lounge that very same night when he’d tossed his head back taking a drink of beer and a vertebra in his neck had snapped in half.
Gunnar definitely didn’t want Timmy’s neck to finish breaking on his watch. So he stood on the lawn of the church holding his now purring excuse to still be there, and watched MacBain open the truck’s passenger door and hoist his son inside. He handed the boy a cell phone and told him to call his mother, then walked to the trailer just as Katy led a delicate-featured, long-legged horse down the ramp.
Gunnar knew riding horses, and this one was a beauty for its age, which he estimated to be early twenties, even though it appeared to have the physique of a teenager. Katy silently handed the lead line to her brother, then ran back up the ramp and reemerged one minute later with a bridle tossed over her shoulder and carrying a well-worn English saddle.
If finally dawned on Gunnar that brother and sister weren’t talking because he was there.
Yeah, well, tough. He wasn’t leaving until someone told him what in hell had just happened. Because he was pretty sure dead cats shouldn’t be loudly purring or licking a young boy’s tears off their paws. And he also wanted to know why MacBain appeared to be angry at his sister.
Gunnar glanced over his shoulder, then walked up the slight knoll and sat down on the church steps, figuring a little distance might make them forget he was there again. He absently brushed pieces of hay out of Tuxedo Tim’s fur as he watched MacBain take off the wrappings protecting Quantum’s legs while Katy saddled her horse and then slipped off its halter and put on its bridle—the silent dance revealing the duo had done this often over the years.
MacBain tossed the leg wrappings into the trailer, lifted the heavy steel ramp as though it were made of plastic, walked over to Katy, and grabbed her raised leg and lifted her onto Quantum’s back, then quickly grabbed hold of the horse’s bridle. “I’m dropping off the two geldings at Inglenook, then helping Duncan ferry the mare across the fjord to his house. When I’m done, I’ll swing by and give ye a ride back here to your truck.”
“Thank you, but I have too much to do today to hang around Inglenook. I’ll get a ride with someone headed to town,” Katy said, urging Quantum forward.
MacBain held fast. “I’ll pick ye up in four hours.”
“You’ll be wasting your time, because I won’t be there.”
When her second attempt to leave merely resulted in Quantum’s hind end sweeping in an arc as its head stayed in place, Gunnar heard Katy’s sigh all the way from the church steps. “Leave it be, Robbie,” she said, her eyes pleading. “And don’t ye say anything to Mum. I don’t want . . . I can’t . . . please, just leave it alone.”
MacBain studied her face for nearly a minute, his features drawn, before he simply let go of the bridle and silently stepped away.
Immediately, Katy urged Quantum into a trot up the side of the road, checked over her shoulder for traffic, then crossed just beyond the station driveway. MacBain moved to the front of his truck and watched as she broke into a canter the moment she reached the recreational trail, which Gunnar knew ran past the turnoff to Inglenook some six or seven miles north of town.
So nope, he wasn’t the reason for their silence. He didn’t know what Katy wanted her brother to leave be, but the woman obviously had no intention of discussing it with him now or later. Nor her mother, apparently.
It never ceased to amaze Gunnar the personal stuff he could learn about people on the Internet. Then again, he’d learned something just as interesting in person today. Even though these Scots were undeniably protective of their women, the women weren’t afraid to stand up to them. At least Katy wasn’t.
As soon as she’d ridden out of sight, MacBain walked around to the driver’s door, climbed in, and said something to his son, then started the truck and pulled onto the road also heading north.
Without Tuxedo Tim.
“Hey, miracle cat,” Gunnar said, gently grasping its chin in mid-lick to make it look at him. “Besides rising from the dead, can you really talk? Only to Angus or to anyone? Because I was wondering if you could tell me what in hell just happened here.”
When the cat’s