Chapter Four
CURRENT DAY
NEAR Claremore, OK
Gray
“Lainey Rai, put that stallion up, he’s too big for you.” I swear that girl is going to give me a heart attack. She’s just like her Aunt Marley when it comes to the horses. They eat, sleep, and breathe horses.
We’ve been boarding a large, black stallion for the past month and Lainey Rai has taken a liking to him, every time I turn around she’s grooming and feeding him.
To the stallion’s credit, he’s been gentle with her, and I think the damned thing understands her when she talks to him, but I can’t have my nine-year-old riding such a big horse with the kind of energy he has.
Our Australian Sheperd, Wilson, is sitting next to the stool she’s standing on, watching everything with an eagle eye, but aside from biting a leg, he wouldn’t be able to stop anything from happening.
“Dad, he won’t hurt me, we’re kindred spirits.” She scrunches her nose affectionately and rubs the tip across the stallion's nose. He even moves his head to let her.
She watched Anne of Green Gables with my sister, Kinley, a couple of weeks ago and she’s been quoting the little red-head from the story since. I don’t know what I’m going to do when she starts noticing boys. Probably have an aneurysm.
I push those thoughts from my mind.
“Kindred spirits or no, he’s still too big for you. Didn’t Aunt Marley ask you to help her get a stall ready in her stable for a new horse that’s coming tomorrow morning?”
Marley rehabs abused horses and gets them ready to go to good homes that will take care of them properly.
When she started her business, I was surprised at the number of horses that are neglected and abused on a daily basis.
She never gets down time, but I don’t think she would have it any other way.
As I sit at the desk in the tack room, I watch Lainey Rai in the wash stall across the corridor. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen my dad sit in this very spot and watch over her. I’ve also noticed more of what he’s been letting her get away with.
My dad and I have differing ideas about what she should and shouldn’t be able to do at her age.
He’s been backing away from the day-to-day running of the ranch since his heart attack a few months ago, which means I’ve been stepping in more. He would argue that she has to do things to learn things, but I would rather she not do things that could end up with a broken neck.
“Aw, Dad, I’m almost done, and I’ll go help Aunt Marley.” She scratching the big guy on his jaw as she scrubs the brush down his neck and shoulder.
It’s one of those rare sunny, late January days that’s above freezing. When the temperature gets into the forties, nobody wants to be inside. Lainey Rai is no exception. She already walked the stallion out to the paddock, and now she’s hooked him up in the grooming stall to brush him.
“Finish with him and go help Aunt Marley, don’t make me tell you twice.” She’s becoming more rebellious like her Aunt Kinley, and I’ve had to take a firm tone with her more and more lately. I miss my sweet little girl who was content with hugs and tickles.
It only takes about twenty minutes for Marley to come looking for her.
I look up as my little sister appears in the walkway between the grooming stall across from the tack room where I’m at.
She flips her long blond braid over her shoulder and there is humor in her big blue eyes as she looks at Lainey Rai with the stallion before turning to look at me.
I stifle the smile that’s temping to turn my lips up and cock my brow at her as a smile moves across her face; she wants to make fun of my overprotective nature with my daughter as she brushes one of the biggest horses in our stalls.
If Marley thought it wasn’t safe, she would say so. Her instinct with the horses is so spot on that I’ll always follow her lead in that arena.
“What?” I spit the word with mock irritation. “She’s right across the way from me, I can see everything.”
She steps into the doorway and leans against the sliding door while crossing her arms over her chest. “And no heart palpitations or blowing gaskets?” She pulls her hand from under her arm and holds it in front of her face and mocks an explosion with her fingers while she blows her cheeks out, trying to sound like a bomb.
Keeping a straight face, I go back to what I was working on before she walked in. “I don’t have time for your shenanigans today. What can I do for you?”
She hmpf’s and chuckles, “More shenanigans are exactly what you need in your life, I’m pretty sure a good woman might smooth out those rough edges.”
Without lifting my head, I look at her from under the brim of my hat. “We’re not having that conversation.” I love my sister and I know she has my best interest at heart, but she is the last person I want to talk about women with.
She tips her head to the side with a smile, not letting me get to her.
She may be reserved around men, but with me, dad, and my brothers, she is not afraid to speak her mind.
Unfolding her arms, she steps into the tack room, her face becoming serious.
“I wondered if you saw the weather warning yet.”
I’ve been so tense watching Lainey Rai while working on checking stock I haven’t even looked at my phone. “No, but since you’re here, save me the hassle and tell me.”
“Well, all this nice weather today is going away tonight. They say sleet and ice might start overnight and get worse over the next day or two. They are saying to prepare for ice accumulation. Just make sure everyone’s covered.
” Even though the horses can withstand cold temperatures, we put their quilts over them and turn on the heaters when it gets below freezing for long periods of time.
It’s not unusual to get an ice storm or two in January and February, the last bad one we got was in 2007 when a lot of counties in Oklahoma lost electricity for a week or two because the ice was so thick. I’d never been more happy to see overhead lights when they finally came back on.
I”ve also never seen ice that thick before.
It was after that storm when we ended up getting generators for the house and the stables. Trying to keep everyone warm and safe was quite a challenge during that storm.
Leaning back in the squeaky, practically antique chair Dad has always kept in here, I roll my head from one shoulder to the other in frustration, “Great.” I huff out a sigh. “Okay, I’ll keep an eye on it.”
Boots on the stone floor has Marley stepping back a couple of steps, when she looks out into the walkway, her face lights up, “Hey!”
Sloane, my brother Mason’s fiance, steps into view, her long black hair pulled into a ponytail and hanging between her shoulder blades. “Hey, I thought I would enjoy some of this sunshine before the storms come in tonight.”
She’s practically glowing as she looks between me and Marley, she’s a few months pregnant, but the glow is the only indication since she isn’t showing yet.
Sloane came to work for us about a year ago, but when Mason came home when dad had his heart attack, she was able to do the one thing no other woman has been able to do; he fell ass over heels in love.
In a matter of a month, he not only talked her into marrying him, he managed to get her pregnant, too. He told me they are waiting for the weather to warm up so they can have an outdoor wedding here on the ranch.
“How are you and my nephew feeling?” Marley softly lays her hand on Sloane’s arm in true Marley fashion, she’s always gentle, and with certain people she’s affectionate. She also says she just knows it’s going to be a boy, she’s never wrong about the foals, so we’re taking bets.
Sloane’s green eyes light up under Marley’s attention and she puts her palm over her flat belly, “We’re good! I thought I would take a break and say hi to Mason, but it looks like he’s not in here.” She swivels her head to look up and down the corridor.
Lainey Rai’s voice breaks into the conversation as she yells from across the walkway, “He took Felix for a ride,” as she tosses the grooming brush into the bucket next to her stepstool and steps down to reach over and unhook the stallion. “He said Felix is getting fat and needs some exercise.”
“In other words, he wanted to get out and enjoy the sunshine?” Sloane asks, humor dancing in her eyes and she tilts her head to the side as she looks at Marley.
“Exactly,” I say and shake my head. It’s nice having my brother home.
Before he met Sloane, he lived in Tennessee close to the off-the-books black ops team he works with, he used to be Delta Force with the Army but he got an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Now he says he’ll just fly there when they need him for a job, but he sometimes needs to get out of the barn and get some air.
A low growl from Wilson and rapid footsteps in the corridor make us all look at each other, it almost sounds like dress heels on the concrete. Sloane starts to walk to the sliding door, but Marley grabs her arm and pulls her back before she looks at me.
Marley doesn’t care for strangers or surprise situations, ever since she was attacked the night of her senior prom she stays in the shadows.
Lainey Rai walks out of the grooming stall before I can tell her not to with the stallion in tow and Wilson by her leg.
He’s positioned himself between her and the direction of the footsteps.
Lainey Rai stops when she sees the owner of the shoes, her eyebrows pinch together as she stares at the newcomer.
“Oh, hi! I’m looking for Mr. Harlow.” It’s a woman’s very chipper voice.
I come around the door and stop dead in my tracks. A woman who can’t be more than five feet four, less without the heels, in a tight skirt that comes to her knees and high-heel knee-high boots, bundled up in a coat and scarf. She’s a slip of a thing, probably a hundred pounds soaking wet.