AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She laughed. “I know what you mean. Dusty gives me a hard time about Mattie being a diva when she’s at home. Don’t tell him I said so, but he’s right. She has her own Facebook page. I love her and she takes care of me whether it’s in the show pen or trying to get down a steep slope with bad footing. Out on the trail or when I’m packing in, she may be the best mount I’ve ever had.”
Spence looked at her. “Not to mention rustling mustangs.”
“I don’t rustle—I relocate.”
He laughed again. “Let me get this straight, you pack in and out into remote fires on a multiple world champion horse?”
She grinned. “Yep. Like I said, she’s a great trail horse. Steady as they come and extremely sure footed. I learned early on to let her pick her own way. She’s never gotten us into trouble.”
He nodded. “I know what you mean. Tank is like that. I never worry when I put a foot in the stirrup. I know exactly who I’m getting on. He is the most consistent horse I’ve ever owned. I don’t know what I’ll do when I have to find his replacement.”
“He’s not that old, is he?”
“He’s fourteen. I figure I have probably four to six more competitive years. Then he gets to retire to hang out and just be my trail riding horse. But it takes almost that long to develop a rope horse who can compete at that level, and that’s if they have even half of his talent. I’m starting to look now for a youngster I can bring along slowly. Tank was the easiest horse I ever trained. Once he knew how to hold that steer at the end of the rope, he was dead on. And the funny thing is, he makes the adjustment between a full-grown steer at the rodeo and a calf at a horse show.”
“Those cattle events —all of them, roping, working cow, and cutting—just mesmerize me.”
They rode on, talking about their pasts, various competitions they’d been at and people they knew in common. Finally, they rode across a meadow, stopping at a stream to let the horses have a drink.
Surrounded by the gentle noises of nature, Spence’s face grew serious. “Can we talk a little about Dulcie?” She nodded but looked away. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
Harper straightened her shoulders and turned back to him. The look on her face was the same one he’d seen when she competed—determined. “Ask me anything. I want us to catch whoever did this.”
“What’s your safe word?”
The grim look was replaced by a soft smile. “Red.”
“I’ll be the one doing the catching. There is nousin this investigation.”
She shook her head. “Don’t kid yourself, cowboy; the chances of my not being involved are non-existent. Either you let me in, or I’ll freeze you out and go after the killer myself.”
“You have no authority to arrest anybody.”
“Who says I’d arrest the sonofabitch. I get it, Spence, you’re the ranger, the lawman, but I’m Dulcie’s kid sister, and I want to put whoever did this in the ground.”
The look of determination was back. He’d need to find a way that let her feel she was involved while keeping her out of things in which she didn’t need to be. He nodded. “Duly noted. So, tell me about Dulcie herself. Tell me the things only her kid sister would know. Don’t tell me the whats, whens, wheres and hows of her life. Tell me who she was.”
“She was older than me by four years and four inches shorter. That used to bug the shit out of her. She was the oddest combination of the quintessential blond California surfer girl and the kind of upscale, polished ladies you find in San Francisco, Sonoma, and the old wine country. She was most definitely my mother’s daughter—they loved to shop, have lunch, and attend all the art exhibitions, the ballet, and that uptown girly stuff. And in case you’re wondering, I was much happier in jeans, cowboy boots, and a t-shirt.”
Harper laughed as a memory flashed before her eyes.
“Do you know the first time she attended the Kentucky Derby, everyone thought she was eye candy for one of the owners or trainers? They were shocked when she flipped out her badge—she loved having a badge—and told a well-known trainer the Jockey Club had a few questions for him about a horse that had died a couple of weeks before. Walked right into the saddling area in a tight skirt, huge Derby hat and a pair of stiletto heels.” Harper laughed again. “God, she could make that work for her. She was just beautiful.”
Spence wondered if Harper had been compared to her fashionable sister and found wanting. “So are you, but in a far subtler way.”
“No, Dulcie was a knockout. She had the perfect hair, the perfect figure—a lot of times she looked like she’d stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine. I’m not sure any of them wouldn’t take a look at me and think me unworthy of even buying their magazine.”
“Then they don’t know you at all. You might not be as flashy as Dulcie—for one thing I can’t see you in one of those over-the-top Derby hats—but any man who slows down long enough to take a good look is not going to be interested in looking anywhere else.” The smallest of blushes crept back up her cheeks. “I hate to ask this…”
“Let me stop you right there. You ask whatever you need to ask about Dulcie. I want her killer found and punished. I’ll try not to second-guess you or take offense. If I do, just remind me that your one objective is to catch whoever did this to my sister.”
“That was my first objective, now I have two.”
“Well, let’s hope you’re better at achieving your first one than you will be with your second one.”
“Trust me, I always achieve whatever I set out to. What I was going to ask was if Dulcie used her beauty to achieve her own ends? I don’t mean that in a bad way, but sometimes a woman’s beauty can be a deadly weapon in her arsenal against the bullshit of the world.”
Harper seemed to think for a minute. “Sometimes, but not in the way I think you might mean. She knew she was beautiful and if she thought the easiest way to get some guy to do what she wanted was to flash a little cleavage or a little leg, she wasn’t above doing it. Not in a trashy kind of way, though. I mean, I’ve seen her reduce intelligent, well-spoken, polished men to gibbering idiots who couldn’t put a coherent sentence together. But she never made them feel that way. She never rubbed their noses in it.”
