Chapter 12
“ W ho’s the most beautiful girl in the world?” I kissed Applesauce’s velvety muzzle. “It’s you!”
She lipped my face, trying to eat my hair.
“Girl, have some self-control.” I laughed and scratched along the underside of her long face. “Hair is not food.”
“She’s a brat because you spoil her,” Eduardo commented, walking in with his own horse, a gorgeous buckskin named Scout.
“Don’t even pretend that Scout’s an angel.” The gelding loved Eduardo but was as much a prissy prince as Applesauce was a princess.
We had nearly twenty other horses that we took care of along with a few more of the staff, but most of the performers had their own horse they were in charge of. It took a lot of time to make sure every single one of them was fully trained, exercised, well fed, and loved on, but I adored every second of it. I’d worked here since I was a teen as a stable hand, where I had met Chico when his grandpa was still in charge. Eduardo had joined us about a decade ago after retiring from a traveling show. Horses were basically my life, and I was damn lucky to have a pack that let me immerse in it as often as I did.
“Do you think Charlotte likes horses?” I asked Eduardo as he was hopping onto Scout.
“It doesn’t matter if she does. She very obviously doesn’t want to see us again.”
I pouted. Sure, disappearing in the middle of the night sent a pretty clear message, but how was I supposed to just give up on someone that sweet and beautiful? Okay, so I didn’t have her full name or literally any information about her, but I could still make it happen. I rolled over the idea in my head of her being a scent match, the one that Chico had met, but she’d purposely obscured her scent, so I couldn’t tell for certain. He’d kept that secret for all of a day before his symptoms got the better of him and he’d confessed that the omega who disappeared on him was a scent match. After comparing details, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she was the same woman we’d slept with.
With a sigh, I climbed into Applesauce’s saddle and we took the two horses for an easy couple of laps to get them limbered up.
“Good girl, Saucy.” I led her in some tight loops so she could stretch out each side. “Up.”
She reared up perfectly, balancing on her back feet. The audience loved this move.
“Show off!” Eduardo yelled across the arena.
“Don’t be jealous just because you fall off Scout when he does this.”
Eduardo flipped me off and focused on leading Scout through some drills. We all knew the routine front and back, but it was good to do a refresher every now and then. Less than a dozen of the horses in our stables performed, the rest all in training to fill in as needed or as some of our older horses retired. Where possible, those retirees were sent to ranches further afield from the city and we paid for their care.
Some of the younger horses still spooked too easily to be allowed to joust, but we kept working with them. One day they would be grand tournament horses, but for now they were my thousand-pound babies.
Once I was finished with Applesauce, I got one of our newbies out for some desensitization training. I waved some palm fronds in front of Morty’s face, relieved when he didn’t try to snap them. They were a good substitute for the hands of small children who wanted to pat the horses at the end of a performance.
“Good boy, Morty.” I bopped him on the forehead with the fronds, holding him steady when he tried to back up. “You’re okay, sweet boy. See, no grievous injuries. Just leaves.”
Morty flattened his ears back and I brought the fronds back to my side.
“I know, I know. Okay, no more face.” I switched to moving them down his back and patting his butt. He looked annoyed, but he didn’t try to kick, which was fabulous progress.
Eduardo raced by on another of our horses to get some exercise since they wouldn’t be performing tonight. Morty danced in place.
“We’ll run soon,” I promised. After a few more minutes of harmless irritants to show him nothing bad was going to happen, I took him to get saddled up and let him canter in wide circles until he tired himself out.
By the time we finished, Chico had emerged from administrative hell to join us.
“He lives!” I laughed. “I was worried the paperwork was going to bury you.”
“I wish. At least that would put me out of my misery.” He reached out and gave Morty a pat on the flank, the feisty gelding blessedly accepting the affection.
Chico looked fucking rough . The poor guy had been sleeping like shit, his body freaking out over finding a scent match and being immediately separated. I’d thought the effect was only this strong when freshly bonded mates weren’t together, but apparently his instincts were taking it hard that she’d slipped through his grasp.
“Any word on the investors?” It was a terrible distraction, but one that needed to be asked considering all our livelihoods were on the line.
“No. It sounds like they think it would be better for our company to just die out and let one of the franchises move in.”
I snorted. “Fuck that.”
“We might not have a choice,” Chico said sadly.
“There’s always a choice. Surely there’s some avenue we haven’t explored yet.”
“If you think of one, I’d love to hear it,” he replied.
I didn’t have the answers we needed, much as I wished I did. Night of Knights was home. I would do anything to save it.
“You need some horse time. Do you want to take Morty for a spin?”
“Sure, I could do a few loops.”
I slid off, and let him take my place, retreating back to the stable to get to work on one of the others while my packmates showed off the grace of our animals.
Sometimes I felt bad that all of the admin work for keeping this place running fell to Chico, but I wasn’t good enough at any of it to offer much more than support. I worked a lot of hours for free just so I could hang out with the horses and that at least saved us a bit of money.
I brushed down Applesauce while going social media stalker on all of the Charlottes in the city. Either our mystery woman didn’t have any accounts, or she was locked down tighter than Fort Knox. How was I supposed to snoop when she made it so difficult?
I couldn’t stop thinking about her: her cute as hell laugh, her beautiful smile beneath that feathered cowboy hat, or the way she had fallen apart for Eduardo and me. Even if she wasn’t a scent match, I wanted to see her again. I hoped we hadn’t done anything wrong to scare her off. She said she’d never played with two alphas before, so maybe she’d just gotten overwhelmed.
With a sigh, I laid my forehead against Applesauce’s neck. “Saucy, what am I supposed to do?
She nickered softly.
“Extra treats for you are not going to solve the problem, but I’ll get them for you anyway.” I grabbed a bag of carrots from our stash and distributed them through the stable, carrying two out for the ones in the arena.
“Are you spoiling them again?” Eduardo asked.
“I don’t have the same willpower as you. They want treats, so I give it to them.”
Eduardo rolled his eyes, but a smile graced his lips. “You just want to be their favorite.”
“And you don’t?”
Chico hopped down off Morty and we all diverted back to the stables so the active horses could get their brush downs. He used to be a stable hand like me, and I knew he missed when horses were his only job. Eduardo and I still got to perform together, but it wasn’t very often that Chico got to anymore. Filling in for sick time or vacations was the only time he got back in the saddle to perform.
I wrapped my arms snugly around Chico, squeezing tight. “You need a hug.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
“Nope.” I shook my head. “You’ve got stress vibes and we’re hugging until you relax.”
Chico sighed and hugged back, going through a few deep breaths.
“Eddie, get into this cuddle.”
“I’m coming.” He flattened himself against Chico’s back, the two of us boxing him in.
“You guys are ridiculous,” Chico grumbled.
“Don’t pretend you don’t love it. Everyone needs a cuddle once in a while, and since we’re omega-less, you’ll have to settle for awkward hugs in the stable.”
That got a laugh out of him, some of the tension holding his body hostage fading a bit. I couldn’t fix anything that was wrong, but I could be here to support him.
“We shouldn’t be omega-less, though,” he lamented. “She’s out there.”
“We’ll find her. There’s no way fate would be mean enough to deliver her and let her disappear forever.”
“It’s my own damn fault for not getting more information before getting her into bed.”
I shrugged. “Instincts are a bitch. You were more concerned with getting close to her, and I can’t blame you for that.”
Eventually, Chico demanded freedom from the group hug, and I allowed it, though I knew he was still way too tense.
“We’ll find her,” I insisted again.
Chico sighed. “I hope you’re right, because I don’t know how many more sleepless nights I can take.”