the woman’s back as she put a manicured hand on the door knob. The wretched boss was never out of touch with the office. Maureen’s intestines wove themselves into a knot.

“Days?” she squeaked.

Courtney turned without opening the door, her posture stiff. She didn’t make eye contact. Courtney Wednesday was big on eye contact.
 

“I need to get away for a while. It’s all square with upper management. They know you’re the one who really handles all the daily stuff.” She rubbed her palms down her hips, glanced out the window, and huffed.

That’s when Maureen realized Courtney Wednesday Murphy—always in control, always neatly turned out, always organized down to the moment—looked…frazzled. Several bleached strands had dared to escape their careful French twist. Even though it was early, mascara smudged her lower lids. Chipped nail polish, a run in her stockings, and, as she folded herself into a side chair, the overhead lights revealed a spot on the front of her blouse that matched Maureen’s. Except Courtney’s blouse was silk instead of the cheap polyester knockoff clinging to Maureen’s muffin top.

Still, motherly instinct rose to the fore. “Are you all right? You look like you slept in your clothes.”

Courtney smoothed her hair, a tremble making her hands vibrate. Her wide mouth flattened, her lips compressed, she huffed out another breath. “I’m going out of town, and I need you to take care of Lena.” She stood again, looking a little more in command, and pushed the folded paper across the desktop. “It’s all in here. She’s at the house. You know where it is.”