was his colt. It was like the sire had been reincarnated into the son—like Flash had come back to life again, whole and healthy.
Lane’s grandfather had offered to buy Lane a horse the summer he’d turned twenty-one, hoping the idea of training horses would lure him away from the rodeo ring before he got hurt. He’d been willing to pay a high price to keep his grandson safe, and Lane could have bought any horse at the sale.
But the moment he’d seen the big red dun snorting and racing in manic circles around the sale barn corral, he’d thought mine.
Flash had been his first rescue. He couldn’t figure out why nobody wanted the horse, but there was no telling where he would have ended up if Lane hadn’t bought him. Maybe he’d have gone back to his owners, whoever they were—but it was also possible he’d end up on a truck en route to a Mexican slaughtering plant.
He’d never been able to ride the horse—but he’d been able to breed him and keep those bloodlines alive. Cinn was just one of the colts that looked like clones of their sire.
He watched Sarah crying and resisted the urge to help her. She wasn’t the kind of woman who appreciated sympathy. He should go, give her time to recover.
But if she was going to have an emotional breakdown in the ring, somebody had to look out for her safety. You never knew how that kind of thing might affect a horse. Cinn didn’t have the unpredictable blowups that had made his sire so dangerous, but he was still a stallion.
Lane watched from a respectful distance as she rested her cheek against the horse’s neck. Judging from her heaving shoulders, she was having a hard time getting hold of herself. He’d never seen her like this—broken down and utterly beaten.
He was relieved when she bowed her head, blinked, and straightened her shoulders. She patted the horse a few times as if assuring the animal that she’d recovered. Then she stepped back and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
He moved toward the gate and Cinn whinnied in recognition. Sarah spun to see what had riled up the horse, and he was hoping she’d smile when she caught sight of him. But her face was still streaked with tears, and she looked anything but happy.
“Tell me where he came from,” she said, nesting her fingers in the horse’s dark mane. “Who bought Flash? I need to know. Because whoever bought him ruined my family’s life.”
Chapter 31
Sarah and Lane squared off a mere half second before a jaunty tune cut through the air. Sarah slapped at the pockets of her jeans until she found her cell phone in her back pocket. Jerking it out, she cut off Blondie’s “Call Me” mid-song.
“Kelsey.” She stepped away from Lane. “What? No! Where is she?”
Lane frowned. Even the newest rookie trainer knew you didn’t bring a cell phone into the round pen. Maybe she wasn’t such a natural after all. Anyone could make a mistake, but she was carrying on a conversation instead of flicking the phone off and taking care of the horse. And she wasn’t even trying to project a calm demeanor. She was damn near as tense as the horse, snapping out her words, stamping a foot hard on the ground.
He was getting madder by the minute until he noticed that her face was growing paler each time she paused to listen to the caller. Finally, she shoved the phone back in her pocket and strode to the gate, opening it and sliding through. She tried to latch it behind her, fumbled with the mechanism, tried again, and failed. Lane reached over and fixed it.
“My sister’s sick,” she said. “Unconscious. She gets migraines, and Mike thinks—he thinks she’s having a stroke.”
“I’ll drive you over.”
“I’ve got it.”
She ran to the Malibu and flung open the door. With all the clothes heaped in the backseat it looked like the cars parked on the street in city alleys, the ones homeless people crammed all their belongings into. Smushed up against the window he could see a shoe, a purse, and a pack of pink girlie razors.
It took her three tries to get the keys in the ignition, and then she shoved the car in reverse and backed over a grocery bag. She shifted, lurched forward a few feet, stalled the engine, then flailed at the shift knob and backed over the bag again. She swiped away a