Chapter 26
twenty-six
B riar Prescott enjoyed the easy gait of her horse beneath her. Sagebrush performed every movement with grace and power, and she didn’t make Briar ask twice.
Once Briar had put her through her exercises for the day, she moved her into a walk and adjusted her cowgirl hat so that it covered her face, ears, and neck.
In the open pasture, she closed her eyes and tipped her head back, memories of a life that belonged to a different woman from a different time crowding into her mind.
They’d been doing that a lot more since Tucker Hammond had bought the farm and facilities and turned it into rodeo training grounds.
The very thing Briar had retreated from had caught up to her.
The movement of Sagebrush beneath her was as familiar as breathing, and Briar knew the exact moves it would take to go from sitting in the saddle to standing in it. She’d had extraordinary balance her whole life—even after that fateful day that had changed everything for her.
“You’re a fool if you think you can outrun the rodeo,” she told herself.
Her eyes opened as Sagebrush lifted her head, and Briar reached for the reins to hold the horse exactly where she wanted her. If she hadn’t wanted anything to do with rodeo, or cowboys, or country living. Briar could’ve chosen a city to settle in. Veterinary assistants were needed everywhere.
A slip of guilt moved through her that not everyone who worked at Tucker’s place knew she wasn’t a full-fledged vet. In fact, Briar suspected he was the only one who knew—and he hadn’t even told Tarr, his best friend.
Oh, Tarr Olson was going to be the death of Briar.
She’d known it from the moment she’d laid eyes on him several months ago, framed in the doorway of the mansion Tucker had bought.
Tarr had been staying there and getting it ready for him while Tuck was off training one of his newest stars.
And Wiggins, the dog with a wandering heart of gold, had immediately sniffed out the weakest link on the ranch.
Tarr.
He was as dark as midnight on the outside and as bright as noon in his personality. Even now, a small curve lifted her lips, and Briar scoffed out a sound of disgust as she straightened her mouth back to flat.
But Tarr was personable and funny, extremely good-looking, and talented with every animal he encountered.
She shelved him in her mind, the way she’d been doing since she met him. It would do no good to dwell on things she couldn’t have—just like she tried not to let her thoughts linger on a life that had come and gone.
“This is your life now,” she said out loud, her voice firm, almost demanding that she recognize it and admit how good it had become.
She had virtually no bills, and the responsibilities around her small cabin and parcel of land were things she actually enjoyed doing. She got to spend the rest of her time with cattle and horses and goats.
Oh, the goats. She’d found she quite enjoyed them—and she’d met an unexpected friend in Bobbie Jo Hanks. The woman reminded her of the friends Briar had once had, but with far less makeup and hairspray.
Bobbie Jo was tough, strong-willed, and smart. She also knew when to let others lead, and she’d allowed Tucker to rope her heart completely, both things Briar had never been good at.
Bobbie Jo and Tuck would be married in only another couple of weeks, and since Bobbie Jo had been hanging out here at the farm for eight months now, she’d asked Briar to walk in the wedding party as a bridesmaid. By some miracle, Briar had agreed.
“Let’s go back, girl,” Briar said to Sagebrush, and she gently guided her with her heels to turn and head back to the epicenter of the farm, where Tucker had been gracious enough to allow Briar to stable her horse.
She’d lost sight of Wiggins at some point, and now she reached up, put her fingers in her mouth, and whistled. That usually got the mutt to come if he was anywhere within hearing distance.
She’d found the dog on her solo trek from Calgary to Colorado, and she’d bonded with the stray instantly. They’d both been cast out, left behind, and forced to find their own way in the world.
But they approached things very differently these days.
Wiggins thought every human or other living creature he met had come just to see him. He loved them all and had enough room in his heart to take them as they were.
Briar, on the other hand, had closed every door around her. Built walls as high as she could. She actually did manifestation exercises where she told herself she didn’t need anyone else. The only person she could trust was herself—and she shouldn’t even try with others.
The previous owner of the facility had been kind, yet distant, and allowed Briar to participate on the ranch as she saw fit. But Tuck and Tarr were humans cut from a separate cloth—one where they wanted the people around them to be like family instead of acquaintances.
She and Tucker had actually had one quite heated conversation about exactly that, and it had been Bobbie Jo who’d finally laid her hand on Tucker’s forearm, looked at him, and said, “Not everyone is like you. Let her be who she is.”
That was only another reason Briar liked Bobbie Jo so much.
To be honest, Tucker’s status had lifted significantly as he’d acquiesced to his fiancée, looked at Briar with that blazing fire still burning in his eyes, and said, “All right, Briar. As long as you keep showing up to work and doing a good job, I’ll leave you alone about this. ”
And he had.
He’d stopped insisting she come for Sabbath day meals, or to their rodeo parties and send-offs. She attended staff meetings every Thursday morning, and she did her job as requested.
As she neared the new goat enclosure that Tarr had just finished building for Bobbie Jo, she heard the pathetic bleating of several kids. Her ears perked up at the same time her pulse did.
“That’s not right,” she said, swinging Sagebrush in the direction of the enclosure.
The older goats had an enormous pasture that they also grazed in, and when Briar looked over to the fence, she found dozens of them pressed up against the barrier keeping them away from the babies that Bobbie Jo had separated.
They shifted and bleated too. Something was definitely wrong.
Briar slid from her horse as easily as taking another step and quickly lashed the reins over the top of the fence post, all while still moving toward the enclosure.
Another round of panicked bleating filled the air, and Briar’s eyes searched right, left, right, left, looking for the source of commotion and turmoil.
She opened the gate and entered the enclosure, careful to close the latch behind her.
Just because they were only a half-hour from Denver didn’t mean there weren’t wild animals out here.
There were. Thus, the reason for the enclosure to keep the kids safe from predators who’d like to eat them for lunch.
The kids came running down the side of the Goatel that Tarr had built—all of them in a herd, their high-pitched voices screaming into the sky.
They crowded into the corner only a few feet from Briar, and she came to a complete standstill when she saw the coyote crouched low to the ground, in hunting mode.
When she’d worked in the wilds of Calgary, she’d had to carry a whistle with her, not only to scare off predators but to alert others of problems. Briar had no whistle now, but she quickly put her fingers in her mouth and fired off the shrillest sound she could manage.
The coyote froze, but only its eyes moved to her. Its tall ears stayed forward, and it remained hunched low to the ground.
She held up both hands, trying to make herself seem bigger, and she yelped as loudly as she could, the way she’d been taught by some First Nations people in Canada.
“How’d you get in here?” she asked the coyote, as if it might answer. She took a step back, wondering if, when she opened the gate, it would simply run past her. The animal didn’t seem to have any blood around its mouth, but he’d frozen and wasn’t giving her any ground.
Briar whistled again, and this time, the coyote backed up one low step.
“I need help here!” she yelled as loud as she could, hoping someone would be leaving the stable or the barn and would come her way.
She didn’t know what time it was or what Tuck had scheduled at the facility that day.
She only knew it was her day off, and that she needed to work with Sagebrush to keep the horse healthy and exercised.
She’d done that. This afternoon, she’d planned to go to the grocery store, then pick up the bridesmaid’s dress she’d ordered and had to have altered.
The coyote growled—and then it laughed at her. Chilling, high-pitched yips that made Briar clap her hands over her ears.
The goats in the other pasture bleated and cried. The babies did too.
Briar needed to get out of the enclosure. She needed to take the babies with her. Or should she stay? Get them into the Goatel and then try to deal with the coyote?
Why are you trying to deal with a coyote at all? she asked herself. Wasn’t her life more important than a goat?
Indecision ran through her, along with her warring thoughts, until she felt confused and clouded. She backed up slowly, reached the gate, and opened it.
She stood behind it to protect herself from the coyote when she heard another growl—this time, on her right.
She watched in horror as a second wild animal pushed itself under the fence on the south side, where they had clearly dug a hole. Panic streamed through her. She whistled again. And again. “Help!” she yelled.
Then she remembered her phone. She gripped the gate with her left hand, her fingers tight around the wire, and reached into her back pocket with the other.
The horrible calls of the coyotes—yipping, laughing, chattering—filled the air as Briar typed in her passcode and saw that someone had texted her.
Tarr.
She didn’t bother to read the message. She tapped his name, then tapped the phone icon, looking up to find where the coyotes were.
One of them now stood five feet from her—clearly unafraid.
Briar yelled, “Help!” and kicked the gate, trying to scare the coyote and get it to back up. It did, but it didn’t go far.
Tarr finally answered on the third ring. “Hey, Briar, did you get my message? I need?—”
“Tarr,” she said, cutting him off. “There are coyotes in the Goatel. I need help.”
Tarr said nothing. More animal sounds filled the sky—one horrible scream from a kid that could only mean it had been caught.
Briar didn’t dare look.
She yelled into the phone, “I’m in the enclosure, and there are coyotes here! Help me!”
Then she screamed too, unleashing all of her fear and panic into one horrible, primal sound—and then she ran at the wild canine only a few feet from her.