“I’d buy her in a minute.”
“She’s not for sale.”
“SILAS! What is going on?”
Silas kept her in suspense, then said, “If you want her, she’s yours.”
Molly was dumfounded. Nothing was making sense. Silas was lying to her. He was too nervous to tell her something he needed to tell her.
“Huh?”
“If you want her, she’s yours.”
“Okay, Silas. Enough with the games. What’s going on?”
“Bart bought her for you. She’s a gift from Bart if you want her.”
Molly almost fell down. Her heart was pounding and her head was spinning. Huh?
“Bart wanted to put her in the exercise program to see if you might be interested. If you weren’t, my instructions were to sell her at the end of the month. If you were, he wanted me to let you know she’s yours.”
Molly didn’t even know where to start.
“Does Bart know Ginger?”
“No, he’s never seen Ginger.”
“SILAS!! Stop it right now. What the Hell is going on?”
Molly watched as Silas was gathering his thoughts. “I think it goes like this. But most of this is second hand. I might not have it all right. Bart can tell you the whole story when he comes out.”
Molly was looking at Silas in disbelief. He couldn’t look back at her. He was looking over the top of the corral at the North Cascades in the distance.
“Bart knew Jo was in her final days and that you’d soon be looking for a horse. He asked Kitty and me to start looking around for you.”
“You know Kitty?”
“We’ve been in touch.”
“Oh, good grief. Okay, go on.”
“Kitty found Ginger, and Bart authorized the buy on his last visit. Kitty arranged shipment through Charlie to Summer’s End.”
“So Charlie was in on it from the get go.”
“Yes, you can disregard everything Charlie told you. All bold-faced lies.”
“Except that part of it was right. Instead of a rich man buying Ginger as a surprise for his daughter, it was Bart buying Ginger as a surprise for me.”
“Yes. Did you fall for it?”
“Hook, line, and sinker. How’d Kitty know I’d fall for Ginger?”
Molly knew the answer to that before the words were out of her mouth.
“Can you imagine any horsewoman who wouldn’t fall in love with that horse?”
“No.”
