Tacker (Arizona Vengeance #5)(4)

I don’t know whether to be impressed he has my number programmed in his phone or creeped out. To have it there, he would have had to make some effort in tracking it down. Probably had his personal secretary call the Vengeance personnel office for it, so he could program it in. Which probably means he’d fully expected me to use it.

Which also means he’s probably more intuitive than I gave him credit for, which I’m thinking is definitely more creepy than not, but whatever.

“I can’t continue to see the counselor you suggested,” I say succinctly. “Just got done with my first session, and it was a disaster.”

“Why?” he asks, clearly not willing to just accept my word for it.

Let’s see… how to put this into words without sounding like an unenlightened jackass. “He’s a douche. Wants me to hold hands with him and cry out my lament.”

Dominik snorts, but he isn’t swayed. “I believe that’s generally how therapy works.”

“Not for me, it doesn’t,” I mutter.

“Well, choose someone else on the list. I believe you were given several names.”

“No offense,” I tell him, rubbing at the nape of my neck. “But I’m going to assume whoever culled this list of names probably put a bunch of other dumbshits on the list as well.”

“I can’t let you out of the requirement,” Dominik replies stiffly.

“Not asking for that.” I sigh, scanning the parking lot. “I need someone who…” My words trail off. I don’t know what I need, but it’s not what I just walked out of.

“I think I know exactly what you need,” Dominik says, and I jolt.

How the fuck does he know when I don’t even know?

“I’m going to text you the information,” he continues. “It’s called Sh?rim Ranch, and it’s just outside of Phoenix.”

“A ranch?” I ask in confusion.

He doesn’t clarify. “Ask for Nora Wayne. She’ll get you set up.”

“What is this place?” I ask.

“Good luck,” he says before disconnecting.

A chime sounds from my phone. It’s the text Dominik said he’d send. It’s a link and when I tap on it to open Safari, a website comes up for Sh?rim Ranch. The header picture is of several horses galloping through the Arizona desert.

I read the first line. At Sh?rim Ranch, we provide equine therapeutic services for people with physical, mental, and emotional needs.

Equine therapeutic services? What the fuck is that?

A sharp toot of a car horn catches my attention. My Uber driver sits there with an impatient expression on his face. I glare at him, but move to his car, opening the back door.

After sliding in, I say, “I need to go somewhere different than what I put in.”

“You’ll have to change it in the app,” he says, some young punk of a kid who doesn’t even glance back.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask.

He shifts to see over his shoulder, eyes flaring wide when he takes a good look.

Really sees who I am.

“Holy shit… you’re Tacker Hall,” he gasps.

“Can you take me to a new address without making me jump through hoops?” I ask.

“Sure thing, Mr. Hall,” he replies, turning around to put the car in drive. “Where to?”

“Some place called Sh?rim Ranch,” I mutter, pulling up the directions from a link on the website. “I’ll tell you where to go.”

I settle in for the ride. It says the ranch is forty-two minutes away, and I’m going to spend the entire time wondering what in the hell Dominik Carlson has gotten me into.


Okay… I’ll admit it… I’m intrigued. This definitely isn’t what I’d envisioned when I was ordered into counseling. Somehow, that’s comforting to me. The thought of laying on a couch and pouring my feelings out to a perfect stranger gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I’d googled Sh?rim Ranch on the ride over. It’s owned and operated by Nora Wayne, the woman Dominik told me to ask for. She’s a licensed therapist, with undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Colorado. It appears she bought the ranch about three years ago, and it serves several purposes. In keeping with the history of the place, it still breeds and sells horses as well as offers general riding lessons.

But the focus of the ranch is on “healing”—whatever that may mean to an individual. In fact, the website said Sh?rim meant “healing” or “recovery” in Albanian, and the small biography on Nora Wayne informed me she had been born there but moved to the United States when she was young.

They offer camps for low-income kids so they can learn how to care for and ride horses. Nora Wayne also partners with the juvenile justice system, and she offers work on the ranch as a substitute for jail time in certain cases.

And then there are the generalized counseling services she offers—both with and without equine assistance. Oh, and she does some other hippie shit like yoga and meditation services, which I am most definitely not interested in.

My Uber driver takes me up the long dirt driveway to a ranch house. It looks to be about twenty-five-hundred square feet, all one level and done in stucco and red tile. Off to the left is a gray weathered barn and three different railed-off arenas. Beyond the house is a pasture, mostly brown patchy grass, but some green showing in the distance where a tree line starts. Three horses are there grazing.