Backlash Tender Trap Aftermath - Lisa Jackson Page 0,115
watched the digital clock flash the passing hours while she’d tried and failed to block Colton from her mind. But his image had been with her—his steely eyes, beard-covered chin, flash of white teeth.
“Stop it!” she muttered at her reflection. She had work to do today, and she couldn’t take the time to think about Colton McLean or his missing horse!
* * *
“So what did Aldridge say?” Curtis asked, matching Colton’s long strides with his own shorter steps as Colton strode across the wet yard to the stallion barn. Sunlight pierced through the cover of low-hanging clouds.
“He wasn’t there.”
“So you don’t know any more than you did last night?”
“I talked to Cassie,” Colton muttered, throwing open the door and frowning as he noticed Black Magic’s empty stall. A few soft nickers greeted him, and the smell of horses and dust filled his nostrils.
“Did you now? And what did she have to say?”
One side of Colton’s mouth lifted. “Not much. She held a rifle on me and ordered me off her place.”
“Friendly,” Curtis murmured.
“Hardly.”
“So you didn’t find out anything?”
“Once I convinced her that I’d had enough bullet wounds to last me a while, she finally showed me around the place.”
“And?”
“Nothing,” Colton said quickly, dismissing the subject of Cassie. He’d thought of little else since he’d seen her, but he wasn’t going to get caught up in her again. Not that she wanted him. She’d made it all too clear just how much she loathed him. “Not one sign of Black Magic.”
Curtis frowned as he measured grain into feed buckets. “So you think Ivan wasn’t involved?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Colton admitted, climbing a metal ladder to the hayloft overhead. Damn the horse. Damn Denver! Damn, damn, damn! He kicked a couple bales of hay onto the cement floor and glowered at the empty stall from high above. Why did the damn horse have to disappear now? Using his good arm, he swung to the floor, then slit the baling twine with his pocketknife. “I still have to talk to him.”
“What about the sheriff’s department? Maybe we should call and tell them what’s been going on,” Curtis suggested, grabbing a pitchfork and shaking loose hay into the mangers.
“Later—when we know more,” Colton said. He’d been an investigative photojournalist for years—lived his life on the edge. He was used to doing things his way and he didn’t like the complications of the law. “Not yet. First we’ll talk to the surrounding ranchers—see if anyone saw anything. There’s still the chance that the horse’ll show up like he did before.”
Curtis’s lips thinned. “If you say so.”
“I just think we should dig a little deeper,” Colton said. “Give it a couple of days. If we don’t find him by the end of the week, I’ll call Mark Gowan at the sheriff’s office.”
“And Denver?”
“Let’s not phone him yet,” Colton decided, knowing how his headstrong older brother would take the news. “It’ll wait until he gets back. There’s nothing more he or Tessa could do.” He sliced the twine on the second bale. “Besides, I still intend to talk to Ivan Aldridge.”
“I don’t envy you that,” Curtis muttered.
Colton grimaced. He wasn’t crazy about facing Cassie’s old man again—but it had to be done. As soon as he checked this place again, he would confront Ivan Aldridge and see what the old man had to say for himself.
And what about Cassie?
Colton sighed loudly and rubbed the back of his neck. Oh, yes, what about Cassie? There had to be some way to get her off his mind. All night long he’d dreamed of her, imagined the scent of her lingering on his sheets, envisioned the soft, blue-black waves of her hair tumbled in wanton disarray against his pillow, pictured in his mind’s eye the creamy white texture of her skin and the soft pink pout of her lips.
Whether he wanted to or not, sooner or later he’d have to face her again.
* * *
Cassie slipped the bridle over Macbeth’s broad head. A rangy roan gelding with a mean streak, he snorted his disgust and sidestepped as she climbed onto his wide back.
“Come on, fella, show me what you’ve got,” she whispered, leaning forward and digging her heels into his ribs. The horse took off, ears flattened, neck extended, as he galloped over the soggy earth.
A low-hanging sun cast weak rays across the fields, gilding the green grass and streaking the sky in vibrant hues of orange and magenta.
The wind caught in Cassie’s hair, tangling it as she