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l trying to dispel all thoughts of Colton. “You’re on for the dishes,” she reminded her father as she set her plate in the sink. “I still have to get ready.”
“This is women’s work,” he grunted, but as Cassie cleared the table, Ivan grudgingly started rinsing the dishes and stacking them in the portable dishwasher that Cassie had purchased with her first paycheck from the veterinary clinic.
“You’ll survive,” she predicted. “It’s time you got yourself out of the fifties.”
“I’ve been out of the fifties longer than you’ve been alive.”
She laughed, glad that the subject of Colton McLean had been dropped. “I have to stop by the Lassiter ranch to look at a couple of lambs, then I’ll be at the clinic. I’ll be home around six unless there’s an emergency.”
“I’ll be here or over at Vince Monroe’s. He’s havin’ trouble with his tractor and wants me to take a look at it.”
“You should’ve been a mechanic.”
“I am,” he said, offering her a gentle smile. “I just don’t get paid for it.”
“I don’t know how smart that is,” Cassie called over her shoulder as she dashed upstairs. In her room she changed into a denim skirt and cotton T-shirt, dabbed some makeup on her face and ran a brush through her hair. Yawning, she tried not to think about Colton. He’d already robbed her of a night’s worth of sleep, she thought angrily, remembering how she’d watched the digital clock flash the passing hours while she’d tried and failed to block Colton from her mind. But his image had been with her—his steely eyes, beard-covered chin, flash of white teeth.
“Stop it!” she muttered at her reflection. She had work to do today, and she couldn’t take the time to think about Colton McLean or his missing horse!
* * *
“So what did Aldridge say?” Curtis asked, matching Colton’s long strides with his own shorter steps as Colton strode across the wet yard to the stallion barn. Sunlight pierced through the cover of low-hanging clouds.
“He wasn’t there.”
“So you don’t know any more than you did last night?”
“I talked to Cassie,” Colton muttered, throwing open the door and frowning as he noticed Black Magic’s empty stall. A few soft nickers greeted him, and the smell of horses and dust filled his nostrils.
“Did you now? And what did she have to say?”
One side of Colton’s mouth lifted. “Not much. She held a rifle on me and ordered me off her place.”
“Friendly,” Curtis murmured.
“Hardly.”
“So you didn’t find out anything?”
“Once I convinced her that I’d had enough bullet wounds to last me a while, she finally showed me around the place.”
“And?”
“Nothing,” Colton said quickly, dismissing the subject of Cassie. He’d thought of little else since he’d seen her, but he wasn’t going to get caught up in her again. Not that she wanted him. She’d made it all too clear just how much she loathed him. “Not one sign of Black Magic.”
Curtis frowned as he measured grain into feed buckets. “So you think Ivan wasn’t involved?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Colton admitted, climbing a metal ladder to the hayloft overhead. Damn the horse. Damn Denver! Damn, damn, damn! He kicked a couple bales of hay onto the cement floor and glowered at the empty stall from high above. Why did the damn horse have to disappear now? Using his good arm, he swung to the floor, then slit the baling twine with his pocketknife. “I still have to talk to him.”
“What about the sheriff’s department? Maybe we should call and tell them what’s been going on,” Curtis suggested, grabbing a pitchfork and shaking loose hay into the mangers.
“Later—when we know more,” Colton said. He’d been an investigative photojournalist for years—lived his life on the edge. He was used to doing things his way and he didn’t like the complications of the law. “Not yet. First we’ll talk to the surrounding ranchers—see if anyone saw anything. There’s still the chance that the horse’ll show up like he did before.”
Curtis’s lips thinned. “If you say so.”
“I just think we should dig a little deeper,” Colton said. “Give it a couple of days. If we don’t find him by the end of the week, I’ll call Mark Gowan at the sheriff’s office.”
“And Denver?”
