like icy fingertips along her spine. She was in way over her head, never having done anything like this before. Her pink Converse scraped against the rough floor as she moved farther into the storage room, her nose scrunching at the musty air.
Pushing aside her fear of failing—since failure was not an option—she pulled out the note in her back pocket of her blue jeans, scribbled with her to-do list. The first item on that list: kegs. She grabbed the dolly, moving toward the kegs with the Foxy Diva label. She smiled at the label of the vintage sexy pin-up woman with Foxy Diva written in calligraphy around her. Maisie was proud of the design, and she was still surprised Clara approved the logo. But Foxy Diva was an Indian pale ale with a buttload of spices that Maisie knew nothing about, and Amelia had said the spiciness of the woman fit the beer inside perfectly. That had been the first time Amelia had ever taken Maisie’s side, and Maisie still felt the high from that.
Determined to get the trailer packed and the workday behind her, Maisie shoved the dolly under the keg and pulled back, her arms shaking as the dolly caught the edge of the keg.
She wobbled once.
And again.
Then she was falling. And something metal and shiny and big was coming with her.
Hayes Taylor refused to acknowledge today’s anniversary and kept his focus on this work, like he’d done every day for the last two years. The past was behind him, and he stood firmly in the present at Blackshaw Training, a horse training facility. Over the past sixteen months he’d worked there, he had seen a dangerous horse now and again, but nothing like the chestnut gelding with the white stripe currently staring him down. Threat. The gelding’s black eyes screamed at Hayes. Danger. And at the particular moment, Hayes was dangerous to the gelding. Horsemanship wasn’t about breaking an animal. It was about communicating, and somewhere in this horse’s life, that communication crossed a line it shouldn’t have.
“First thoughts?” Hayes asked, turning to Beckett Stone, his good friend since high school. Beckett’s sandy-brown hair didn’t seem to have a style, and his face needed a good shave. But Beckett’s rough edge was what the ladies liked most. Or so the gossip around town suggested.
Beckett removed his Stetson and ran a hand through his hair. “I think you’ve got your hands full with that one. And if it were me, I’d be wearing full body gear anytime I was near him.”
Hayes snorted, hooking his boot up on the fence railing. “That’s why you don’t ride the troubled ones and instead handle the young ones.”
Unbothered by the remark, Beckett barked a laugh. “Yeah, ’cause I’m not looking to die at thirty.”
While they were the same age, and Beckett hadn’t meant the remark as a dig, two years ago, Hayes was looking for that. Even he could admit that he’d taken risks a sane man wouldn’t. He gravitated toward working with mentally broken horses because he felt equally broken himself. He hadn’t recovered from Laurel’s death. When his wife was murdered, Hayes lost it. As a cop, he should have stopped it. After Laurel’s murder, he couldn’t protect anyone anymore. He walked away from the badge and his job at the Denver Police Department, moved back to River Rock, and found a home at Blackshaw Training. Getting back to a simpler life had been his salvation.
Hayes took a deep breath, letting go of the tension rising in his chest. The west wind picked up the floral scents of wildflower and ringing wind chimes in the distance. Hayes glanced back at the two-story log house with the wide, covered deck where Nash Blackshaw, the owner of the farm, lived with his wife, Megan, and son. A black-roofed barn housed injured horses or horses needing stabling for the night. Next to the barn was the sand ring used for training. Every sound, from the hooves stomping the ground, to tails swooshing, to the horses whinnying, all brought Hayes back to a place before Laurel’s murder. His childhood. He’d grown up working on the Blackshaws’ cattle farm during his summers throughout high school and police training. Those years held some of his favorite memories. His happiest for sure, when things with Laurel had been quiet and good, and she’d come out to the farm to go on a ride.
“Let me see exactly what his owners want from us,” Hayes finally said to