Authors: Isadora Montrose
Tags: #General Fiction
Cory pulled himself up looking sullen. Lance Prescott materialized behind Carlos, his whipcord strength on high alert, his scarred face grimmer than usual. The brush in his hand looked like a missile. Carlos kept his eyes on Saunders until he stomped out of the stable mumbling curses.
“Got us some extra work, now that we’re down a hand,” drawled Carlos.
“Not like he pulled his weight,” Lance said.
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY
Steve was pleased with the new setup. Even though the new system was wireless, it had taken him the entire evening to install the new cameras. Partially because he had had to keep checking on the mares – his ostensible reason for being in the stables – and partially because he was being careful to camouflage them. But the new system was now up and running.
As he had planned, he had left the old equipment in place as a blind. Those big, bulky, old-fashioned cameras should fool the ignorant. People seldom looked for what they didn’t expect. The new cameras were minute, and he was fairly certain that they wouldn’t be detected by a casual eye. They were ready if the saboteur struck again.
Only those people who knew about the change should be able to spot the new CCTV cameras. And if Laura or Carlos was the person they needed to catch, then having the new cameras spotted was the least of their worries. Steve, however, was betting that the villain was one of the hands. But just who thought that if he made Laura think Carlos was a senile old fool that he would get the job of stable foreman?
Lance Prescott was the obvious choice. He had the skillset to be foreman, even if he wasn’t likely to be underhanded. Steve had a lot of respect for the former Marine, and he didn’t believe Prescott was their villain. He did his job faithfully and pulled more than his share of weight.
Steve had known a lot of fellows like Lance, and he didn’t see the other man as the sort of pathological sneak who would put a sharp stone in a trusting mare’s hoof. Of course, Steve had been wrong before. Early and often. No one was a perfect judge of character, not even a bear.
But now the cameras were in place and there wasn’t any part of the barn or stables, not even the tack room, that wasn’t under surveillance. Laura had a feed on her laptop, Carlos did too, and he had one that went directly to both his notepad and his tablet.
He pulled the tablet out from the slot in his tool belt where he had stashed it. The images from the twenty-four cameras were sharp and the color very true to life. His eyes widened slightly at what he saw in the tack room. Shit on a stick, there was trouble ahead. Nothing to be happy about, he chided himself for his big grin.
Meanwhile, in Stall Twenty-Six, Goose was in labor. Whistling loudly, Steve headed to his patient. Goose turned her big head towards him, her white blaze stood out in the dim light of the stable. Her ears twitched and her eyes followed him trustingly. Her vulva was wet and contracting. Fluid dripped. She didn’t seem to be in any trouble.
Briefly, he wondered if he needed to wake anyone. No. Goose could hold her own with just inexperienced Steve Holden as midwife for a minute or two. Because Laura would be along the minute she got a glimpse of the feed from the tack room.
“Easy girl,” he said soothingly. He clapped Goose’s big bay flank reassuringly. Her trimmed tail whisked from side to side and she looked over her shoulder at him. The foal appeared and retreated as she had another contraction.
Steve peeked at his tablet again. All of the other mares were snoozing just as they were supposed to be. A couple were letting their foals suckle. That too was normal. He touched the tack room tile and it expanded.
Piper Belington adjusted her thin frame on the narrow cot. She raised first one knee and then the other, thought better of it and lay back with her legs spread and her head propped up on the thin pillow.
Her pale limbs were knobby sticks against the red wool blanket and Steve could see her tiny breasts and shaved sex. She looked prepubescent. Nothing enticed him about this child, but it appeared she was trying to look seductive. Who the fuck was she posing for? Him? Or Lance, who was due in fifteen minutes?
He flipped back so his screen displayed all the tiles. On camera one, Laura strode through the doors of the stable and headed, not for the tack room, but for Goose’s stall. That was his girl. She wanted to check on the mare. Of course she could see him in Goose’s stall. Steve congratulated himself on winning his side bet. If the mare’s head bobbing was any indication, Goose was as thrilled to see Laura as he was.
“Hey, darling,” he said. “We’re going to have some fun tonight.”
“Goose is a good mother,” Laura said. “Let me take a look.”
The foal chose that moment to crown. Goose pushed, and the foal’s entire head was exposed in its slippery caul. “Easy, Goose,” crooned Laura. “You’ve got this.”
She expertly caught the foal when it was born. Steve slipped away for the wheelbarrow full of stuff and he and Laura cleaned up the mother and foal. The little filly got to its feet and stood blinking and wobbling as Goose licked her dry. Laura’s blue eyes were full of tears.
“I love this part,” she said mistily.
“Every time,” agreed Steve. “You want to tackle Piper now?” he asked.
“I do not. I want a shower,” she indicated her shirt where she was splashed with birthing fluid. “And to change my clothes.”
Steve nodded. He went off to wash up in the stable washroom before he pulled out his tablet and came hurrying back to Laura who was still admiring the newborn foal.
“You gotta look at this,” he told her chuckling.
* * *
Lance Prescott took his time getting to the stables. He had had another bad dream. If a nightmare that woke you up swimming in your own sweat and sure that you were about to die, could be classified as a mere bad dream. You would think he would be used to them by now, but they were always unpleasant.
His heart had settled down some after he stood under a warm shower and had some hot coffee. And the cool, moist May night was a benison against his skin. The furthest thing from the parched, dusty heat of Iraq.
The stable was a good place to be after one of those wicked dreams. The scent of horses always calmed him completely. He always felt as if nothing bad ever could happen to him here. He loved the peacefulness of night duty. He loved helping the mares. He picked up the roster from its hook on the wall and checked to see which mares needed checking on tonight. Goose, Creamy and Bisquick.
It wasn’t like Holden to be not around at the end of his shift. That had to mean that Steve was either playing midwife or cleaning up. He headed to the tack room. The video feed there was the fastest way to track down the other man. He wasn’t expecting Miss Piper Belington to be sprawled on the cot waving her hairless twat around.
Her shriek was no surprise. That girl had a healthy pair of lungs on her, for all she was half-starved. She closed her pencil-thin legs tightly and covered her itty bitty titties with her hands. “Get out,” she screamed.
It was no secret on the ranch or the stud that Steve Holden and the Boss were engaged. Steve was proud as punch and Ms. Bascom seemed quietly pleased with her choice. Lance liked them both and wished them well. Everyone knew that in order to keep the ranch out of the hands of madam here and her equally spoiled brother, Miss Laura needed to marry and have a kid.
This had to be some half-baked plan on the part of this wretched brat to discredit Steve and break up his engagement. Nasty thing to be doing. All this went through his head in the split second it took to see that the tack room was not empty, for Piper to sit up, and her hollering to start.
“Well, well,” he said eyeing her from the doorway. He leered at her. She was a little wan and thin for his taste, but he suspected that she could be plumped up. “And what have we here?” He put a little mean in his voice. “Why Miss Belington, I didn’t know you cared.”
Piper glared at him. He smirked back at her and gathered her clothes from the chair in one hand. “What are you doing here, darling?” he drawled. “Waiting for me?”
“Give me those,” she snapped.
Her hands clutched her breasts and then her sex as she looked around wildly for something to cover her nudity. Too bad for her that Steve had made that bed. It was tucked in tight. Taut as a drum. Regulation taut. She wouldn’t get any purchase on the covers with those French manicured talons. Not this side of hell.
He tossed the clothes into the lane way behind him. “Not a chance, petal,” he said. “Why would I want to do that?”
For the first time fear flashed across her made-up face. Her blue eyes looked like four spiders had opened them. Not that he was any kind of rapist. He wasn’t planning on diddling this little girl, or any unwilling woman, come to that.
But Piper’s blue eyes were big with horror, as they roamed over his damaged face. Probably ugly Lance Prescott had not featured even in her worst nightmares. He grabbed up a heavy horse blanket from the stack against the wall, shook it out and threw it over her. Piper clutched it against herself and opened her mouth and screamed even louder.
“What is going on?” asked Laura sweetly from behind him. “Lance?”
“We got us a snake or something here in the stable, Boss.” Lance said matching the Boss’s casual friendliness. “I was just dealing with it.”
“Okay,” Laura said comfortably. “I’ll let you get on.”
“Laura,” shrieked Piper. “He’s going to rape me.”
Laura turned back and stared down at Piper. “Do you think so? What the hell are you doing naked in here, if you didn’t want to play?”
Piper’s flushed face became a deeper, even less attractive shade of crimson. “Don’t leave me with him,” she pleaded.
“You and I are going to have a chat, girl. Lance, can you see if Steve needs a hand with Goose, please?”
Lance went whistling on his way.
Laura threw Piper’s clothes at her. “Get dressed.”
“Steve asked me to wait for him here.” Piper sat up. She began to dress but her eyes remained on Laura’s face. Laura could see the wheels turning.
“Stop right there. Steve didn’t ask you to meet him here. Not for sex. Not to play Parcheesi.” Laura stepped away from the doorway as Piper reached for her boots. “You better hope Lance can keep his mouth shut. You’ve just made yourself the laughingstock of the Double B.”
“He wouldn’t dare tell!” But there was doubt in Piper’s voice at last.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Steve met Laura as she was returning from escorting Piper to her car. She looked at the tablet in his hand. “That little bitch was waiting for you,” she said wrathfully.
“I guess so,” Steve said. “I had fun listening to you throw her out.” He brushed a stray lock of hair behind Laura’s ear with a tender finger and swung her fat braid lightly. “She put herself there off her own bat, just like you said. You know that, don’t you?”
Laura said nothing.
“My tastes don’t run to scrawny, little plucked chickens,” he informed her calmly. “Even if I was the kind of fellow with a taste for trash, I wouldn’t have a yen for Piper. Does that girl even have a pitch below shrill?” He put an arm around Laura’s waist and drew her out into the cool night. “You brought your car?”
“Yeah.” She indicated her little SUV.
“We’ll take that,” he said. “Think we caught our fish right off?” he asked as they buckled their seatbelts.
Laura shook her head. “Piper is afraid of horses. For all she fancies herself a rider, she isn’t much of one. She exudes fear and loathing, and they react accordingly. She couldn’t get Cloud to raise a hoof long enough to stick a stone in the frog. Cloud would kick her to kingdom come, if she tried it.”
“Oh.” Steve thought. “Could she have an accomplice?”
“Maybe. But who? You’ve heard her. She treats the hands – including you and Lance – like subhuman forms of life. Hard to see one of them doing her a nasty favor.”
“But she has lots of money, right?” Steve asked.
“Sure. She has a trust fund. And her parents give her an allowance. More money than sense,” she said disapprovingly. “Daddy wouldn’t let me get at my money until I graduated from college. And the first time I ran short of my allowance and asked for more, he just told me to get a job.” She laughed. “I had to get a part=time waitressing spot in the meal hall so I could pay my book bill and not get put on probation!”
“Your father is a wise man,” Steve said. “What do you think that girl was really up to?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Laura said. “She’s trying to stop us from getting married, because that’s the first step to me satisfying granddaddy’s condition. It’s all about the ranch.”
“Maybe we should have a word with Ms. Piper, let her know that the game’s over.”
Laura shook her head. “You don’t understand. There’s no reasoning with that one. The only thing that will stop her is if we’re actually married.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. Did you say the judge would be sitting at the Acton courthouse tomorrow?”
“I did.”
“It’s a date.”
* * *
Piper was still shaking when she opened the front door of the house her family called the camp. The light was on in the foyer, but the rest of the place was dark. Her mother was in Rio. Her father was in New York. Nolan had gone to Chicago to dig up some dirt on fucking Steve Holden. She stomped down the hall flicking on lights as she went.
Nolan was lying on her bed, his sleek blond head propped up against her stack of shams. His loafers had left black marks on her pink silk coverlet. She was going to have to redecorate, if the damned maid couldn’t get them out. He flicked off the TV set as she slammed the door behind her and smirked at her.
“I thought you were in Chicago,” she accused. “Get off my bed!”
“As you can see, twin, I’m right here in Success,” Nolan didn’t even sit up. His blue eyes dared her to try to remove him. “What’s the matter, Pipe? Who’s got your panties in a twist, now?”
“That’s none of your damned business.” Nolan’s condescension always got her goat. “Get the hell out of my room.”
“That’s no way to talk to your only brother.” He folded both arms behind his head, snuggled deeper into her pillows, and grinned challengingly at her. “I want to know what you’ve been up to.”