Mounting Evidence

by Karis Walsh

  She had to protect her own heart, too. Why did she fall for the bad girls? Abby had the presence and confidence that, in her experience, went hand-in-hand with arrogance. Yet Kira still couldn’t stop herself from being attracted to Abby. What she could stop, however, was any more interaction between the two of them. True, Abby hadn’t even admitted the horse was hers, let alone said or done anything to suggest she planned to reclaim her. But Kira needed to prepare for the worst. She’d fight Abby if she wanted to take Nirvana away from Julie, or she’d somehow manage to pay whatever it cost to buy her, but that would be the extent of their relationship. Kira would feel better, albeit poorer, if she owned the mare outright and didn’t have to worry about her ever being taken from Julie.

  Kira was so distracted she nearly bumped into the man standing by Nirvana’s stall. He put out a hand to steady her, and Kira recoiled when he touched her shoulder. She took a step back and forced a smile.

  “Sorry. I didn’t see you there.” She was too wrapped up in her thoughts—how had Abby managed to breach her defenses so quickly, especially when Kira saw all the red flags? She needed to get hold of herself, pay attention to where she was walking, and concentrate on her daughter.

  “Mom, can you hand me the tail comb?”

  Kira sifted through the tote holding Julie’s grooming tools and handed her the comb. She realized uncomfortably that the man was still standing next to her. Too close. The heavy scent of his expensive aftershave made her nostrils burn. He leaned against the stall door and smiled down at her. Kira made a concerted effort to stay where she was and not look away. She had pulled away from him at first because she’d been startled out of her reverie. Now, she felt an even stronger urge to grab Julie and run away, but she remained still. She was too close to the edge these days, too ready to flee. She hadn’t always been like this, but even though she hated the frightened part of herself—the part that made her thigh muscles tense as they got ready to propel her to safety and her shoulders hunch in a self-protective way—she could rationally understand what was happening. She saw threats everywhere, in everyone. She got that. The tough part was that she didn’t trust her own instincts anymore. How could she recognize when the danger was real and when she was overreacting? First Abby, now this man. Either way, though, she had to control her impulse for flight. She was ready to stay and fight.

  “Hi, and welcome to the 4-H barn.” Julie took the comb from Kira’s hand and introduced herself to the visitor like she had been taught to do as a 4-H member. The kids were supposed to act as ambassadors to the fairgoers who walked through the barns, but Kira had a hunch that Julie would have been just as friendly and welcoming even if she hadn’t been told to do so. It was just her nature. “I’m Julie and this is my horse, Nirvana. We’re competing in showmanship today. If you have any questions, please let me know.”

  “Thank you, Julie, but I’m here to see your mom. We’re friends from work.”

  “Really?” Julie asked, looking from her mom to the stranger and back again.

  “Really?” Kira asked at the same time. She frowned as she tried to recall the man’s face. He was taller than she was, with a slim build. Sandy brown hair and intense green eyes. Good-looking enough, but with a mean edge to his suave appearance. Kira wouldn’t have forgotten a face like his. “I don’t remember meeting you before.”

  “I’m Tad. Tad Milford. Does the name ring any bells?”

  Crap. She should have trusted her instincts and run when she had the chance. She had been right that they hadn’t officially met, but she’d recently spent a few afternoons outside of the Milford Corporation’s offices, getting people to sign petitions to stop his new development.

  “Your mother is trying to stop me from building houses on a piece of land I legally own,” Tad said to Julie. “Now, you don’t think that’s fair of her, do you?”

  “If Mom’s involved, it must be because you want to destroy a wetland. That’s not fair to the earth.”

  Kira was torn between pride in Julie’s efforts to side with her and a fervent hope that her dramatic defense of the environment wouldn’t continue. She stepped into the stall and stood between her daughter and Tad.

  “Mr. Milford, my daughter is about to compete in a horse show and we need to get ready. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss business, but I’d be happy for you to schedule a meeting with our neighborhood coalition and we can debate our respective positions there.”

  “Your position is weak. You’ll never be able to stop progress, and you have no right to tell me what the hell I can or can’t build on my land. No fucking right.”

  The muscles that had only seconds before been poised and ready for flight were now aching to take a swing at Tad Milford’s smug face. She stepped closer to him.

  “Get out now. Or I’ll have you thrown out.”

  He laughed. “What are you going to do? Beat me up? Or maybe you’ll call your little cop friend.” He reached out and dragged a finger across her right cheekbone. “But last time you tried calling on a Hargrove, you didn’t get any help at all, did you?”

  Kira felt a violent shiver ripple from her gut to her racing heart. He had touched the spot where she’d been cut and bleeding that night, when the cops had come and then left her behind. His finger reopened the memory of the painful wound as if it was a razor blade. She pressed the palm of her hand against her cheek, expecting the warmth of blood, but her skin was smooth and dry.

  “No one can help you now, either. Mind your own business and stay out of mine. We wouldn’t want you or your daughter to be hurt again.”

  She had to try twice, but she finally was able to get words past her constricted throat. Her voice sounded like an angry hiss to her own ears. “I don’t like being threatened, Mr. Milford. If you lay one finger on my daughter, I will make you pay.”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t a threat. It was a statement of fact. You will stop your efforts to delay my construction schedule, and then we’ll all be happy and safe.”

  Kira saw his property in her mind, followed the twisting trails leading around the edge of the water. She had spent hours in the marsh, searching for sedges and cattails, watching the patterned visits of ducks and songbirds. The tract of land might look like an insignificant few acres of soggy ground to most people, but Kira saw the intricate interplay of flora and fauna as different species came together and thrived in their unique community. She had been drawn to wetlands specifically because they were so undervalued and unappreciated. Milford’s proposed building site was part of a larger watershed area stretching through Puget Sound. A few areas were preserved—thanks mostly to small grassroots organizations. She used her degree and expertise to help them, to elevate their neighborhood-based efforts and give them credibility. To protect the endangered and misunderstood underdog of an ecosystem. She kept her voice impersonal when she spoke to businesspeople and government officials about saving wetlands, but her vocation was deeply personal.

  How dare Tad Milford bring his greedy, grasping threats into her family life? He might make a small fortune on the development, given Tacoma’s thriving housing market, but he had no right to destroy the city’s natural resources in the process. She’d seen too many wetland areas get eaten away by too-narrow buffer zones and too-closely encroaching homes. He might have money and influence over the city council, but she wouldn’t let him buy his way out of his obligation to the environment without a fight.

  “You will stop your efforts to intimidate me outside of work,” she said. She wanted to add an or else, but she couldn’t think of one. Or else she’d get a restraining order? She didn’t think the police were likely to be of any help to her, especially since he seemed to have connections there. Or else she’d beat him up? She didn’t want to make him laugh at her. She had to fight back the only way she knew how, as if she were arguing a case in front of the council and not pleading to be left alone. He was pushing his way into her life, into Julie’s world, and he needed to be shoved out.
“Given my record with cases like yours, you might want to back out of the fight now. If you don’t respect my request for you to stop bothering us, I will make it my life’s mission to see that you’re never permitted to build so much as a doghouse on the property. If you are willing to be civil and confine our interactions to the workplace, then I’m sure we can reach a compromise that will be beneficial both to you and to the environment.”

  Tad smiled. “The decision we reach will benefit me, not that damned swamp. Trust me, it will be drained and covered with houses before the year is out.” He turned away from her and nodded with insulting formality to her daughter. “Good luck in your class, Julie.”

  Kira watched him walk down the aisle. Her fists were balled in helpless rage, and her entire world seemed to shrink down to fit on the retreating form of Tad’s back. Julie’s trembling voice broke her out of her hyperfocused state.

  “Mom? Is he really going to hurt us?”

  Kira spun around and pulled Julie close to her in a tight hug. She felt tremors but wasn’t sure which one of them was shaking the most. “No, baby. We’re fine. He’s just a mean businessman who’s accustomed to getting his own way. He can’t use money to buy his way out of this, so he’s using empty threats instead.”

  “Are you sure?” Julie mumbled against her neck.

  Kira put her hands on Julie’s shoulders and held her away so she could look directly in her daughter’s eyes. “Yes. I will protect you from any threat. Look around us. There are people everywhere, so what can he do?”

  Even as she saw Julie look around as if surprised to see so many people, the sounds of kids talking and horses stomping the ground finally filtered back into Kira’s consciousness as well. She had felt isolated because he had scared her, but she wasn’t. She had given him power over her mind, and she hated how easily confidence had slipped from her grasp. But she couldn’t let Julie see how frightened she really was.

  “You need to forget all about that creep. Showmanship is your best class, and he doesn’t have the right to intimidate you and keep you from doing well. Okay?”

  Julie nodded. “Okay.”

  Julie returned to her task of grooming Nirvana until she glistened under the fluorescent lights of the barn. Julie had been shaken, but she slowly bounced back to her usual bubbly self as she brushed her mare. Kira envied her resiliency. She would denounce Tad’s words with confidence and she’d protect Julie with her life, but inside she was ragged and raw. She kept smiling until she watched Julie walk toward the show ring with her usual lighthearted step. Kira went into the far side of the Paulhamus Arena, where the stands were nearly empty, and she climbed to the top of the bleachers. There, finally alone, she allowed herself to sag in despair. Tears threatened, but she blinked them away. She wouldn’t back down and she wouldn’t cry, but she wondered if she’d always feel so helpless in the face of someone else’s strength. Tad Milford scared the shit out of her. He looked every inch as mean as his words sounded, and he’d seemed aware of the details surrounding her run-in with Officer Hargrove. How could he know about that night? Even more perplexing was Abby’s connection to all of this. Her brother had been in Kira’s house, and now Julie was walking into the ring leading Abby’s horse. How the hell had Abby gotten tangled in Kira’s life? And how could Kira extricate herself without getting burned by the heat Abby generated inside her?

  Chapter Four

  Abby watched Kira and Julie disappear into the crowded 4-H aisle. She was tempted to go after them, if only to keep talking to Kira. She hadn’t felt connected to others so deeply for a long time. She had been training the then two year-old Nirvana when she had realized her dad was using her grandfather’s filthy money to pay for her hobby. She had sold the older horse her parents had bought her, but she kept Nirvana because the horse had been hers. Bought with money she had saved for years. Exercising horses, braiding manes and tails at shows, doing any odd job she could find. She had been fervent about counting and hoarding her growing funds—perhaps she had always guessed that something was going on beneath the surface of her grandfather’s career. Or maybe part of her had recognized they were living beyond the means of a legitimate patrol officer’s income. Whatever the reason, she had managed to purchase the promising young mare, and she had been doing all of the training on her own.

  And she’d finished the training without help, after she’d broken emotional ties with her family. Nirvana had been a source of comfort and a reminder of loss since that time. Abby had never managed to fully commit to riding as she had in the innocent past, but she had been unable to part with the mare until she had read Kira’s report and had learned about her horse-crazy daughter. Abby had given Nirvana to Kira and Julie, and then had maintained a connection to horses by establishing a mounted unit. She had missed her own horse over the past year, but she felt a sense of rightness after seeing the now seventeen-year-old horse again. Julie loved her with unfiltered joy, without any of the guilt or ambivalence that Abby carried in her heart.

  Abby turned away from the 4-H barn and walked toward the police horse stabling. She might be connected to Kira by tendrils—her horse, her brother, Kira’s past—but she was still on the outside. She had made some changes in Kira’s and Julie’s lives, hopefully for the better, but now it was time to regain some distance.

  As Abby came through the door of the far red barn, she saw Callan Lanford in the first stall, standing next to Rachel’s liver-chestnut gelding, Bandit. First hired to train the mounted police unit and now Rachel’s lover, Cal looked as comfortable in her riding clothes as Abby felt awkward in hers. Her fitted white polo shirt and tan breeches were as impeccable as always, and her shimmering gold hair was fastened in a tight knot so it would fit under a riding helmet. Abby couldn’t see Cal’s feet where she stood behind the wall of the stall, but she would bet her meager retirement fund that Cal had on brightly polished tall black boots. She was born to play polo and had the championship trophies to prove it.

  Abby was about to greet Cal when Rachel came around the other side of the horse.

  “So that’s where you were when you told me you had to work late?” Cal asked, her hands on her hips. “You went to see her?”

  “I never actually said I had to work late, I just implied it.” Rachel seemed as relaxed and casual as Cal looked unyielding and elegant. Rachel’s mounted uniform was as neatly pressed and cleaned as Abby’s, but she projected a different aura than either Cal or Abby. She had a more earthy grace about her and always appeared in tune with her horses and surroundings. When Abby had first brought Rachel on as the leader of the mounted unit, she had fully expected to be disappointed in the sergeant the brass had imposed on her. Rachel had been angry and ostracized, battling both a bad reputation and a stubborn nature, but she had proven herself to be the ideal candidate for the job. She had managed to turn a mismatched group of horses and riders into an effective and capable team. Abby had been surprised by Rachel’s metamorphosis into a true leader, despite the people determined to hold her back—including Abby herself. But she had developed a deep respect for Rachel, as well as admiration for the strong partnership she had formed with Cal. They usually seemed to make an ideal couple, but not today.

  “You lied to me?” Cal asked.

  “Fudged the truth,” Rachel said in her composed voice. “I didn’t want to fight you for her and I saw her first.”

  “That’s not fair. I would never have tried to keep her from…well, you don’t need her like I do.”

  “Find your own—”

  “Sergeant, Cal, please lower your voices.” Abby wasn’t sure who had prompted the heated exchange between the two women, but she had to stop it. “This isn’t the time or place to discuss your personal—”

  “Hey, Lieutenant,” Rachel said with a calm smile. “Why don’t we let you decide this for us.”

  Cal crossed her arms over her chest. “Right. Ask Hard-Ass Hargrove. Of course she’ll side with you.”

  Abby couldn’t keep from sm
iling at Cal’s petulant use of her nickname. She’d been called that name since her first promotion—always behind her back, but loud enough for her to hear. She had hated it, even though she never altered her cool and rigid leadership style. She wasn’t on the job to make friends or for personal fulfillment. She was there to make amends and to prove that a Hargrove could have both power and integrity at the same time. Cal had taken to calling her by the taboo name, and somehow the constant and humorous use of it directly to her face had taken away most of its sting.

  Abby leaned her elbows on the stall divider. “Who is this mystery woman causing trouble in paradise?”

  Rachel and Cal looked at each other before breaking into laughter. “She’s a horse, of course,” Rachel said. “Come see her.”

  They came out of the stall, pushing and joking playfully with each other, and Abby followed them across the aisle and into another stall. She enjoyed being around the two, even as she maintained a careful distance. Rachel and Cal were the type of women she could see as friends, but she had to maintain the professional demeanor her rank and her own needs imposed. Rachel seemed to easily balance her relationship with her leadership duties, even though Cal was part of her work life as well as her personal one, but Abby wouldn’t do the same. She stayed on the outside of the mounted unit, separate but still close enough to lead them and to observe the interplay between Rachel, Cal, and the other riders. She was accepted as part of the unit since she had helped them overcome the threat from Tacoma’s corrupt city manager who was trying to destroy them, but she didn’t allow herself to feel like a member of the team.