Chapter 13
thirteen
S omething spooked that horse, boy.
Mission heard the words in his head in his grandfather’s voice, but they could have just as easily come from God.
He currently knelt in the grass next to Molly, and he quickly got to his feet and looked around. One moment she’d been riding along, the horse moving perfectly fluid and gentle as normal. He’d worked plenty with Lady, and the horse never had a problem.
They’d thankfully almost been back to the stables, and Boone had heard Lady scream and come running outside.
Mission had been the closest to Molly, and he’d barked at the girls in front of him to join their group quickly. Then he’d galloped to where she’d been lying on the grass after being thrown from Lady’s back.
“Dear Lord,” he prayed right out loud. “I cannot have this happen again.”
It’s not a stampede . The words sounded like Granddad. This is not your fault. But something spooked that horse, boy.
He held up one hand as a couple more cowboys came running.
“Lady totally spooked!” he yelled, his eyes roaming the grass in front of him. “There’s something here.”
Then he heard the rattling.
“Snakes.” Panic gripped him right behind the throat, and he forced himself to take a breath—to reason through the fear, to think rationally.
Frantic, he scanned the area in front of Molly, then near her head, where her honey blonde hair splayed out across her shoulders as well as the ground. How in the world could he tell Hunter that something had happened to his wife while on Mission’s watch?
He wouldn’t have to. This was an accident, and Molly had been in them before.
He looked beyond her, and there—probably eight feet away—sat the coiled rattlesnake.
“It’s just past her,” he called. “I think there’s some over in this long grass too.”
“No, she’s not waking up,” Boone said into his phone as he approached.
Mission moved around Molly and stood between her and the snake while Boone knelt down to check on her. “She has a pulse. She’s just been knocked out. She got thrown off the back of her horse.”
“There’s definitely rattlesnakes over here too,” Zeke called. “Whoo-ee, there’s three of them over here!”
“All right,” Mission said calmly. “I’ve got my eye on this one. You keep your eye on those.”
“Yes, boss,” Zeke said.
“Eli.”
“Right here,” Eli said from Mission’s left shoulder.
“Come stand next to me and get your eyes on this snake.”
He did.
“You see it right there?”
“I see it, boss.”
“I’m gonna send out a farm-wide text. The moment you see it move, you tell me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mission’s thumbs flew over his phone. At least four rattlesnakes on the south side of the stables and barn. Keep everyone away.
He sent that text and immediately started another one.
Lady bolted with Molly on her back. She got thrown and is currently passed out. Boone’s called 911 and the paramedics will be coming. Anyone who sees Lady, please secure her and get her back to the stable for an assessment as soon as possible.
I don’t think we need more men over here right now, so please just hold where you are, especially if you have kids with you.
He looked up. The clear blue sky was suddenly the wrong color. How could this happen on such a perfect day? Why did it have to happen here, in only his third week of being foreman?
There have been snakes on this farm before. This time, the voice belonged to him, and it was calm and rational.
Mission turned to Eli. “Hunter is going to come out.”
“I’d come out if it was my wife too,” Eli said.
“Paramedics will be here in seven minutes,” Boone said.
Mission nodded. “She still hasn’t woken up, even a little bit?”
Boone shook his head. “Did she hit her head?”
Since Mission didn’t have to watch the snake anymore, he pressed his eyes closed and rewound time to when he’d heard Lady scream. Of course, he’d immediately looked over. Molly was already falling from the saddle as the horse beneath her bolted away.
“She hit the ground hard ,” Mission said. “Couldn’t catch herself at all.”
“I bet she hit her head then. Might have a concussion,” Boone said. “She’s breathing real good right now.”
Mission’s phone rang, and Deacon’s name sat there. Deacon had grown up with Molly as Hunter’s wife, and Mission knew they were close. He took a steadying breath and swiped on the call.
“Paramedics are six minutes out,” he said. “Molly is still passed out. She hit the ground pretty hard, sir. I’ve got the boys bringing out poles to collect the snakes.”
“Right here!” Zeke called. “They’re here. Mish, they’re here right now with the poles.”
He nodded over to Zeke and tried to focus on the phone call. “We’ll try to clear them before the paramedics get here, so they don’t have to worry about the snakes while they’re trying to take care of Molly.”
“Good,” Deacon said. “Hunter is on his way over.”
“Of course,” Mission said.
“I’m in the north quadrant. I can come if you need me,” Deacon offered.
Mission hesitated because he wanted to be strong enough to handle this situation on his own. But Deacon knew every sort of detail of Mission’s past, and his offer was really a question: Do you need me? I will be there if you need me.
“I got it, boss,” Mission said. “Boone’s here too, and Hunter will be here soon enough.”
“All right then,” Deacon drawled. “We’ll catch up when I get back to center.”
“Yes, sir,” Mission said.
For the longest time, Deacon had told everyone that they didn’t need to call him sir. While he was fifteen years younger than Mission, he owned the farm. He ran it. He was the ultimate boss, and of course, everyone was going to call him sir —including Mission.
“These three are cleared,” Zeke said.
Mission turned away from his thoughts and the phone call to find Eli reaching for one of their snake hooks and Zeke pushing a big blue trash barrel over the ground toward them.
“They’re in here,” he said. “We can take them out and let them go somewhere else.”
“All right,” Mission said. “We don’t hear or see any others. I want everyone to fan out and look. We don’t need paramedics getting bitten.”
They didn’t need anyone getting bit—but that went without saying.
His phone buzzed, and he glanced down to see a text from Clyde. I’ve got Lady and she’s hurt. It doesn’t look good, boss.
His heartbeat didn’t feel normal in his chest, and he wasn’t sure how to get it to stop throbbing so violently against the vein in his neck.
I’ll call Kristie , he said, and the moment that text went through, he tapped to do just that.
She didn’t pick up on the first ring or the second, and Mission turned his back on the cowboys who were scooping up the last rattler and putting it in the bin.
“Come on, Kris,” he muttered under his breath.
Then her bright, “Hey, baby,” came through the line.
They’d been dating for almost three weeks now, and Mission sure liked her a whole lot. She’d settled into calling him “baby” and “cowboy” while he still called her “kitten” and nothing else. But now was no time for flirting.
“I need you at the farm immediately,” he said in his no-nonsense, super-serious cowboy tone. “Molly’s horse got spooked by a snake, and she got thrown—and the horse is injured.”
“Oh, no,” Kristie said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
With that promise, Mission softened. “Thank you, kitten. I haven’t seen the horse yet, but the report from one of my boys is that it’s not good. I’m gonna stay with Molly until Hunter or the paramedics get here. Then I’ll be with Lady.”
“All right,” Kristie said. “I’m just finishing up with a momma pig, but I’m about twenty minutes away.”
Mission gritted his teeth, as there wasn’t much else he could do. “Okay,” he said. “See you soon.” He ended the call just as Hunter rounded the corner at a jog. Mission waved his hand above his head, as if Hunter couldn’t see them standing there.
“Lady got spooked by rattlesnakes,” he said as Hunter approached. “She couldn’t stay on. She hit the ground pretty hard.”
Hunter nodded, and he hurried past Mission to his wife. Torn between staying with Molly and going to find Lady, Mission took a few steps back toward the people who’d given him a place to belong and a second chance at everything.
“Mols,” Hunter said. “Hey, Mols, you gotta wake up, baby, okay?”
She groaned, and Hunter immediately added, “Don’t move, baby. Just wake up for me. Just look at me. Let me see your eyes.”
Boone took a couple of steps away and said, “She’s waking up.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” Mission asked.
“It’s not bad,” Boone said. “Other than now she’s going to be able to feel whatever hurts.”
Mission nodded. “Clyde’s got Lady. He says it’s not great. I’m going to go see what’s going on with that.”
“You called Kristie?”
“She’s on the way.”
“All right. I’ll stay here with Hunt,” Boone said.
“You boys,” Mission called out. “Carver and Samantha are gonna need your help finishing up the riding lesson. Can you get over there and do that? Molly and I were the back riders.”
“You got it, boss,” Zeke and Eli said.
Mission then turned to find his own horse standing several paces away, as if nothing at all had happened. He strode over to Templeton and swung onto his back.
“Come on, boy,” he said. “Let’s go find Lady.”
He moved away from the chaos—though it still existed in his soul.
When he felt certain no one would overhear him, he gripped the reins a little tighter and prayed.
“Dear God, please bless Molly to make it through this with the mildest of injuries. Bless Lady that she won’t be so injured that we can’t save her.
And please, please bless Kristie to get here fast, fast, fast.”