by Home Fires
“Yes, sir. You’re right. I’m sorry for any misunderstanding.” He turned toward Sophie. “Good night, Miss Jaegar.”
She didn’t respond. In a minute he was gone, driving sedately out of the yard and turning carefully onto the gravel.
The night went quiet.
“What do you mean you’ve had enough trouble?” Sophie’s voice sounded strident and tight in the soft darkness.
No one answered.
“What happened?” she asked.
“We’re having a little trouble with Angel,” Casie said finally.
“What? What do you mean?” She turned toward Ty, eyes gleaming. “You were supposed to be watching her.”
“Sophie …” Casie warned.
“What?” She swung toward their mentor. “Dad made me go out with that stupid …” She swung disdainfully toward the departing car, but stifled her next words. Ty scowled, mind churning. She drew a deep breath and narrowed her eyes. “Dad paid a ton of money to keep Angel alive, and you let her colic again?”
“It’s not colic,” Casie said.
“Then what is it?”
“We think it might be laminitis.”
“Lamini—” She paused, swallowed, jerked her gaze to Ty’s. Her eyes shone bright and tragic. “Did you get the vet out?”
“She’s on another call.”
“So what’d you do?”
“Forcefed her Bute, cold water on her hooves.”
“How long ago did you quit hosing?” Her voice was like a jackhammer, demanding, facing off everyone. Like a lioness on the prowl.
“Just simmer down,” Colt said. “She’s standing in buckets right now.”
“Alone?” she asked and turned with a snap toward the barn, but Casie caught her arm.
“Slow down, Soph. Linette’s with her.”
“Linette? Your guest? What does she know about horses?”
“Enough to call me if things take a turn for the worse.”
She glared for a second in silence, then turned back toward Ty. “You pulled her shoes at least, right?”
“What?” The single word sounded dumb even to Ty, but her direct attention always deadened his tongue, dulled his mind.
“Her shoes,” she said, enunciating clearly. “Didn’t anyone think to pull her shoes?”
“She was in a considerable amount of pain,” Colt said, his voice smooth and quiet where Ty’s had sounded thick as concrete. “We thought it best to get that under control before we worried about farrier work.”
“But you called somebody in,” she said. Her tone was haughty as hell, pure evil … or pure Sophie, whichever you chose.
“I’ll pull them in the morning,” Colt said, “if it’s not too hard for her to stand on three feet for an extended period—”
“You can’t just yank them off,” she said. “She’ll need therapeutic shoeing. Pads, probably bar shoes to keep pressure on her …” She sighed heavily as if they were all too dense to tolerate. “Tell me you called a specialist.”
“It’s one o’clock in the morning,” Casie said. “I didn’t really think anyone would appreciate getting a call at this hour of the—”
But Sophie had already dragged her cell from the ridiculously small handbag draped over her left arm. She snapped it to her ear, listened for five seconds, and spoke. “Yes, Darren, this is Sophie Jaegar.”
A murmur sounded from the other end of the line.
“Sophie Jaegar,” she repeated, her voice slower now as if she was speaking to the mentally impaired. “We have a possible founder.”
Another dismal murmur.
“No, it can’t wait,” she said, and suddenly her voice was thick with an emotion Ty couldn’t quite identify. She turned away, and though her tone sounded oddly unsteady, she could still be heard. “The horse is in pain.”
She paused as he spoke.
“What I expect is for you to remember that it was my recommendation that got you the Rosemount account.” She paced away and lowered her voice, but her words could still be heard. “Then I expect you to get your ass out here within the hour.” There was a pause. “Good. I’m at the Lazy Windmill.” Another pause. “The Lazy Windmill,” she repeated, then rattled off the address and shoved the phone back into her purse. She was back in view in a second and skimmed her gaze from one to the other. “I’m going to take over for Linette,” she said and turned crisply toward the barn.
“You’ve got to get some sleep, Soph,” Casie said.
The girl raised one haughty brow. “And you don’t?”
“I’m going to rest until Linette wakes me up.”
“I’ll be the one waking you up.”
For a second Ty thought Casie would argue, but she just sighed and let her shoulders sag a little. “Okay. Just …” She paused and lowered her voice, picking her way carefully, like a collie through a herd of fractious mustangs. “Just remember that Linette’s a guest.”
Sophie lowered her perfect brows. “I realize that.”
“A paying guest. You know what I’m saying?”
Sophie pursed her lips. “I’m not going to offend her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No,” Casie said, and it almost looked as if she was tempted to smile. “Of course not. I don’t know what I was thinking. Well … wake me up when you’re tired.”
“I’ll wait till after Darren comes,” Sophie said.
“Okay,” Casie said and watched as Sophie strode toward the barn. “Well.” She exhaled heavily. “Good night, everyone. And Ty …” She turned toward him. He made himself face her, though he honestly didn’t know if he could bear to hear her reprimand. Didn’t know if he could stand her disappointment, but her expression was soft, her eyes bright with unbearable forgiveness. “Try not to worry, okay?”
He gripped his hands into fists and managed a nod, though his throat felt tight, his face stiff.
Reaching out, she placed a hand on his arm. Her touch was gentle, but somewhere in his soul it burned like hell. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”
He nodded again, though he didn’t really know why. She smiled and turned toward the house. They all watched her go.
“Holy cats,” Monty said. His voice was little more than a sigh in the darkness. “You got your hands full here, son.”
“I know,” Ty admitted.
“You’ve no idea,” Colt said.
The two of them glanced at each other in surprise. Monty chuckled, wide face amused. “See you at home, Colton. Come on, boy,” he said, and raising an arm, settled it over Ty’s shoulder.
The weight felt awkward but not unbearable, unnatural but not unwanted. They walked in absolute silence to Monty’s old truck.
“I’m sorry.” Ty’s words came of their own accord, uncalled for, unexpected. He had learned long ago that apologies rarely improved circumstances. But neither did excuses. Or anything else.
“Listen, son …” Monty lightly squeezed the strained muscle above Ty’s right arm. “Where women are concerned, sometimes there ain’t nothing you can do but cinch up tight and pray to God,” he said, and Ty felt his heart break just a little more.
CHAPTER 14
“Yes, I’m very sorry about that,” Casie said. She had the phone receiver pressed firmly to her ear, her fist pressed just as tightly to her chest. “But it was just a misunderstanding. Tyler thought your son was taking advantage of—”
“A misunderstanding.” Mrs. Pritchard’s voice was low and steady, perfectly modulated, as if she had trained for years for just this type of warfare. “He was abrasive and confrontational, verbally and physically abusive even though David was simply doing a favor.”
“A favor?”
“Philip Jaegar said the girl was lonely. David agreed to show her a good time out of the goodness of his heart.”
So that was the payment Jaegar had extracted from his daughter for the use of his funds. Sophie seemed a little young to be the bargaining tool between two wealthy families, Casie thought d
arkly, then prodded her mind back to the conversation at hand.
“Like I said, Mrs. Pritchard, I’m extremely sorry about the entire incident, but believe me, Tyler is not aggressive. Not unless he believes someone to be in trouble. He was just trying to protect Sophie.”
“Protect her from what?”
“From …” This was tricky territory. “Mistreatment.”
“Are you saying my son is a sexual predator?”
“No! I just—”
“Defamation of character is a serious issue in the state of South Dakota, and it’s a documented fact that Tyler Roberts was previously accused of assaulting a classmate. In light of that fact, Mr. Pritchard and I will be consulting with the criminal attorneys in our firm to determine how best to proceed from here. We’ll know more after David has had a thorough examination.”
Casie closed her eyes, but a noise from the porch forced her to jerk her attention in that direction. The last thing she needed was for Ty to hear this conversation. Stepping around the corner into the narrow hallway, she lowered her voice.
“He’s okay though, right?” she asked. “Your son, he seemed fine when he left here. I know—”
“Miss Carmichael, I, for one, do not think it’s okay for someone to physically attack another without provocation.”
“I just meant, he’s not seriously injured, is he?”
There was a taut silence. “We’ll know more after X-rays and a CAT scan.”
“CAT—”
“We will also have an estimate of damages done to David’s automobile some time this week.”
“His car? Nothing happened to—” Casie began, but just then footsteps rapped across the kitchen’s curling linoleum, making her heart beat faster.
“Okay.” She tried to sound upbeat or at least as if the sky weren’t about to come crashing down around their heads. Even though she was pretty damned sure it was. “I’ll wait for your call.” Hanging up the phone, Casie closed her eyes and tried to remember to feel grateful. After all, Angel was doing better. Although, come to think of it, she hadn’t seen the mare since morning. Anything could have happened since then. Suddenly seized by panic, she jerked her head out of her hands and stormed into the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”
Linette and Sophie glanced at her with identical expressions of surprise. Despite Sophie’s casual ensemble of jeans and jersey, she looked cool and chic. Beside her, Linette looked small and serviceable in khaki pants, zip-up sweatshirt, and SmartWool socks.
“What’s going on?” Sophie asked, pouring a cup of coffee into a chipped mug.
“Angel,” Casie said, trying without much success to tamp down the galloping worry. “What’s going on with Angel?”
“Not much,” Sophie said. Her lips jerked with irritation as she glared at the coffee cup she handed off to Linette. The older woman sighed, murmured her thanks, and settled stiffly into a nearby chair. Her daily hikes along the Chickasaw had been getting longer. “Darren hasn’t come back yet to reset her shoes.” Darren, the farrier Sophie had bullied into showing up long before dawn, had pulled Angel’s shoes some hours before. “I think he was just too lazy to do it while he was here.”
“I rather doubt that,” Linette said, and taking her first sip of Emily’s famous coffee, visibly relaxed.
They both studied her. She settled back against the wooden slats of the chair and raised her brows at them.
“Honestly,” she said, clearly surprised by their scrutiny. “People called me heartless, but you’re a force of nature, Sophie. I just hope he made it home without wetting himself.”
“What are you talking about?” Sophie asked, but Casie was pretty sure she understood the reference.
“What did you do to him?” she asked, but before she got an answer, Emily burst into the kitchen like a freight train.
“Hey, Case, come see what I got.”
Casie shifted her gaze to the girl near the door. “Can it wait just a minute?”
Emily eyed the trio already inside the room. “What’s going on?”
Linette took another sip of coffee, palms still wrapped reverently around the mug. “Sophie’s telling us how she charmed the nice young blacksmith who made an emergency house call last night.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes. “If he was so nice he would have been here half an hour earlier and done his job correctly.”
“Sophie.” Casie tried to soften the warning in her tone, but worry was making her tired. Or maybe it was the fact that she was running on four hours of sleep and a near-constant supply of adrenaline. “We can’t afford to terrorize a farrier. There aren’t many around.”
“I didn’t terrorize him.” Sophie sounded honestly offended, but her cheeks were a little pink. “I simply suggested he should get the stick out of his …” She lowered her brows. “I thought maybe he should do the job he was hired to do.”
Linette chuckled almost inaudibly and sipped again.
“Sophie …” Casie said again, but the girl had had enough.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Nothing?”
“He knew he was doing a slipshod job,” she snapped.
“I don’t think so,” Linette argued.
They turned toward her as a unit and she shrugged. “Admittedly, this isn’t exactly my area of expertise, but I do know people, and I can tell you this—if that young guy could have justified slapping a set of shoes back on that horse, he would have done so with alacrity.”
“Alacrity,” Emily murmured.
“It would have been a far cry easier than putting up with the harangue from Sergeant Sophie here.”
“I didn’t harangue any—” Sophie began, but Emily laughed.
“Oh, please … that’s like saying that Father doesn’t know best,” she said. It took Casie a second to understand the reference. Emily loved retro TV. “Who is this poor guy? I’ll send him a jar of rhubapple jam as an apology.”
“I don’t harangue—” Sophie began again, but Linette held out a hand.
“I didn’t say being tough was a bad thing,” she said and gazed solemnly at Sophie. The two women remained silent for a moment, a quiet meeting of steely minds. “But sometimes it can be hard on the people we care about most. On the other hand, it’s perfectly obvious that if that horse doesn’t make a full recovery, it won’t be because you didn’t do everything you could.”
Casie watched Sophie blink, watched her brows rise, watched her straighten a little.
Linette observed her, too. “Ty’s going to be extremely grateful,” she said. Her voice was low, her gaze steady.
Sophie’s cheeks brightened. “Like I care,” she said.
Emily snorted and shook her head. “Come on,” she said.
Casie turned like a robot, more than ready to escape from the house, but when she stepped through the doorway, she stopped short even before she reached the porch steps.
“What’s that?” she asked, staring numbly past the newly erected support beams to the yard beyond.
Emily was grinning like a happy cherub. “They’re goats.”
Casie nodded numbly. “See, here’s the thing,” she said. “I realize they’re goats.” In fact, there were three of them, a doe and two kids, all tricolored, all potbellied, all trouble on the hoof. She knew that from experience. “But funny thing, Em, we already have a goat. Our quota is full.”
“What? Are you talking about Al?” Emily asked. “He can’t give milk.”
“Well, no,” Casie agreed evenly, “but—oh no,” she said, realizing where this was going. “Please tell me you’re not planning to milk that doe.”
“Good news,” Emily said, beaming up at her from the bottom step of the porch, where the morning glories bloomed bright and cheery despite every ongoing catastrophe. “I’m planning to milk her.”
“Emily …” Casie resisted the urge to press the heels of her hands into her eye sockets and scream like a banshee.
“Listen, Case,” Emily said, pattering up the
steps to grab her arm and drag her into the yard. “I know you think we have enough to do already, but—”
“Think?” Casie said, mind spinning with the number of things that had to be done yesterday.
Emily grinned like an urchin. “But Bodacious will actually save us time.”
“Her name’s Bodacious?” Sophie asked. She was staring at the potbellied trio with a certain degree of disbelief.
“Good gracious,” Linette murmured, still nursing her coffee cup, as the kids butted heads, then twirled away to leap off in opposite directions. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I know, right?” Emily said.
Casie shifted her gaze back to the girl, who sobered immediately.
“I mean, not that that had any bearing on my decision to buy them.”
“You paid money for them?” Sophie asked.
Casie would have liked to echo that sentiment, but in actuality, Al hadn’t exactly been free, either. Insanity, apparently, was contagious.
“They were a steal,” Emily said, tone reeking with enthusiasm, but when Casie turned back toward her with rising brows, she scowled. “Not literally. Geez, Case, who do you think I am?”
And that was the thing. Despite the fact that they had spent six months working and talking and laughing together, she really had no idea who Emily Kane was. In fact, it was fairly unlikely that that was her real name. “Listen, Em, they’re really adorable.”
“Aren’t they!”
“But we can’t keep them. I mean, Al’s enough trouble. We can’t—”
“They’re not going to be any trouble. They’re going to be helpful. They’re going to supply milk. We won’t have to go to the store so often. Or pay three something a gallon. And do you know what goat milk sells for? Two bucks a pint. That’s like liquid gold. And that’s if you can find it.”
“That’s great, but—”
“And their milk is naturally homogenized. So it’s easier on our digestive systems. It’s higher in amino acids, protein, vitamin A, and niacin.”
Bodacious glanced up, marbled eyes blinking, tiny mouth chewing rapidly.
“They’re sustainable on less acreage, making them more environmentally friendly, and their milk is higher in virtually all the essential minerals such as—”
