Riding High

“Thanks.” She gave him a brilliant smile. “I’ll get the gate.”

Moments later, the crate was inside the chain-link fence that surrounded the approximately five acres of her property and the couple had left without making the donation the husband had promised. Regan wasn’t terribly surprised. “Where should we take him now?”

“I’ll let him decide where he wants to go.”

“Maybe that’s not such a—” But she’d already unlatched the crate and Harley burst forth in an apparent frenzy of joy. The horses trotted out of his way, and he flushed several chickens, which rose up in a cloud of feathers and angry clucking.

Chickens?

Lily smiled as she watched the pig cavort. “See how happy he is?”

“You have chickens?”

She shrugged as she continued to follow Harley’s progress with her gaze. “It’s the new thing to get chickens and have fresh eggs every morning. Urban farming is very in. But when the thrill is gone, people don’t want those chickens. I’ve had a few people ask, and I’ve got room, so why not? Oh, look. Here comes Wilbur to see his new friend.”

Regan watched as a considerably smaller potbellied pig came around the end of the ranch house and approached Harley. “What if they fight?”

She laughed, and the warmth of that laugh said a lot about her. She was obviously an optimistic soul who believed everything would turn out well. “Then you and I can wade in and separate them, I guess. But they’re not going to fight. They like each other. See? Is that sweet or what?”

He had to admit the pigs seemed okay with each other, but it could have just as easily gone the other way. Then one of the horses, a sway-backed buckskin gelding, walked calmly past the pigs and began munching on what was left of a flower bed in front of the ranch house porch. “You let him do that?”

“If it makes him happy.”

“Then I guess you don’t care about having plants there.”

She turned to face him. “I took over the sanctuary because I want to give these horses a home and a sense of self-worth. If they want to eat the flowers, so what? They’ve been arbitrarily yanked away from the life they used to know, so they deserve to be spoiled, right?”

“Philosophically, yes. Practically, no. These are two-thousand-pound animals, and they need to live by a set of rules. In fact, all domestic animals function better that way.” Kids, too. He and his siblings had been given more freedom than they’d known what to do with. Somehow they’d avoided the serious consequences of that freedom, but he shuddered when he thought of how their lives might have turned out.

“I disagree.” She said it cheerfully, though.

“Is that why you don’t have the horses confined in the corral or the barn?” Or did the horses stage a rebellion when they caught a glimpse of that pink-and-turquoise monstrosity? The jury was still out on how well horses could see color. At the moment Regan wouldn’t mind a little color blindness, himself.

“Exactly. I let them wander as they wish, and they all show up in the barn at mealtime. When it’s cold, they tend to stay in there during the night, but they’re welcome to go wherever they want on the property.”

“Makes my work more complicated if I have to chase them down.”

She nodded. “That’s what Nick said. He’d rather have them all in one place when he comes out, and I meant to close them in the barn while they ate breakfast. But the sunrise was so beautiful that I got distracted. Before I realized it, they’d all eaten and headed out. Once they’re loose, it’s nearly impossible to get them in again until dinner. I should have arranged for you to come before mealtime, instead.”

“Next time I’ll do that.” He sighed. “Guess I’d better get started.”

“I’ll help, but I wonder if...”

“If what?”

She hesitated, her expression earnest. “Would you consider, just this once, rescheduling for this evening?”

“Well, I—”

“Never mind. That’s asking too much. You probably have a wife or a girlfriend who expects you for dinner.”

“I don’t, but that’s not the issue.”

“And there’s the matter of making a second trip. I’ll help you catch them and we’ll get ’er done. I know I’m too lax with them, but I think about the fact that the poor things have never been in charge of their lives, and that’s why I like to give them more control over their comings and goings. I promise next time I’ll remember to keep them in the barn when you’re due to arrive.”

He gazed into her solemn blue eyes. Only a man of stone wouldn’t warm to the compassion shining there, even when he knew she didn’t have the faintest idea how to run this operation. “Have you spent much time around horses?”

“Not until I took over the sanctuary, which was a leap of faith. I wanted to come back home and do something good for the community, and this place really spoke to me. Now I’m around horses 24/7.”

Déjà vu. Either of his parents could have delivered that kind of speech, except that none of their seat-of-the-pants decisions had involved horses.

“And you know what?” Her expression grew more animated. “They’re such individuals! Buck, the one who likes to eat the flowers, is really stubborn, while Sally, that little bay mare over there, is shy. You have to coax her to be friends, but once she trusts you, she’ll follow you around like a dog. I have to watch out she doesn’t try to come in the house.”

Oh, boy. So at least one of the horses had started crowding her, a typical power move. No doubt they all sensed that Lily wasn’t the leader of the herd. She didn’t understand that they’d take more and more liberties until some of them would become unmanageable and even dangerous, both to themselves and to her.

But she was genuinely fond of them after only two months, and he didn’t want to mess with that. Homeless animals needed all the friends they could get, so he’d tread lightly. But she was going about this all wrong. If she didn’t create some order and discipline soon, the situation could become unworkable.

Yeah, Nick could have been more forthcoming. Regan wondered why Nick hadn’t put a stop to this laissez-faire attitude of hers. Regan planned to ask. In fact, he had a whole list of questions now that he’d been here.

Glancing around, he calculated how much time he’d need to rope each horse and do an exam. Even with her help, it would take too long, considering the other appointments he’d scheduled today. The horses might not be cooperative, either. Nick hadn’t been to Peaceful Kingdom since early May, so no telling how they’d react to being examined after a month of doing as they pleased. “Maybe I should come back during their dinnertime, after all.”

“That really would be better. Tell you what. If you’ll do that, I’ll feed you supper.”

“That’s really not necessary.” He’d bet the keys to his truck that she was a vegetarian, maybe even vegan.

“I know, but it would make me feel better about inconveniencing you. Please say you’ll stay for dinner.”

“I wouldn’t want to put you to any extra trouble on my account.” Some people could make vegetables taste yummy and others couldn’t. The minute he’d left home he’d reverted to being a carnivore, and so had his brothers and sisters. Even his parents weren’t as strict these days, especially when they hung out at the Last Chance Ranch.

She grinned at him. “You think I’m going to serve you sprouts and tofu, don’t you?”

Apparently she was good at reading expressions and had figured out why he was hesitating. “Are you?”

“Nope. I make a veggie lasagna that’s out of this world. My parents love it, and they’re dyed-in-the-wool carnivores.”

“Real cheese?”

“Absolutely. I haven’t hitched my wagon to the vegan concept yet. I still might some day, but I do love my cheese and ice cream.”

She really was adorable. Had he been looking for adorable...but he wasn’t. A mere six months ago he’d been kicked in the teeth, romantically speaking, and that had left a mark. “Then I accept. What time?”

“I feed the horses around five.”

“I’ll be here a little after five, then. It’ll be much easier to examine them when they’re each in a separate stall.”

“Uh, they won’t all be in separate stalls. About half won’t, actually.”

“Why not?”