The Lonesome Young

by Lucy Connors

  I yanked my hand away. I didn’t want to escalate whatever was going on in there, but what if Mickey was in danger? What if Angel might be harmed?

  I took the gun.

  Pete had taught me the basics the summer I was fourteen, so I checked that it was loaded and clicked the safety off. Then I put my phone on the seat and took off toward the barn.

  Our security system should have been going off by now. Sure, this was the older of the barns and none of the current crop of yearlings or pregnant mares were in it, but several of the older horses were stabled there along with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment and tack. Not a lot of it was easily portable, so I was surprised thieves would be interested. . . .

  Unless they weren’t intent on stealing but vandalism.

  Heather’s Angel. Pete had moved her into this, the quieter of the barns, for a while so she could recuperate in peace from her ordeal with Buddy.

  I started to run across the slick, wet bluegrass toward the barn, praying I wasn’t too late.

  Chapter 56

  Mickey

  I didn’t move. “How do you think you’re going to get horses out of here? In the backseat of your truck?”

  “Smart-ass. We have a horse trailer that should be here by now,” Jeb said.

  “This is way over the line, Jeb. I’m going to stop you.”

  “You and who else? I’ve got five good men with me. Oh, and Cooter,” he said, snickering.

  “Hey! I heard that,” a moose of a man called out. The horse he was trying to lead balked at the sound of his loud, drunken voice.

  “Stupid damn horse,” he snarled, and he pulled out his gun—and shot it in the side. The world itself seemed to freeze, and everyone held their breath for a few seconds that lasted an eternity. Then I heard a sound I never, ever want to hear again in my life, when the horse started to scream. She staggered drunkenly to the side for a step, and then another, and then she fell over, thrashing her legs.

  Her unrelenting screams shattered the silence in the barn and everyone jumped into frantic motion at once. Men ran out of horse stalls and toward the door, and my brother swore a blue streak beside me.

  “No,” I shouted. “No, no, no! Are you insane?”

  I started for the horse but then stopped. She was thrashing around in pain, and I realized helplessly that I didn’t have the first clue of how to help her. She twisted her long neck, almost as if she wanted to see me, and there was something so familiar about her—oh, please, God, no.

  It was Victoria’s horse. Angel.

  Jeb turned on Cooter. “What the hell did you do that for?” he shouted.

  “It wouldn’t listen to me,” the man said sullenly.

  “We’ve got to get help,” I said, turning to run for a phone, but behind me, the barn door crashed open, and it was too late. Victoria ran in, waving Jeb’s gun around. I put out a hand to try to stop her before she could see, but it was useless.

  She flinched away from me when she saw the fallen horse and then she screamed too—loud, long, and nearly as high-pitched as the horse’s scream had been—and shoved me out of her way, dropping something that I realized was Jeb’s gun as she ran by me. She clenched her hand into a fist and slammed it against the wall. It wasn’t until the alarm started to shriek, piercing the night with its strident warning, that I realized she’d activated a security panel.

  “No! Not Angel! No, no, no, no!” Victoria ran to her horse, either oblivious to the guns or not giving a damn. She hurled herself down to the floor next to Angel and started stroking her neck over and over, and then she threw an anguished look over her shoulder at me.

  “How could you let them do this?”

  “Victoria, I didn’t—I tried—I’m so sorry.” I took a step toward her, but Jeb grabbed my arm and yanked me back.

  Victoria, tears streaming down her face, turned back to Angel. “My baby. My poor baby. It’s going to be okay.”

  But I stared down at her golden head in despair. I knew there was no way it could be.

  “I’ll get help. I promise. She’s going to be okay,” I told her anyway, yanking my arm out of Jeb’s grip and fumbling in my pocket for my phone.

  “I don’t think so,” Jeb said, and he picked up the gun Victoria had dropped.

  Chapter 57

  Victoria

  They shot my horse.

  They shot my horse.

  The world started to slide sideways. I threw myself on Angel’s neck to keep her from struggling to stand up. The alarms were distressing the other horses, but it couldn’t be helped. Right now we needed the entire cavalry or the Coast Guard or something big and powerful and deadly. Somebody who could get these monsters out of my barn, help Angel, and stop this nightmare.

  “It’s going to be okay, baby,” I said, using my calmest, most soothing voice. “You’re going to be okay. Mickey and I will get help, and we’ll get you fixed up. Dr. Arnold will make you as good as new, and I’ll bring you sugar cubes and apples, and all the things you like.”

  A hitch in my breath stopped me for a second, but then I kept at it, still soothing. “All the things. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  But when I turned around, I saw one of the shadowy figures hit Mickey in the back of the head with something, probably a gun, and then a couple of the thugs picked him up and ran out of the barn. Another of them pointed his gun at me.

  “I’ll be watching you. Stay right here for ten minutes, or I’ll shoot your pretty boy for you,” he snarled. I had no choice but to stay where I was, putting pressure on Angel’s wound and screaming for help while the thug disappeared out the barn door.

  Moments later, staff from the racing barn ran in and flipped on the lights. That’s when I saw that Gus was down, possibly dead.

  “Help him,” I shouted. “And get me pressure bandaging for Angel until Dr. Arnold gets here.”

  One of the grooms flipped open his phone; I knew they all had our vet on speed dial.

  The petite woman trainer—Rachel? I should know all their names, but so many were new—knelt down next to Gus and felt for a pulse and then looked up at me and smiled with no little relief. “Looks like he just got knocked out. Hopefully there’s no concussion.”

  The sirens, Gran, and more of our staff from the racing barn all arrived at about the same time, and they headed for Gus. Seconds later, the alarm stopped sounding, and Gran and the grooms spread out to calm the frantic horses.

  Suddenly Dr. Arnold was there, wearing scrubs and a very tired face. She ran up to us carrying her vet bag and eased me back and away from Angel. The faintly spicy aroma of the vet’s shampoo—her hair was wet, and there was still a trace of soap behind her ear; she must have been in the shower when we called—contrasted with the sharp, rusty smell of Angel’s blood.

  Dr. Arnold examined my beloved horse, but it only took a few seconds before she shook her head. When she looked up at me, her eyes were kind, but brimming with sadness.

  “There’s nothing I can do, Victoria, I’m so sorry. She only has a few moments left.”

  I wanted to shriek and fight and howl out my rage, but the truth beat against my brain like a summer downpour hitting the barn roof: screaming and fighting wouldn’t help Angel. It would only scare her more and make her last few moments on earth terrifying and horrible.

  Instead, I reached down deep and pulled up every ounce of strength I had left and tried to channel Gran.

  “It’s going to be all right, my beautiful girl. They have rich, green fields of sweet clover in heaven, and angels will brush you and pet you and spoil you every day,” I crooned as Angel tracked me with her eyes, her breathing harsh and rasping, but slowing with every beat. “Cherubs will bring you apples, and you will learn to love harp music, and one day I will join you and we will go on long rides through clouds so soft that your hooves will never be sore.”
<
br />   She shuddered once, her fallen body trembling with the force of it, and then my beautiful Heather’s Angel died with her head in my lap.

  Chapter 58

  Mickey

  I woke up in a familiar place, and placed it immediately as Anna Mae’s barn, although a strange smell that I didn’t recognize was chokingly strong and somehow metallic. The back of my head throbbed so hard that the pain, combined with the smell, made me feel like I was going to throw up, but when I moved, I didn’t get far.

  I was tied to a post that somebody had driven into the dirt floor.

  “Not so high and mighty now, are you?” Jeb spat in the dirt next to my foot.

  I slitted my eyes against the early morning sun slanting in through the windows and made a croaking noise, which was all my dried-out throat could manage. “Where’s Victoria? If you hurt her—”

  “Oh, I hurt her, all right.” He snickered, and my blood ran icy. “You should have seen her crying and carrying on over that stupid horse. Heather’s Angel, Heather’s Angel. It was pathetic.”

  “I’m going to kill you. You’re going to be so sorry you ever stepped foot on Whitfield property,” I vowed, yanking at the ropes binding my wrists.

  “Good luck with that.”

  He laughed and wandered off, leaving me alone with an uncontainable rage to match my uncontrollable headache. I thought I might have a concussion; it wouldn’t be the first time I’d had one of those after tangling with my brothers. I planned to repay the favor in full. I went to work on the ropes, sending up fervent prayers to any angels who might be generous enough to listen to prayers from a Rhodale. Angels. Angel.

  Please, let Victoria and her horse be all right.

  After about twenty minutes, Ethan walked in, carrying a bottle of water, and he put it down next to me and then untied the rope, swearing under his breath the entire time.

  “Sorry about that. Jeb’s an idiot, and he gets carried away trying to be a hard-ass sometimes. What in the hell happened?”

  “You don’t know? You didn’t plan this?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know anything about it. You saw what I’m dealing with out there with the Red Barons. Do you really think I’d lie to you about the Whitfields when I need you so much right now?”

  I could tell he wasn’t lying to me. Jeb had claimed he was acting on his own, or maybe this had been at Anna Mae’s direction. Either way, somebody was going to pay for this. When he got the ropes off, I took a step and promptly fell down because my stiff muscles didn’t want to work right.

  “What time?” I managed, and he helped me up and handed me the water bottle.

  “Morning. I had to meet . . . someone, or I would have been here to realize what was going on. I’ll kick Jeb’s ass for tying you up and leaving you all night. He was probably passed out in a corner, again.”

  “He was just here and left me like this,” I said grimly. “He is going to be so very sorry.”

  “From you and me both,” Ethan replied.

  “Victoria?” I waited for his answer before drinking.

  “She’s fine. They didn’t touch her,” he said, his face darkening. “You were supposed to be leaving her alone, too, remember? She’s not your girlfriend, you said. So why were you driving her home at midnight? If she’d been safely home in her virginal little bed, the two of you at least wouldn’t have been here and maybe this wouldn’t have escalated.”

  I drained the water bottle and then threw it on the floor. “You’re blaming her? Are you freaking kidding me? For Jeb’s crazy bullshit?”

  “No, little brother,” Ethan said flatly. “I’m blaming you.”

  Chapter 59

  Victoria

  When I woke up on the couch, the first thing I realized was that the night before had been neither a dream—the part with Mickey—nor a nightmare—the part with Angel.

  My heart clenched with pain, but my eyes stayed dry. I was done with tears, maybe forever.

  It was time for me to grow up and take charge of this situation before everything got worse . . . worse made me think about Mickey and the guy I’d seen hitting him, knocking him out.

  Mickey.

  “We have to call the sheriff,” I shouted, and Gran, walking into the room with two coffee cups in her hands, froze.

  “What now?”

  “Mickey! They took him. Knocked him out and kidnapped him. I saw them carry him—”

  “Victoria. You told us that last night. Don’t you remember?”

  I thought back, but the night had been a confusion of voices and questions and pain, all punctuated by the sound of the gunshot, Heather’s Angel’s scream, and the harsh blare of the sirens.

  “No,” I finally admitted. “I don’t remember much after Angel . . .”

  Gran’s eyes brightened with tears she’d never shed in front of me. “I loved that horse too, honey. Doc took her. She’ll take good care of her, you know that.”

  She would. We weren’t able to bury our horses out in the fields anymore, the way they had in the old days. Now the vets had to take charge, but Dr. Arnold was one of the best Gran had ever known, and I’d seen for myself how careful she was with the mares and foals.

  Now there’d be another urn to line the shelves in the racing barn.

  I fought back the pain. For now, I needed to find out what had happened to Mickey.

  Gran handed me a cup of coffee, full of cream and sugar the way I liked it, and she carefully lowered herself into her chair. I noticed that she was moving really slowly this morning, and I realized that all this drama and tragedy must be hardest on her.

  “Are you okay? Gran, do you need to see the doctor?”

  “I’m fine, young lady, other than understandably upset. Don’t be putting me in the old folks’ home just yet,” she retorted, and, underneath her exhaustion and distress, I saw a glimmer of the tough woman who’d run this place on her own since my grandfather had died.

  I wished I had a little of that toughness right about then. My hands were shaking so badly that I had to put the mug down on the coffee table.

  “Gran, what if they hurt Mickey? Anybody who could shoot a horse like that . . .”

  “I understand how you feel about Angel, sweetheart, but these are not horse people. They probably didn’t care about shooting an animal, but that in no way leads to the conclusion that they’ll harm Mickey, who is, more than likely, their brother.”

  I inhaled sharply as she put into words what I’d been thinking—during the short spurts of time when I’d been capable of rational thought—since I woke up.

  “You think it was Ethan?”

  “Who else? Him or that idiot brother Jeb of his. Didn’t you see any of them well enough to identify them?”

  “I wish I had, but it was too dark, and I was focused on Angel, and then they hit Mickey and took him. I didn’t recognize the voice of the guy who threatened me—”

  “He threatened you?” Her voice rose, and I hastened to reassure her.

  “No, just to stay put, but he said . . .”

  “He said what?”

  “He said he’d shoot Mickey if I didn’t listen.”

  I wondered how I’d be able to cope with this impossible situation. Mickey was gone, maybe hurt—or worse—and my skin still held the scent of him. I could still feel his touch. I hadn’t even had a chance to live with and process what we’d shared when those criminals had shattered the night.

  Now he might be lying dead? Shot? All because Anna Mae hated my father for picking another woman over her, or because sixty years ago two people had committed adultery, or because of who knew what else?

  Like everything else related to the modern translation of the feud’s bitter history, it was too big—too much—overwhelming me with the hopelessness of trying to fight it or end it, as if crushing reality had painted a stark mo
dern caption on a very old, sepia-toned portrait:

  Hopeless.

  I clenched my hands into fists and forced them to stop shaking as I took long, slow breaths to calm down. Hyperventilating never solved anything, and I was damn sure not going to admit that fighting back was hopeless.

  “Your parents will be back in less than an hour with Buddy and Pete,” Gran said.

  Then again, hyperventilating might be underrated.

  “So we need to find Mickey now,” I told her.

  I found my phone and called him, not expecting him to answer and getting exactly what I expected. Then I called the sheriff ’s office.

  “I need to talk to Sheriff Rhodale,” I told the nasal-voiced person who answered.

  “He’s gone to pick up his son Mickey and take him out to breakfast,” she said.

  I had a second to think, good old small towns, telling the sheriff ’s business to any random person who calls, before the impact from her words really hit me.

  “He’s taking Mickey out to breakfast? You’re sure it was Mickey, and not one of his other sons?”

  “Well, I’ve worked here for eighteen years,” she said, sounding annoyed. “I guess I know which Rhodale boy is which.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much,” I said.

  I hung up and looked at Gran, a smile stretching my face. “He must be okay. His dad went to get him for breakfast.”

  “Thank God for answered prayers,” she said, relaxing back into her chair. Her eyes drooped a little, and I realized she must be as tired as I was, or even more, since it didn’t look like she’d slept at all.

  We sat there in an exhausted silence and sipped coffee for a little while, and then Gran smiled at me. “I do have a little bit of good news to balance out all this bad. I talked to Melinda’s doctor at that rehab this morning. He said she’s doing really well, and she’ll be allowed to call home Monday.”