Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(99)

“She’s my roommate,” Jenny replied, “but I don’t want to talk to you about any of this, Marliss. It isn’t the time or the place.”

“I’d be glad to set up an appointment.”

“No thanks.”

“But if someone was really trying to kill you, don’t you want to be able to tell your side of the story?”

“No comment,” Jenny said.

“Did your mother tell you to say that?”

“Actually,” Jenny told her, “I was able to figure that out on my own.”

As Jenny walked away, leaving Marliss fuming, she noticed that Beth was off having a quiet word with Reverend Maculyea. Butch had collected Sage from the nursery and was headed for the door, so Jenny collected Beth as well. Jenny wanted to have Beth safely out of the building before Marliss managed to target her.

“She’s very nice,” Beth said as they headed for the car.

“Who’s nice?”

“Reverend Maculyea. A lot nicer than Reverend Ike ever was.”

“Reverend Ike? Who’s he?”

“He’s the pastor at my mom’s old church—the guy who says cell phones are evil.”

“Marianne and my mom have been friends from junior high on.”

Beth nodded. “She mentioned that. She also said that your mom had told her what happened to us. She said that if I needed to talk to someone during Christmas vacation, I was welcome to come see her.”

“Will you?”

Beth thought about it for a moment. “Maybe,” she said finally. “Did you know she doesn’t get along well with her own mother?”

Jenny looked at Beth in amazement. “She told you that?”

Beth nodded.

“I had no idea,” Jenny said. “None at all.”

They went home from church and had a midday meal of roast pork, apple sauce, green peas, and mashed potatoes. By the time Sage went down for a nap, Jenny was feeling restless, so she pulled on her riding duds and headed for the corral.

As soon as Kiddo, Jenny’s twentysomething sorrel gelding, heard her approaching footsteps, he pricked up his ears and trotted over to the fence in search of the apple treat he knew would be on offer. He was followed by Spot, the blind and once-starving Appaloosa mare her mother’s Animal Control people had rescued from a foreclosed ranchette at Arizona Sun Sites.

Most of the time, Kiddo functioned as Spot’s Seeing Eye horse. With both a deaf black Lab and a blind Appaloosa in residence, Butch liked to say High Lonesome Ranch had turned into a home for animals with disabilities.

Jenny had started her barrel-racing career on Kiddo. Once he’d outlived his barrel racing days, Maggie had been brought into the picture to serve as his replacement. Jenny knew that Butch rode Kiddo from time to time, but with her away at school, she was relatively sure the horse wasn’t getting nearly enough exercise.

“How about if we go for a ride?” she asked him as he and Spot crunched their respective apples.

Kiddo didn’t understand the words, of course, but the way he ducked his head up and down and pawed the ground made it look as though he did. Jenny grabbed a bridle from the barn and led him out of the corral before vaulting up onto him bareback. She loved feeling a horse’s muscles moving under her without the intervening barrier of a leather saddle. As they headed out toward High Lonesome Road, Denny came charging onto the front porch.

“Hey!” he called after them. “Can I come, too?”

“Okay,” she answered. “Go get Spot saddled up. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Jenny rode out to the end of the driveway and then bent down to unlatch and open the gate that allowed horse and rider to circumnavigate the cattle guard. Unsurprisingly, Lady and Lucky had come along for an afternoon romp. Horse, rider, and dogs trotted along together for a time, heading north on the reddish brown soil of High Lonesome Road.

After a mile Jenny turned Kiddo around and gave him his head. He laid his ears flat and took off like a shot. They pounded back down the road at a gallop, churning up a trail of dust as they went. Jenny leaned forward into Kiddo’s neck and let his golden mane whip against her face. Suddenly, for no reason at all, she found herself crying—because in spite of everything she was alive! She wasn’t dead, because Aaron Morgan and Gerard Paine hadn’t managed to kill her! That was what made it possible for her to be out here on this chilly afternoon with the sun on her skin, the wind in her face, and riding her beloved horse back toward the house!

In all her concern and worry about Beth Rankin, Jenny had somehow forgotten about herself. Now, in this exhilarating moment, she felt wonderfully alive and incredibly grateful.

When they returned to the yard, Denny and Spot were saddled up and ready to go, with Beth standing nearby observing the action. Jenny and Denny walked their horses out to the road and then traveled along at a gentle trot with Spot following close on Kiddo’s tail and taking her cues from him. Glancing over her shoulder from time to time, Jenny was proud of the way Denny held his seat. He was already a good rider. Someday he would be an excellent one, all because Jenny had been able to teach him.

Once back from their ride, as Denny prepared to dismount, Beth patted Spot’s muzzle and asked shyly, “Could I try, too?”

“Have you ever ridden a horse?” Jenny asked.