“Got it.”
“Thanks, Manny. If you learn anything, go only to Aaron to make the call. Tell him I told you to call me.”
He didn’t want the kid to take any chances. He knew he could trust the other staff trainer.
When he hung up, Siobhan was focused on him. His pulse sped up and he waited for her to say whatever was on her mind. Her forehead furrowed and she turned toward the door where she spent an inordinate amount of time poking at her hair and putting on her hat.
“One more call,” Clay said, hitting his speed dial.
John Whitehorse, a Navajo political science teacher he’d met while living with Grandfather, sounded happy to hear from him.
“Listen, John, I thought with the uranium mining issue affecting the Navajo Nation, you might know something about Raul Galvan.”
“The blood-sucking politician? Hit me.”
“I’m back in Soledad where he had a meeting about bringing mining to this area last night. The meeting didn’t go well. I’m wondering about his angle at spending so much time here. He’s wooing the sister-in-law of a friend.”
“Tell her to run.”
“That bad?”
“Worse. I’ve heard rumors of his being in the pocket of the mining company trying to break into that area. Nothing specific.”
“Do you think you could get me more?”
“With pleasure, my friend. How soon do you need the information?”
“How soon can you get it?”
Hopefully both Manny and John would get something that would enlighten them about Galvan’s motivations. Ready to ride, he joined Siobhan at the door.
“I’m glad you’re asking around,” she said, “but I can’t help wonder what you think Raul Galvan had against Jeff or this ranch. And how he would have managed to make so many things go wrong.”
“I wouldn’t know. You tell me.”
She shook her head. “If Jeff even knew him, he never mentioned it.”
“How did your sister-in-law meet him anyway?”
Siobhan shrugged. “I’ll have to ask her when she shows up.”
Clay had been surprised that Jacy hadn’t appeared for breakfast. He’d wondered where she’d gotten herself off to—though she hadn’t seemed happy with Galvan the night before, she might have allowed herself to be wooed back and into his bed. She could be with him now. Not that he was going to bring up the subject. He didn’t need to think about beds or what went on in them. He needed to keep his mind where it belonged.
He needed to do whatever it took to protect Siobhan.
A HALF-HOUR RIDE TOOK them to the area where Jacy and Tonio had found Jeff and his horse after the accident. Siobhan showed him exactly where they’d found the bodies, then steeled herself as they dismounted.
Clay gazed around without moving.
There was something weird about his silent assessment…an absence of sorts…as if he wasn’t really there mentally.
The thought shot a chill down her spine.
Wanting to know what Clay was up to, Siobhan again tried to connect to him, again hit a wall and gave up in frustration. No matter how much she wanted to know what he was thinking, she wouldn’t ask. He was too damned focused to even know she was there.
Finally he moved, picked his way up the rock, hunkered down on his haunches and swept his gaze across the ground.
More chills.
Siobhan concentrated on the area now to see if she could pick up on whatever was bothering him.
The wind soughed as it fluttered around her. The elemental moan snicked through her and suddenly her senses sharpened. She scanned the area inch-by-inch until her gaze landed on something that didn’t fit.
Something shiny.
She stooped to pick it up—a metal ring. Frowning, she quickly palmed it.
Clay rose, asking, “You’re sure this is the place?”
“Positive. Jacy called it in when she found Jeff. I came out with the wagon to bring him home. Why do you question the location?”
“I don’t get what Jeff would be doing here, scrambling along these rocks on a horse. And try as I might, I don’t get a sense of death here.”
“What? What’s going on, Clay. You were never psychic…except a little with me.”
“Not psychic. Grandfather called it Navajo magic. Tuning in to nature, reading the signs…the elements.”
“I saw Jeff and his horse sprawled out right there,” Siobhan said, pointing to the very spot. “Both dead.”
“I believe you.”
“Then what’s the problem? Why the doubt?”
“Look at the rocks. It appears as if nothing has moved here. If he’d been riding and the horse had slipped, there would have been an avalanche of debris. Rocks and dirt and sand. I just can’t see it.”
“The accident happened four months ago. You said yourself the weather—”
“You may be right. Jeff might have been tossed off the horse and landed on his neck. All nice and neat. And then the horse just could’ve twisted his leg and it snapped and he went over easylike.”
Realizing how unlikely that sounded, she squeezed the metal ring until it bit into her hand. “But you don’t buy it.”
He shook his head then focused on her clenched fist. “What do you have there?”
Unfurling her fingers, she showed him. “It’s one side of a grommet. It had to have come from Jeff’s boot. I noticed it was gone when we brought him home in the wagon. Afterward, I didn’t give it another thought.”
“You have the other half?”
“No.”
“Let’s look for it.”
Together they searched the surrounding ground. If the other half of the grommet was somewhere in the immediate area, it remained elusive.
“So what do you think this means?”
“If you don’t have it with the boot and if it isn’t here, that leaves one other place.”
“Where?”
“Wherever your husband was actually murdered.”
SIOBHAN WAS STILL PALE and quiet as they rode home. Clay had kept himself from taking her in his arms to soothe her. He might wish she felt better, but he wasn’t about to be backup to the man she’d chosen over him.
As they neared the barn, he saw a black SUV driving off the property. “Whose vehicle?”
“Early Farnum.” Siobhan frowned as she followed the vehicle’s progress. “I wonder what he wanted this time.”
They found out soon enough. Jacy was working in the barn, straightening out the tack room, still a mess after the other night. Siobhan went straight to her.
“Jacy, I just saw Early. What did he want?”
“To apologize for driving off without you last night,” Jacy said.
There was a false ring to the statement, but Clay couldn’t put his finger on why. Had Jacy made that up? Or had Early used that as an excuse to get on the ranch property again for some unknown reason? Maybe Jacy had stopped him from venturing farther onto the spread.
“Nothing else?” Siobhan asked.
“That was it.”
“Were you in the barn when he got here?” Clay asked.
“No, but he said he was only cooling his heels for a few minutes. He said he would be glad to wait for you, Siobhan, however long it took. I told him you weren’t interested in him and that he should give up on you.” When Siobhan gaped at her, Jacy quickly added, “Well, don’t look at me like that. You aren’t interested, only you won’t be direct. Time the poor fool got it through his head to leave you—and this ranch—be.”
“So how angry was he when he raced out of here?” Clay asked.
Jacy shrugged. “Fair to middling. He’ll get over it.”
“I kind of did tell him the same yesterday,” Siobhan said, “if in a nicer way. That’s the reason he drove off without me. I wish you had kept out of it, Jacy. I was trying to keep decent relations with him since he’s our closest neighbor.”
“Well, of course you wish I had,” Jacy said. “Because you�
��re the perfect one, the one who can do no wrong, who can’t ever look bad to anyone.”
“Jacy!”
“Isn’t it the truth, Siobhan? You do what you want, when you want, with whom you want—” She looked straight at Clay on that one. “And you always come out seeming like the perfect lady.”
“Hmm,” Clay muttered, “not sure I remember that Siobhan.”
Giving him a glare, Siobhan said, “Jacy, you’re upset.”
“What if I am? I have reason to be upset. My brother died and instead of leaving the ranch to family, he left it to someone who is running it into the ground.”
“That’s not fair.”
“A lot of things aren’t fair. This is the Double JA. I’m a J-A—Jacy Atkinson. You didn’t even care enough about Jeff to take his last name! You didn’t even love him!” With that Jacy stalked off, saying, “I’m going to ride out and meet the boys, see how they’re doing. They found another piece of fence down and are repairing it. I want to check on the stock, see if we lost any more cows.”
A stunned-looking Siobhan watched her leave the barn. “Wow!”
“She had a lot on her mind,” Clay said, suddenly realizing there was some real unrest between the women. “I wonder what set her off.”
“Probably something to do with Galvan.”
“You could be right.”
Or not. He’d heard a deep-seated anger for Siobhan in Jacy’s words.
Anger that had been stewing for some time.
CLAY SAID HE WOULD TAKE care of the horses and then go back to his cottage to take a shower before lunch.
Siobhan went back to the house to get food together. Not that she was hungry. But eventually the men would need to eat and would come inside looking for lunch. She quickly put together a pot of chili, and while it was cooking, she set out bowls of toppings—shredded cheese, chopped onions and sour cream—then prepared a loaf of garlic bread and tossed it in the countertop oven on a timer.
When everything was laid out, she retreated to her bedroom, took a fast shower, then threw herself on the bed for a while, the months of trouble on the spread, starting with Jeff’s supposed accident, whirling through her thoughts.
Clay had been right. The area where Jacy had found Jeff hadn’t looked like the site of an accident. Maybe he was correct about the grommet, as well. Forcing herself off the bed, she went to Jeff’s closet, separate from hers. She’d never touched his. Had never given away his clothes.
Or boots.
She found the work boots directly. Fetching the metal ring she’d found, she matched it to the hole in the leather. What had happened to the other half? She checked the inside of the boot to see if it had fallen inside. Empty.
Maybe Clay had been right about that, as well, that the only other place it might be was wherever Jeff had been murdered.
But if so, who’d had it in for Jeff and why? Would someone really kill him to get the ranch?
Before she could mentally go over what she knew or suspected, a banging at her door made her start.
“Siobhan, you gotta call the vet!” Ben yelled through the panel.
She ran to the door and opened it. “What now?”
“It’s the horses in the corral.” A distraught Ben tore at the hat he held in both hands. “They have diarrhea and it’s bloody. It’s bad, Siobhan, real bad. Clay was coming to the house for lunch when he checked the corral and saw them.”
“What happened?”
“He found bits of oleander leaves in their sliced apples and carrots. He and Esai are workin’ on getting it out of ’em, but they don’t have the right drugs.”
“Go help them and I’ll be right there as soon as I call Doc Riddley.”
Ben was already on his way. He yelled over his shoulder, “Clay said to tell you Warrior might not make it.”
Clenching her jaw so she wouldn’t cry, Siobhan picked up the phone and called the vet, then turned off the stove before running to the barn.
Hardly able to grasp that someone had actually poisoned her beloved horses, she vowed to do anything to save them.
Chapter Ten
“His heart rate is still accelerated—150 beats per minute.” Shaking his graying head, Doc Riddley patted Warrior, who was swaying on his feet and bleeding from the nose.
Clay blew out a breath. That was more than triple what it should be. They’d had to put Warrior in a stall in the barn. He was already hooked up to an intravenous feed of lidocaine that would slow his heartbeat, and Siobhan was preparing a bag of fluids that the vet had brought to flush out the toxins.
“He’s going to be all right, won’t he?” Siobhan asked, her hands shaking as she unwound the tubing.
The vet gave her a kindly smile and an I-hope-so shrug. “We’ve got to be positive.”
“I can’t stand it if they d-don’t all make it!”
The break in Siobhan’s voice got Clay where he lived. Knowing horses were her passion, that this incident was enough to undo her, he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and tell her it would be okay, that all the horses would be fine.
And most of them would be.
Before Doc Riddley drove up, he and Siobhan and Esai and Ben had worked on saving the four affected horses. Induced vomiting and gastric lavage helped reduce the absorption of the toxic compounds in oleander, one of the prettiest and deadliest plants around—not that he’d seen any on the Double JA property itself. The other three horses were still in the corral behind the barn with Esai and Ben seeing to them. Warrior was by far the worst off of the bunch, the only horse that needed extreme measures. Apparently, he’d eaten more of the deadly leaves than had his companions.
“What about getting Warrior to that new hospital outside of Santa Fe?” Clay asked.
Whatever it took to save him.
“If it makes you more comfortable,” the vet said. “But we don’t need to run tests to figure out what’s wrong with him, which would be the main reason to get him there.”
“Luckily I found the oleander leaves in the feed. If we hadn’t come back when we did…” Clay was just glad that they had. “So you think we can handle it?”
He covertly glanced at Siobhan, who still wasn’t herself. For the moment, she didn’t look as though she could handle anything stressful. He was confident she would come around, though, because that was her nature.
“At this point, I’m not sure what the vets at the hospital could do more than the two of you,” Riddley said, “considering your combined knowledge of horses. Plus, you’re Warrior’s person,” he said to Siobhan, “and your being with him goes a long way for his recovery. Besides, you’ve worked with horses all your life, and with that fancy degree, you know nearly as much about equine care as I do.”
“But I’m not a vet.”
“You’re the next-best thing,” Riddley said. “I have every confidence in you. I’ll leave all the meds and supplies you need. You call me if Warrior gets worse and I’ll hightail it back here.”
Warrior didn’t even look like the same horse. He was in shock, barely aware of them. His nose was still bleeding, his mucous membranes were oddly pale, and every few minutes, his sturdy body was wracked with a fine tremor.
“What should we expect for this guy?” Clay asked.
“You should be seeing a difference in his heart rate shortly. And then it’s simply a waiting game. Keep him hydrated with the intravenous fluids. They’ll continue to deplete the toxins. He probably won’t eat until he’s on the mend, so don’t worry about that until morning. Maybe not even then. Keep him awake at least until his fever is down. Don’t let him sleep too soon, or he could slip into a coma.”
Siobhan nodded her agreement to everything, but Clay couldn’t miss the fine quiver, not only of her hands, but also of her whole body. She was terrified, and it didn’t look good on her. He’d never seen her so shaken before.
“Thanks, Doc,” Clay said as the vet hauled his bag to the truck. “We’ll keep in touch.”
H
e turned back to Siobhan, who was checking the intravenous line and talking softly to Warrior. As she worked, he could see her mental attitude shift from scared to determined. Now that was the Siobhan he knew. When she slid her hand along Warrior’s left jawbone, he knew she was seeking the major artery that would let her check his pulse.
“Don’t you think it’s a little soon?” he asked, not wanting her to be disappointed.
“Maybe,” she said, glancing over to the stable clock.
Clay’s gut tightened and then relaxed when he saw her expression smooth out.
“It’s working. Down to 132.”
Making himself comfortable on a hay bale across from the horse’s stall, Clay echoed the vet. “Now we wait.”
Ben entered the stable. “Hey, I was just going to get something to eat. Esai’s keeping an eye on the other horses and I’m going to bring food back for him. Can I get either of you anything?”
Siobhan shook her head. “I couldn’t eat. Clay?”
“I can wait a while. Maybe you’ll feel like eating then, too.”
“There’s garlic bread in the countertop oven,” Siobhan told Ben. “It’ll be cold but I’m sure it’s still edible.”
Ben left and Siobhan joined Clay. She perched on the bale but held herself stiffly upright.
“Relax, would you,” Clay said, pulling her back toward him.
She turned in his arms and would have landed on him if she hadn’t put out a hand to brace herself against him. Her fingers splayed across his chest burned. The fire spread. For a minute, he thought she might kiss him again—he recognized that glimmer in her eyes. He was tempted to do the honors, but if his lips touched hers, he might never let her go.
As if suddenly awakening, Siobhan blinked and pushed herself away from him, then scooted across the bale so fast she nearly fell off.
Clay caught her forearm and saved her the indignity. “Whoa, easy there. I know you’re upset but—”
“Of course I’m upset.” She wiggled back up onto the bale. “Who would do this, Clay? Who would want to kill a bunch of innocent horses?”
“Who had access to the barn?”
“Early Farnum. Jacy thought he was only here for a short while, but it might have been long enough.”
Brazen Page 9
