Epilogue
Hawk
B ecause Operation Ghost Horses was going to be the end of the night, I had the whole day to get through first before my bit started.
So far, I had done what work I could while the whole ranch was buzzing with energy.
It transferred to the horses, and I’d been working with Rowdy—for whatever reason I had done that to myself, I don’t know.
It had all led to me being nearly clobbered in the head by a hoof when he heard something from farther away and reared with excitement.
With Carter busy helping with the final things and keeping Mom from tearing her hair out when yet another thing went slightly awry, I hadn’t even gotten a kiss, let alone any afternoon delight from my man.
That was fine, I’d get him later. Besides, it was almost time to paint the horses and that’d take a good while.
We’d decided to paint them in my barn, because it was furthest away from everything else, and once the paint dried, we could just sneak them closer to where we wanted them to for the big finale.
Once we agreed on OGH—Mom really liked her acronyms—Fern had started to add it to the advertising. There was a story online on the ranch’s social media pages about the tale of the ghost horses that might come out on Halloween night to signal the ending of the event.
She’d even hired a videographer whose assistant would be around to take pictures, too.
My sister had such a keen mind for this kind of stuff, of making the most of any situation that might work for advertising and getting more social media following, that I was impressed.
I wouldn’t have thought spending all that money would be worth it. I might have said that to Carter who had laughed at me in a very “oh you sweet summer child” kind of way.
I wasn’t even mad. I could admit when I didn’t know something, and then I’d leave it to the experts.
I went downstairs from my office to meet Demi, Mal, and Wyanne. They had Jaina and Humphrey already cross-tied on the aisle.
“I grabbed them both for us,” Mal said from where he was grooming Jaina.
“Thanks, man. Sorry I got dragged into that phone call.”
Demi came in from the tack room with the paints in her hands. “So, we’re thinking that we need to braid their manes out of the way.”
“Makes sense.” I grabbed a brush and started to work on Humphrey.
“Is this door fine?” Wyanne asked, pointing at a stall door where she was about to tape a large poster of a horse.
“That’s good.” It didn’t matter much. “Where’d you get the poster?”
Demi grinned. “Amazon, where else?”
It was a nice one, with the outline of the horse and the bone structure visible. It was so damn convenient for a reference.
We groomed the horses together, then Demi used some sort of a chalky pen thing to outline the areas that needed to be painted on both of them while the rest of us started with the actual painting.
“Oh, remind me to grab the UV lights from the tack room before we get going,” Wyanne said when we were about halfway done.
“I’m impressed we remembered to paint the same side on each horse,” Mal deadpanned.
We laughed, because yeah, with how they were cross-tied nose to nose on the long aisle, we could’ve easily painted the opposite sides and then the whole thing wouldn’t have worked the way we trained them.
They’d run sort of around the broodmare barn that would be dark for the occasion, and then we could grab them and lead them back here with the unpainted side showing to the people and no one would see them in the dark.
The crowd would be conveniently gathered on the road on the other side of the field they’d run across.
We’d made absolutely sure that there were no obstacles for the horses or for us for the sections we had to move with no light to guide us. It would be easy enough, it wasn’t pitch black anyway, and these two horses, well, they were the best and calmest ones and knew what to do.
Once we were almost done with the painting, Demi looked at me. “Hey, you go have something to eat while we finish this and they dry. Once you come back, you and Wy can walk them to the broodmare barn while Mal and I go to our kids.”
“Sounds good, thanks.” I glanced at Wyanne. “You coming?”
“Actually, sure. I could eat.”
We took an ATV to get closer to the food trucks faster.
It was barely opening time, but there were already people gathering around, parking for the trunk or treating, and as soon as we looked toward the long driveway, we could see a cloud of dust above it.
“I feel like this’ll be our biggest year,” Wy commented.
“Oh, totally. Fern’s social media marketing on the ranch side and tagging the town and such more seems to have done it.”
She grinned. “And our ghost horses.”
“Here’s hoping it’ll look as great as we think it will.”
We’d done a test run and it did look awesome, but who even knew what could go wrong. Even the calmest, best trained horses were still prey animals and could spook, for example.
I parked the ATV behind the barrier on the road to the barns where Tommy was hanging out to make sure nobody tried to go past it.
“Oh hey,” he said brightly, then his expression dimmed. “I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to help with the ghost horses stuff.”
Wyanne patted his shoulder and walked off to likely find her wife and/or their boyfriend who were supposed to come over, too.
I shook my head at Tommy. “You had other responsibilities off ranch, Tommy. It’s fine.” There’d been illness in the family or something like that. “Staying here is more than enough. Shit jobs, right?” I grinned.
He blushed lightly and looked around the folding chair and his travel mug on top of it where he’d be stationed until someone relieved him from it later. “Yeah.”
“We’re grateful you’re willing to sit here. We don’t expect anyone to try to get past the barrier but who knows with people.”
His shoulders squared and he nodded firmly. “Nobody’s getting through here. I’ll keep an eye on things.”
“Good. Want anything from the food trucks while I’m there?”
“Uh… I’m not hungry, but I have coffee in my mug, so anything that goes with that would be nice?”
I smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I continued toward the action, hoping I’d find Carter there somewhere.
Since it was Halloween and the weather was nice, I’d skipped a jacket in favor of a thicker flannel, but with my jeans, boots, and ballcap, I looked much like I always did. By the time I’d greeted the sixth person, I wished I was less easy to spot.
Dad was chatting with Mr. Reilly by the coffee truck, so I dodged a couple of people and went to them instead.
“There you are, Hawk.” Dad smiled, clapping my shoulder. “I was just telling Joe here that he needs to ask you about which of the yearlings might work best for his purposes.”
I shook Reilly’s hand. “Mr. Reilly. If you want to call me Monday morning, we can figure that out.”
He was in his mid-sixties and one of those older guys who had had trouble accepting my methods.
I’d worked with one of their best working horses a couple of years back when she had spooked in a trailer and gotten injured, then refused to go anywhere near one come hell or high water.
Retraining had been easy for me, but all of the Reilly clan was still in awe of how quickly I got her into a trailer again.
“Thank you, Hawk. I’ll do that.”
I got my coffee and then walked to a churro line next. I’d get one for myself for dessert and a couple for Tommy to occupy his time.
I was looking around the area, trying to decide what I’d eat for my early dinner, when a child collided with my legs.
“Uncle Hawk!” Payton peered at me, grinning widely.
He had his first tooth missing from the front and he’d laughed at the idea of a tooth fairy, apparently. Then he’d told his dads to wait until he’d lost four more and just hand him five bucks instead.
“Hey, kiddo. Where’s your—where’s Crew?”
“Dad’s talking to Mimi over there.” He waved a hand.
I frowned, trying to figure out where they were. When I saw Crew and Mom talking, I realized he’d called Crew “Dad.”
“Oh, Crew’s Dad now?” I asked him.
Payton shrugged casually. “Yeah. I figured why not. Daddy’s always gonna be Daddy, you know. And if we’re gonna live together, I can’t really call him Crew all the time. That’s just weird.”
I chuckled. Fair point. “Do you want a churro?” I asked him when we could approach the counter.
“I wish. But I can’t. I had half a dinner and Mimi says no more sweets until trunk or treating.”
That’s when I saw the pumpkin shaped bucket he was holding. “Wait, I didn’t see your costume.”
Payton stepped back and did a slow turn.
“You’re… a cowboy?” I asked, feeling confused as fuck.
“Yeah! Like Dad and Daddy!” He grinned widely. Then he looked thoughtful for a second before adding, “And pretty much everyone else here too.”
“You are on a ranch, bud,” I joked.
“No, really?” Ah, sarcasm. That was a new development.
The vendor waved away my money, so I took my churros and was about to step away, when Crew got to us.
“Hey.” He beamed a little.
“Hey. Do you mind if Payton delivers this to Tommy over there?” I asked, pointing toward the road to the barns.
“Oh, Dad, can I?” Payton asked, excited as hell.
Crew’s beaming reached astronomical levels. “Sure. Just come right back, okay?”
Payton handed his bucket to Crew, then grabbed the bag very carefully and dashed off.
“Dad, huh?” I asked.
Crew grinned. “Yeah. It’s new.”
“I figured. I asked.”
We chuckled, because Crew immediately knew I’d gotten a thorough explanation.
“Mal almost ready?” he asked, watching Payton’s progress like the parent he now was.
“Yeah. Wy and I are grabbing food and then going to move the horses.”
“Good. Well, good luck with it!” He clapped my shoulder, which seemed to be the go-to gesture of the men in my family today.
I grabbed a couple of hotdogs and scarfed them down, then had my coffee and churro while walking around a little more.
People were having a good time already.