Hot on the Trail

by Vicki Tharp

  Quinn rode up, waving a curled-up lariat at a straggling cow-calf pair in the meadow. She’d forgotten how well he sat a horse, how he knew what the cows were thinking before the animals did. He was born into this life, but the desire to serve his country had pulled him away from it, from her.

  “Kurt had been looking forward to the drive,” she said. “I don’t know if it was the romance of a drive or the ride up into the mountains that he looked forward to more.”

  “A few saddle sores and a couple of hours of eating trail dust would have gotten him the hell over it.” But Quinn said it with a nostalgic quirk to his lips and a fine layer of sweat and dirt on his face. “But then again, with all the weapons the lot of you are packing, it would have given him a boost. I’m not sure the base has that much firepower. You guys expecting a war?”

  “No, but lesson learned. If we find one, Mac and Boomer expect us to win.”

  But even with the trouble of the past few years, it hadn’t been all bad. This country was still her home. Still the life that she wanted. Still where she belonged. Nothing, and no one, could change that.

  “Do you miss it? The riding, the driving, the long days, the campfires at night?”

  He pointed up into the cloudless sky, the double white slash of a contrail creasing the crest of the mountains. “That’s where I belong. There’s something about the freedom up there that nothing can match. But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a lot down here to miss.” He flicked a glance at her, eased his horse over, and pushed the cattle closer to the herd. “You being one of them.”

  In her chest, a tingling started low and spread throughout her body, a slow, warm glow at the idea that, in some way, he’d thought about her. But swirled in that mix, that flutter, was a healthy dose of caution.

  The way Quinn always had one eye on the sky, it was as if a part of him was always up there. Telling a man like him he couldn’t fly would be as soul-sucking as tethering a bald eagle to the ground.

  She of all people knew the importance of following your heart and your dreams.

  As the last of the cattle settled into the high plains meadow beneath the shadow of the Rockies, the rest of the drive team skirted the herd, meeting up with Jenna and Quinn at the back.

  Boomer trotted up next to Sidney, snatching the hat off her head and stealing a kiss.

  “Get a room.” Alby turned his horse toward home, in mock disgust.

  “With a kid around, this is the most privacy we’ve had all month. What do you say, Irish, let these guys go ahead and we can sneak down to the creek?” He waggled his brows at her, a cheesy grin on his face.

  Sidney stole her hat back and whacked him on the arm. “Keep it in your pants, Casanova. The last time you took me to the creek, it didn’t end so well.”

  “I got you in the end, so no complaints here.”

  “Jesucristo.” With an ill-concealed grin, Santos turned to follow Alby. “I can’t take it.”

  “Well, hell, boys, don’t leave me with them.” Dale squeezed his horse into a canter to catch up.

  The long, slow ride up to the summer pasture made Jenna itchy for some speed. Her blue roan, Angel, danced in place, feeding off her need. Or was it the other way around? Either way, it was about time they blew a few cobwebs out of the old engine.

  For these ranch horses, pushing a mellow herd of cattle for half the day was like your grandmother taking a Ferrari for a Sunday drive—it left a lot of available horsepower under the hood. Or in Jenna’s case, under the hide.

  “Hey, Boom,” Jenna said, “race you to the next ridge.”

  * * * *

  “You didn’t want to go with them?” Quinn asked Sidney as they trotted down the trail side by side, Jenna and Boomer no more than two puffs of dust in the distance.

  “Nah,” Sidney said, a tiny woman on a muscular, buckskin gelding. She could have been a contender. “I’m all for a good race, but that’s kinda their thing, so I leave them to it. You?”

  “As sore and stiff as I am, I did good throwing my leg over the saddle.” Quinn pulled back lightly on his reins. The mare had her own ideas about the race. “This is not how I remembered Boomer. This guy who jokes around, racing horses for the hell of it. Don’t get me wrong, I always liked the guy, looked up to him, but underneath the joking around, he was always a little…”

  “Intense.” Fact, not question. “He’s different now. That intensity, that singular focus, is still there when he needs it. Same with Mac. But he’s adjusted. Knows now he doesn’t have to be ‘on’ twenty-four-seven. Knows his life, our lives don’t depend on that anymore. Living at the ranch has changed him.”

  “I think that was you, not the ranch. It’s obvious he’s crazy about you.”

  “It’s mutual, but if we’d been in some city somewhere, punching a clock from nine to five, breathing canned air and exhaust.” She shrugged. “I don’t think it would have been the same. I don’t think I would have liked that man.”

  Quinn didn’t know what to say, so a noncommittal “Mmm,” slipped out.

  Was there truth to what Sidney said about the ranch, about how it had changed Boomer? Something in the day-in, day-out physicality of working on a ranch that left the body so exhausted that the mind could finally rest?

  A place where you focused on eating and sleeping and riding and fixing and training. A place where the animals had no expectations and held no judgment. A place where you could earn the trust of a magnificent animal.

  A place where your past didn’t matter.

  The horses didn’t care what you’d seen, what you’d done. What you couldn’t do. What you wouldn’t. They didn’t see your guilt or regret. They didn’t pity you. They accepted or rejected the you who lived in that moment, that day.

  Quinn could understand how that could be a powerful thing.

  For those who needed it.

  A quarter mile up the ridge, Jenna and Boomer slowed their horses, Jenna’s arm raised in victory.

  “You think he let her win?” Quinn asked.

  “Oh, hell no. And now I’m going to be hearing about it for the rest of the night, how I need to train him a faster horse that can compete with Angel.”

  “I bet Vader could beat him,” Quinn said. “He’s got the build—powerful hindquarters, the stamina, and most definitely the heart.”

  “Agreed. But that horse is yours. Vader knows it. You just have to accept it.”

  “No room in my helo for a horse.”

  To catch up, they pressed their horses into a canter, the meadow turning into sparse scrub the farther they went. They reined in their horses and let them walk the last thirty yards over to Jenna and Boomer. The animals were breathing hard, but Angel was eager to go for more, and it took Jenna a minute or two to convince him the race was over.

  They made good time on the way back, trotting the single-track trail most of the way, but giving the horses plenty of long stretches to walk and catch their breath. Near one of the creeks, the trail widened, and they walked four abreast. Jenna, Quinn, Boomer, and Sidney. Jenna’s stirrup occasionally brushing Quinn’s.

  They stopped at the creek-fed pond a mile or so from the barn and let the horses drink. The sun was getting low, and their shadows stretched three horse lengths out ahead of them.

  Sidney’s horse stopped at the water’s edge, backed away. Sidney squeezed him forward, but he sidled sideways instead.

  “Your horse afraid of water?” Quinn asked.

  “Only this water.” Sidney used her legs to urge her horse forward again. This time, his hooves touched the water, and he jumped back. Sidney continued pushing him forward, his muscles quivering, nostrils flaring. When his nose touched the water, he settled.

  “This is where Eli was roped, and he and Angel were taken,” Boomer explained to Quinn. “It’s been four years, and he’s been jumpy here ever since.”


  “Hank told us what happened at the bar,” Sidney said to Quinn, “about that guy Moose. And the Hangman.”

  “It’s not as bad as you think.” As soon as the words were out of Quinn’s mouth, he knew there wasn’t anything much worse he could have said in front of two people who had almost died at the hands of the Hangman.

  Boomer’s body went rigid, and his face immediately flushed, anger hot in his eyes. Sidney caught her husband’s arm as if she was holding him back from a barroom brawl.

  Quinn raised his hands. “My bad. Man, that’s not at all how I meant that to come out.”

  Sidney relaxed, but Boomer didn’t. None of the new, improved, tamed Boomer remained. In his place, sat Boomer the Marine. The man he’d looked up to.

  He’d rather face off against Moose any day.

  “Take a good look at this.” Boomer lifted his chin and pointed to the scar under his neck, partially hidden by his short beard. “You tell me this isn’t as bad as you think. Tell me that trying to convince your girlfriend to shoot you in the head rather than let you hang, isn’t as bad as you think. Tell me that worrying every minute of every fucking day that they will rape and kill the woman that you love, isn’t as bad as you think.”

  “Bryan!” Sidney grabbed his arm again, but he shook her off. She grabbed his reins and pulled his horse around, forcing him to look at her. “Enough!”

  Something flashed across Boomer’s face, and a wry smile took its place. He leaned across his horse and kissed her. Quinn looked away.

  Regaining his composure, Boomer turned back to Quinn and Jenna. “You want to blame Kurt’s death on someone else. Go ahead. But the Hangman is the bear you don’t poke, prod, or provoke. The games he plays can cost you your life.”

  * * * *

  Darkness had settled in by the time everyone had made it back to the ranch, had taken care of the horses, and had caught a shower. Lottie had left a large kettle of what smelled like beef stew bubbling over a campfire in front of Boomer and Sidney’s cabin.

  Since the last time Quinn had been at the ranch, Boomer’s one-room cabin had been added on to with what looked like an additional room on either side. Having the kid, no doubt, had made the expansion a necessity.

  Pepita came down the porch stairs with a stack of bowls and spoons.

  “Can I help?” Quinn asked.

  “You get the drinks,” Pepita told him.

  He trudged up the steps, feeling the tightness in his quads from all the riding. There had been a time when he’d ridden all day every day and not been sore.

  He carried the cooler of iced drinks down and placed it by one of the four logs surrounding the fire. Jenna arrived next, dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and one of those western shirts with the sparkly bits on them.

  She’d worn similar shirts back when she was barrel racing Angel, but this time, she’d left an extra button undone. He sucked in a breath. Was that for him?

  She slipped her arm around him, loosely straddling his leg, her breast brushing against his ribs. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Looking down, he caught a glimpse of her cleavage, the swell of the tops of her breasts.

  He slid a finger down one side of the shirt’s V, hooking his finger where the top snap held, her skin soft and warm. One flick of his finger, one tug…He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Is this for me?”

  “Quinn!”

  Quinn turned. Kurt’s mother, Catherine Kordell, strode down from the house with Lottie. For a flash, the interruption annoyed him, and immediately he chided himself. Selfish. Hank might have a point. Quinn wasn’t here to rekindle a failed relationship. He was here for answers. For him. For Kurt’s mother.

  Jenna stepped aside, and Catherine ran the last few steps into his arms. She’d always been a sturdy woman, but as his arms came around her back, her ribs were a washboard beneath his fingers. Catherine held on for a long time, her breath hitching, making his own chest tight and the backs of his eyes sting. He held her tighter, not letting go until she did.

  Finally, she broke the hug, placing a hand on his cheek. Her eyes were rimmed in red, a wadded tissue in her other hand. “He loved you like a brother.”

  Had he ever told Kurt that? That he loved him? He nodded once, unable to speak, and pinched away the sting in his eyes. Naw. He hadn’t said the words. The chest bumps, the knuckle pounds, the one-armed bro hugs, said it for them.

  At least he hoped they had.

  If Kurt had killed himself, would telling him what he’d meant to Quinn have made any difference? No. He didn’t want to believe—still, he couldn’t believe—Kurt had committed suicide. All he needed was proof.

  But would knowing Kurt was murdered take the sting out, the guilt?

  Would it make Kurt’s death any easier to accept?

  Probably not.

  No matter how Kurt had died, bottom line, his best friend was still dead.

  They’d never share the skies again together. Give each other a rash of shit over the comms. Push each other to the limits of their abilities to find what was waiting for them on the other side.

  “Who’s ready for some stew?” Lottie said, breaking him away from thoughts he’d rather not think.

  He held his elbow out for Catherine to take and offered her one of the camp chairs set out by the fire. He served her first and sat on a log beside her. Jenna pulled her chair up on the other side of him.

  It wasn’t long before the beer was passed out and everyone settled around the fire with their steaming bowls of stew. There wasn’t much talking at first. Everyone was too busy eating. Quinn noticed that Boomer stayed clear of the beer, as well as Mac, who had wandered down with Hank. She took tentative sips from a bottle of water and picked at her stew.

  Quinn tore a piece of bread and sopped up the liquid in the bottom of his bowl before going back for seconds.

  “Can I get you any more?” he asked Catherine. She’d only eaten about half. Did she not like the stew? “Or some more bread?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  “You haven’t eaten much.”

  “Haven’t had much of an appetite since…”

  Since Kurt.

  She set her bowl on the ground and dabbed at her eyes with her tissue. She glanced up at him, a smile glued in place, a little wobbly, a little lopsided, a lot lost.

  Quinn reached into his pocket and placed Kurt’s dog tags in her palm. Before he could take his hand back, Catherine clasped it with her other one. “No, you keep them. The car, too. He would have wanted you to have them.”

  Quinn nodded his thanks but didn’t say anything, because his throat was suddenly three sizes too small. He slipped the dog tags back into his pocket, and as the constriction eased, he cleared his throat.

  “Kurt and I flew the Sikorsky 53s.” Quinn sat, and the chatter around the campfire quieted down. The insects sang, and the fire snapped and popped. “A heavy-lifter helo everyone calls the Shitter because when you fly it, you feel like you’re sitting on a toilet, flying a house, as it belches black clouds of exhaust behind you.”

  That got a chuckle from the crowd, and Quinn continued, “I remember this one time, Kurt and I and the crew were lifting this Humvee when the sling broke. The truck crashed into the surf, and the shock wave from the sudden release slammed into us like a stinger missile. Luckily, we had altitude and forward momentum on our side.”

  Quinn told everyone the story. How it had taken skill and ultra-quick thinking on both their parts to manage the effects of the shock wave and land that big, beautiful beast. They’d screwed it into the beach—a Sikorsky sand angel—with little excess damage besides a bent landing gear strut.

  Better than an eighty-seven-million-dollar hickey for Uncle Sam and untold injuries or lives lost. Catherine sat riveted in the chair. She’d heard the story before, but it was one of her favorites.

  One
of his, too.

  Telling the story alone cut him like a dagger. He caught himself pausing at all the places Kurt used to butt in when Quinn told the story, the sound effects Kurt would add, the way Kurt’s body juked and jived, his hand out in front of him fighting an imaginary cyclic.

  It was still a good story.

  Though not as good without Kurt.

  “And then we landed, killed the engines, and checked on the rest of the crew. Kurt unfastens his harness, climbs to the rear, throws the side door open, and starts stripping out of his flight suit, and says…”

  Quinn looked to Catherine, and at the same time they said, “Last one in buys the beer.”

  Everyone got a good laugh out of it.

  “Sounds ’bout like ’em. To Kurt.” Alby raised his beer, and everyone raised whatever they were drinking in toast. “One time, shortly after he got here…”

  Jenna threaded her fingers with Quinn’s, and he took another swallow of cold beer, letting everyone’s words wash over him. Alby and Santos and the rest of the gang told their own Kurt stories. Finally, it came back around to Jenna. She was silent for the longest time, her breathing rapid, her palms as clammy as a salamander. Though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a salamander, so he couldn’t be certain.

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

  She offered a hesitant smile as she shook her head. “No. I want to say something.”

  Releasing his hand, she stood and glanced around at her family. They were not all related by blood, but Quinn knew that in her mind, that made this tight-knit unit that much stronger. They didn’t have to be together. They wanted to be together.

  “All of you know how much Healing Horses means to me. You’ve been with me through it all, from its inception to accepting our first veteran.” She offered Catherine a tumultuous smile. “Our waiting list is growing. Veterans need and want our help. Honestly, since Kurt’s death, I don’t know whether we’ll have to close our doors before…” Her voice cracked, and Quinn stood and tucked her under his arm.

  She placed her hand on his chest, over his heart, where it thumped strong and steady. Straightening, she cleared her throat and continued, “…before it even gets started. But even if the program closes, I’m calling it a win. Because we all got a chance to know Kurt, it’s a win. Because we all got to see what it means to fight, to persevere, to wake up day after day and face what scares you the most, whether it is the horses, or the hard work, or what stares back at you in the mirror each morning.