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It took longer than I expected, but a few hours later, three trucks pulling horse trailers came rumbling up the drive. Murphy and I headed over to meet them.
“So, how’d it go?” she asked.
Cruz’s eyes met mine, and I could tell the interaction with Elmer had gone just about as well as I’d expected. “Well, needless to say, he was less than thrilled, but we had both Eli and Trent with us, so there wasn’t much he could do about it.”
“You got all ten?” I asked.
“Nine,” he said. “One of the horses belonged to one of the hands, and when we showed up, he was getting ready to clear out. Gibson took a look at his horse and could tell he’d been well cared for, so we let him load her up and get on out of there. Sounded like he was on his way home to Oklahoma.”
“Who was that?” I asked. I wasn’t even sure who still worked there.
“Some kid named Travis. Guess he hadn’t been working there long and was happy to give Eli his information so he could get in touch with him later if we needed to get his statement.”
Murphy circled back to us after taking stock of all the horses in the trailer. “They all look half-starved, but I don’t see any visible injuries. We cleaned out the back paddock for them.”
“Yeah, Gibson will give them all a more in-depth exam now that we have them here. Most of the injuries we saw seem to be a couple weeks old, so we’re thinking he knew Lance had contacted someone so he laid off, hoping they would have time to heal.”
“Sounds about right,” I grumbled. The process was so slow it was no wonder how so many assholes got away with shit like this.
“We’ll pull back there and see if we can get them unloaded. You want to get the gate for us, Nash?”
“Sure thing.” I cut through the field to the gate on the far side and pulled it open wide so Cruz could back up to it, and we could get the horses unloaded.
I didn’t know what the odds were that old man Warner would pay for the mistreatment of his horses, but at least we had them here with us now so we could make sure they were healthy.
Chapter 21
Spencer
“I think there must be something in the water,” Shay said. “We aren’t usually this busy on a Wednesday.”
We’d been running non-stop from the second we opened the doors this morning, and this was the first chance we’d had to take a break of any kind.
“I know. It’s a madhouse. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was a full moon.” I leaned over close to her ear so she was the only one who could hear me. “I bet Doctor Meyers is regretting telling Tonya she’d take Wednesdays from now on.”
“Probably.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see a text from Nash.
Daddy: Hey, cutie, have you had lunch yet?
Me: No, not yet. We’ve been slammed.
Daddy: I hear you. Things are crazy at the ranch, too.
Me: Funny how adding nine horses all at once will do that lol.
Daddy: True. But I did manage to use a trip to the feed store as an excuse to slip away and bring you something to eat.
Nash had taken to popping by with lunch at least once or twice a week when he could get away from the ranch. I’m pretty sure my Daddy didn’t trust me to feed myself at work, but then, maybe he had good reason. We just got so busy I often forgot to make the time for it, but Nash had been working to improve my habits, and I had to admit I really liked having someone take care of me like that. It was just too bad we were so slammed I wouldn’t even have time to sit and eat with him.
Me: I don’t know if I’ll have time for an actual lunch break. I can just grab something from the vending machine.
Daddy: No, you can’t. You need real food so you can keep your energy up. I’ll drop something off for you. What do you want? Tacos or a burger from the diner?
Me: Burger, please…with onion rings?
I looked at Shay. “Nash is bringing me lunch from the diner. Do you want anything?”
