Faith clenched her fists in frustration as she watched Grayson in his business suit, minus the jacket, clinging to the back of the huge red horse, scrabbling over rocks and up the hillside. Soon, they disappeared into the trees. The man was fearless. And competent in ways she’d never imagined. Who rode bareback up a mountain at a full run? Chasing a man who may or may not be a killer?
With no backup.
She cursed herself for the coward that she was and whirled around. Whipping out her cell phone, she strode back inside the building and punched one of the numbers saved in her favorite contacts list. As she held the phone to her ear, she peered into the first stall. A doe-eyed red horse, much smaller than the ones that Stan and Asher were riding, stared silently back at her. Was that a gelding? How was she supposed to recognize a gelding? She bit her lip, then leaned down and peered through the wooden slats. She couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl, much less whether it had been castrated.
Jogging to the next stall, she looked in. This time a gray-and-white horse stared back at her, the dark spots on its rump reminding her of one of those spotted dogs. What were they called? Dalmatians maybe? It was pretty and seemed nice. But it was too big. She couldn’t even imagine the terrifying view from its back. On to the next stall.
The phone finally clicked. “Hey, Faith. Sorry it took so long to answer. I was—”
“Lance. How soon will you be here?”
“Nice to talk to you too. I’m guessing another fifteen minutes or so. Traffic in town is crazy with all the tourists—”
“Forget the tourists. Step on the gas. Asher’s all alone on the mountain chasing the guy we think is the killer. He needs backup. And I...” She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t get on a damn horse and help him.”
“I’ll be there as fast as I can.” The engine roared. Horns honked. The phone clicked.
Faith shoved it in her pocket and hurried down the line of stalls, looking at each horse. There were eight in all. Every single one of them was intimidating. But the first horse was the smallest. She prayed it was the gentle gelding.
Running back to the first stall, she was relieved to realize the horse already had the leather thing on its head. She glanced around for the reins. There, hanging on a hook right outside the stall. It was a long leather strap with a clip on one end. That must be it. She grabbed it and opened the door with trembling hands.
“Here, horsey, horsey.” She held out her hand. The horse nickered softly. “Well at least you aren’t trying to bite me. Good sign, right? We’re going to be friends, okay?” Forcing herself to shuffle forward, she reached out then gently feathered her hand down the horse’s neck as she’d seen Asher do earlier. The horse didn’t seem to mind. It turned its head and shoved its nose into a metal can hanging from the wall, then snorted.
Drawing a deep breath, Faith inched forward then quickly clipped the rein to the round metal ring at the end of the leather contraption on the horse’s head. It didn’t even flinch.
She let out a breath and smiled. “This isn’t so bad. Come on, horsey, horsey. This way.” She gently tugged the rein. The horse snorted again, as if disappointed, but it left the metal bucket and docilely followed her out of the stall.
Faith looped the rein around the same metal hook it had been hanging from earlier and the horse patiently stood waiting.
Even though she was feeling more confident, she knew there was no way she’d be able to stay up on a horse without something more than its mane to hold on to. She glanced at the saddle Stan had sabotaged. She needed something like that, only smaller. Something she could actually lift. Hadn’t Stan pulled that saddle out of one of the rooms on the other side of the aisle?
Yes, there. The door on the end. She ran to it and yanked it open. Her heart sank when she saw the jumble of leather reins and saddles stacked all around and hanging from hooks on the wall. She had no idea which one to try. But all of the saddles closest to the door seemed too big and heavy. There had to be something more manageable for her, lighter, or she wouldn’t even be able to get it on the horse.
Near the end of one of the stacks was exactly what she’d hoped to find, a small, lightweight saddle. It looked odd, with two knobs sticking up on the end, not at all like the one Stan had used. But she supposed a saddle was a saddle, and she’d be able to hold on to both the knobs if she needed to. She hefted it, relieved that it weighed no more than a large sack of potatoes, and carried it to the waiting horse.
“Now what?” She looked at the horse, who looked at her, perhaps a bit skeptically. Then it closed its eyes and proceeded to ignore her.
“That’s fine,” she said. “Just stand there like that. Let me do the work. Don’t move, okay?”
She sent up a quick prayer then tossed the saddle up on the horse’s back. It whinnied in alarm and bumped against the stall. Faith spoke calming, nonsensical words and managed to keep the saddle from sliding off. As soon as the horse settled down again, she went to work trying to figure out how to keep the saddle from falling off. The amount of buckles and pieces of leather were confusing. But she knew there was one big strap that was supposed to go around its stomach. Asher had called it a girth strap, hadn’t he?
Running over to the saddle that Asher had tried to use, she studied the sliced piece of leather. Keeping that picture in her mind, she ran back to the horse and figured out which strap seemed about the same.
A few minutes later, she stood back to admire her handiwork. Everything looked right, as near as she could tell. And when she’d tugged on the saddle, it’d stayed in place.
“Okay. Now, how do I get up?”
The horse aimed a sleepy glance at her then closed its eyes again.
“You’re no help,” she grumbled. Asher had climbed the boards of the stall to get on his horse. Without any stools or ladders in sight, she supposed she’d have to do the same thing. It took several tries, but finally she gingerly lowered herself down on the saddle. The horse didn’t move at all.
She chuckled with satisfaction. “Boy, will Asher be surprised. Let’s get this party started, Red. Is that a good name for you? Asher needs us.” She patted its neck before tugging the other end of the rein off the hook where she’d hung it. Something wasn’t right. It was clipped to the horse’s headgear on one side, but the other end had a handle of sorts, not a clip. Didn’t Asher’s reins hook on both ends?
She wound the rein around her hand to shorten it and then experimented by tugging it. The horse dutifully turned around, facing the exit doors.
Faith shrugged. Maybe she wasn’t doing it exactly right, but it was working.
“Yah, horsey.”
It didn’t move.
She wiggled in the saddle. “Come on. Giddy up, Red. Let’s go.”
The horse turned its head and gave her the side-eye.
“Great. I picked the broken horse. Come on. Go.” She wiggled in the saddle again. “Go, dang it. Come on.”
“Faith, stop!”
She turned in the saddle to see Lance running toward her. The horse decided at that moment to move. It trotted out the stable doors with Faith desperately sawing back on the rein. Red jerked to a stop and started turning in a circle.
Lance was suddenly there, grabbing the rein from her hands and pulling the horse to a stop again. “Faith, what the heck are you doing? Trying to kill yourself?”
“I’m trying to help Asher. I told you he needs backup.” She frowned. “How did you get here so fast?”
“Ran every light in town. Come on, let’s get you off of there.”
She gladly let him pluck her from the saddle. But instead of him vaulting up and heading into the mountains, he turned and jogged back to the stables with the horse in tow.
Faith stood for a moment in shock then jogged after him. When she ran inside, she was even more surprised to see her saddle falling to the floor and Lance shoving the horse inside its stall.
“Lance, stop. Don’t waste time being picky about which horse you use. Asher needs you.”
“That’s why I’ll grab a horse big enough to support me without buckling under my weight. I’ll use a saddle I can sit in, not an English sidesaddle.” He shook his head. “Why they even have one of those at a trail-riding place is beyond me. Instead of a lunge line and a halter with no way to steer the horse, I’ll use reins and a bridle. For goodness’ sake, have you never ridden a horse before?”
“A couple of times. Didn’t end well,” she admitted.
“No kidding.”
She crossed her arms and moved out of his way as Lance led a larger, dark brown horse out of the next stall.
“Tack room?” he asked.
“If you mean where are the saddles and stuff, in there.” She pointed to the door at the end.
He strode inside. A moment later, he emerged carrying one of the big heavy saddles, a small rug and a handful of leather with metal jangling from it.
“Can you call Asher and get GPS coordinates for me?” He spoke soothingly to the horse and tossed the rug on its back.
“I don’t want to distract him or give his position away if he’s trying to sneak up on the bad guy. But I can use my Find Asher app and tell you exactly where he is.”
He chuckled as he settled the saddle on the horse’s back. “You have an app on your phone to locate Asher?”
“More or less. It’s the same app I use for my sister. It’ll locate his phone.”
“Works for me.” His fingers moved with lightning speed as he buckled and tugged and adjusted the fit of the saddle. A few minutes later, he’d ditched the leather contraption—the halter, she remembered he’d called it—and replaced it with another that looked almost exactly the same except that it had metal hanging off the end that he slipped into the horse’s mouth, and rings on both sides to hook leather straps to it.
Now she understood why her rein hadn’t looked right. It wasn’t a rein. It was whatever that lunge line thing was that he’d mentioned. She clenched her hands, embarrassed that she’d done everything so wrong. But also grateful that Lance had gotten there when he had and knew what he was doing.
He hoisted himself into the saddle and turned the horse using a subtle motion of his legs without even using the reins he’d looped over the front of the saddle. He held his phone and arched a brow. “Coordinates?”
“Oh, yeah. Right. Texting them to you now.”
His phone beeped and he typed on the screen, nodded and slid his phone into his shirt pocket. “Text me the coordinates every few minutes. I’ll adjust my path accordingly. And call Grayson, give him an update. I didn’t get a chance to call him during my Mario Andretti race here.”
Before she could answer, he looped the reins in his hand and kicked the horse’s sides. It whinnied and flew out of the building.
After watching to make sure Lance was going up the same trail that Asher had, Faith headed inside and pressed the favorites contact for Grayson. He answered on the first ring.
“Faith, it’s about dang time I got an update. What’s the situation? Found any evidence of our abductor or Leslie being at those stables you were checking out?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” She updated him on everything that was happening as she carried the English sidesaddle, as Lance had called it, back into the tack room. As she answered Grayson’s questions, she idly fingered the various pieces of equipment hanging from the walls, wondering what they were. One she recognized: a whip. She was glad that neither Asher nor Lance had used one of those on their horses. When she reached the end of the large, messy room, she stumbled on something on the floor and fell against the wall. When she looked down to see what she’d tripped over, she sucked in a sharp breath.
“What’s wrong?” Grayson demanded.
She bent to flip back the rest of the little rug. Her hand shook as she lifted another, larger rug beside it. “Oh, no.”
“Faith? What is it? Speak to me.”
“Based on their physical resemblance, I think I just found the Dardens—Stan Senior and the real Stan Junior. They’re dead.”