Page 57 of Jorhee

JESSE

Never underestimate royalty on a mission, especially if family is involved.

Less than eight days later, I found myself standing at the spaceport, watching in joyful anticipation as three hundred twenty-seven horses of all ages were unloaded from a freighter, with a team of veterinarians arriving alongside them. Two of those horses were Socks and Meadow. The rest were several members of the wild mustang herd and more horses from various auction houses.

“They’ll be groggy when they first awake, so we’ll do them in small batches,” the head vet informed us.

“Your three horses will be first.”

“Three?” I asked. “I was unaware all of the auction horses had found other homes. I thought there were four more than that joining our herd. Two older geldings and two mares.”

“I meant your personal ones,” he corrected himself.

I was still confused until Ted stepped forward.

“Ted! What are you doing here?”

“Well, seeing as my wife was tricking me into helping her—and I swear, until that night at the dinner table, I knew nothingabout any of it—I reckoned I owed you a solid. Um, I thought Johree might like a horse to ride with you. And if so, I knew he’d need a very big horse. I figured a Clydesdale would do the trick, so I might have talked with Dad and arranged the purchase of one, along with the custom saddle and tack.”

“And you came all the way out here to gift it personally? Are you insane?”

“I married Lauren, didn’t I?” he deadpanned.

Despite myself, I snorted out a laugh.

“Besides, I kind of thought it best to get outta Dodge for a while, seeing as I was having her served with divorce papers, and she’s being arraigned in a few days on the fraud charges and all.” He peered up at the cambots swarming the place while their owners stayed a respectful distance. “Looks like the press is out in force here too. They descended on the ranch and town like vultures.”

“I’d like to ban all of the paparazzi types, but unfortunately, that would only create ill will, so we let Bob screen them instead.”

Ted laughed. “Yeah, the captain was telling us about that.”

“He let the entire ship hear Bob’s knock-knock joke,” the lead vet added.

“Are you serious?”

“It’s getting to be a thing,” Ted confirmed. “The captain said there are leaderboards for who has heard the most Bob jokes, who finished the joke for him, and who tells him a joke he’s never heard before.”

“Huh.” I blinked.

More proof the universe is infinitely weirder than I could ever have imagined.

Then I saw them. First Meadow, then Socks, upright in their containment boxes, looking as if they’d fallen asleep standing up.

“Hello, sweethearts!” I said softly, running up to touch their boxes.

“And this is Charlie,” Ted said as a third containment box stopped beside us.

“Oh, wow. He’s magnificent.”

Johree stared at Charlie. “And he is not afraid of Dragonii?” he asked.

“Nope, not at all. The one from the nearest center to where he was came with me to make sure before we bought him.”

“Thank you, Ted. I look forward to bonding with him as Jesse has with Socks and Meadow.”

“I’m sure he’ll love you and that you’ll be riding in practically no time at all,” I reassured my mate.

“I will work hard on my riding lessons.”