35. Jesse
JESSE
Never underestimate royalty on a mission, especially if family is involved.
Less than eight days later, I found myself standing at the spaceport, watching in joyful anticipation as three hundred twenty-seven horses of all ages were unloaded from a freighter, with a team of veterinarians arriving alongside them.
Two of those horses were Socks and Meadow.
The rest were several members of the wild mustang herd and more horses from various auction houses.
“They’ll be groggy when they first awake, so we’ll do them in small batches,” the head vet informed us.
“Your three horses will be first.”
“Three?” I asked. “I was unaware all of the auction horses had found other homes. I thought there were four more than that joining our herd. Two older geldings and two mares.”
“I meant your personal ones,” he corrected himself.
I was still confused until Ted stepped forward.
“Ted! What are you doing here?”
“Well, seeing as my wife was tricking me into helping her—and I swear, until that night at the dinner table, I knew nothing about any of it—I reckoned I owed you a solid. Um, I thought Johree might like a horse to ride with you. And if so, I knew he’d need a very big horse.
I figured a Clydesdale would do the trick, so I might have talked with Dad and arranged the purchase of one, along with the custom saddle and tack. ”
“And you came all the way out here to gift it personally? Are you insane?”
“I married Lauren, didn’t I?” he deadpanned.
Despite myself, I snorted out a laugh.
“Besides, I kind of thought it best to get outta Dodge for a while, seeing as I was having her served with divorce papers, and she’s being arraigned in a few days on the fraud charges and all.
” He peered up at the cambots swarming the place while their owners stayed a respectful distance.
“Looks like the press is out in force here too. They descended on the ranch and town like vultures.”
“I’d like to ban all of the paparazzi types, but unfortunately, that would only create ill will, so we let Bob screen them instead.”
Ted laughed. “Yeah, the captain was telling us about that.”
“He let the entire ship hear Bob’s knock-knock joke,” the lead vet added.
“Are you serious?”
“It’s getting to be a thing,” Ted confirmed. “The captain said there are leaderboards for who has heard the most Bob jokes, who finished the joke for him, and who tells him a joke he’s never heard before.”
“Huh.” I blinked.
More proof the universe is infinitely weirder than I could ever have imagined.
Then I saw them. First Meadow, then Socks, upright in their containment boxes, looking as if they’d fallen asleep standing up.
“Hello, sweethearts!” I said softly, running up to touch their boxes.
“And this is Charlie,” Ted said as a third containment box stopped beside us.
“Oh, wow. He’s magnificent.”
Johree stared at Charlie. “And he is not afraid of Dragonii?” he asked.
“Nope, not at all. The one from the nearest center to where he was came with me to make sure before we bought him.”
“Thank you, Ted. I look forward to bonding with him as Jesse has with Socks and Meadow.”
“I’m sure he’ll love you and that you’ll be riding in practically no time at all,” I reassured my mate.
“I will work hard on my riding lessons.”
The vet smiled. “Okay, if you’ll show us the truck you wish to load these onto so we can take them to their stables, that would be great. We’ll wake them up in their stalls.”
I grinned, grabbing Johree’s hand as we led the way to the large transport flitter waiting nearby.
My babies were home, and soon New Haven would be filled with horses with new homes, many of them running free. And none of them would ever have anything to fear again.
I smiled at Johree as we watched the containment boxes being loaded. Buster leaned his head out of the flitter, his tail wagging as he recognized his old buddies from the ranch.
“Hello there, buddy!” Ted said, hurrying over to scratch him behind the ear.
“I’d started to think this day would never come,” I confessed to Johree softly.
He leaned down to press a sweet kiss to my lips.
“It has, and I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I leaned against him as my vid-stream cambot recorded everything.
“And cut,” Kiprr said, ending the recording. The cambot flew back to his hand. “I’ll film some more later, when they go to unload and wake the mustangs. I figure you probably want to keep yours waking up a private moment.”
I smiled fondly at my friend and guard.
“Thanks. Yes.”
I sighed happily as the transport flitter’s rear door closed with a soft clang.
“Today has been a perfect day.”
“Every day is perfect when it’s with you.”
I laughed, turning to press a quick kiss to Johree’s jaw.
“Big, fierce-looking dragon prince,” I teased. “If only they all knew what a romantic sap you are.”
“Oh, I’m certain your vid series has made the entire universe aware,” he smirked. “And everyone will also know I am right.”
I had nothing to say to that, so I didn’t. Instead, I merely let my smile grow impossibly wide and let the joy I was feeling ooze from every pore, so I gave him another quick kiss before getting into the cab of the transport. Ted climbed in after me, letting Buster climb onto his lap.
My sister sought to destroy me by stealing everything from me. Instead, she gave me a future much better than I ever dreamed of and left herself with nothing but a whole lot of problems.
“Hey, I just thought of a name for the horse sanctuary,” I said suddenly. “Karma Ranch.”
“That’s perfect,” Ted said, nodding.
“I like it,” Johree said. “But what or who is karma?”
Ted and I laughed, then stumbled through trying to explain the concept of karma to him as he drove us home.
Bob was listening in, of course, and began playing the old Culture Club hit “Karma Chameleon” from his wrist. That set off another bout of hilarity as I then had to try to explain the lyrics, and Ted made the mistake of trying to tell him about the band.
Yep, life is pretty damned perfect. Anyone who wants to mess it up again will have us both to contend with, along with the rest of our friends and family.