Sharon Dunn - Top Secret Identity

He demanded no answers or explanation from her for why she was so afraid. “I’m all right. Let’s go see the horses.” Being around the horses would help her regroup faster than a cup of coffee.

“Okay, we can do that.” He let go of her hands and scanned the corrals. “I think the lot that we want to look at is right over there.”

They walked through the labyrinth of corrals and spectators until they arrived at a fenced-in area containing six horses. “These horses are older quarter horses,” Alex explained. “Not showy, but good temperament.”

“You want a horse that doesn’t spook easily and is responsive to an inexperienced rider.” Morgan gripped the top railing of the fence as she studied the horses. “You can’t really tell much about them by standing here. Can I go in the corral?”

Alex shrugged. “I have no idea what the rules are about that. I guess you can do it at your own peril.”

As soon as she stepped into the corral, a sense of peace returned. She wandered among the horses, gauging their response to her, looking into their eyes, stroking their necks and backs, watching their reaction when she stepped into their peripheral vision. Horses tended to get jumpy when they thought something was coming at them from the side.

She patted the neck and mane of a chestnut gelding. “This one, I think.”

Alex flipped through his catalog. “That guy’s name is Chipper’s Boy.”

She stroked Chipper’s nose as he leaned into her touch. She looked into his dark eyes. “You’d love those kids, wouldn’t you?”

“Let’s go get settled so we can bid on him.” Alex’s voice fell softly on her ears. She glanced over at him and saw admiration in his eyes.

For the rest of the sale, Morgan kept looking over her shoulder trying to hide her anxiety from Alex. Why couldn’t she let go of her suspicions?

Three hours later, they were headed home with Chipper’s Boy loaded in the trailer.

Morgan settled into the passenger seat of the truck. She studied the curve of Alex’s ear, the laugh lines around his mouth and eyes. The way his cowboy hat angled slightly to the left. Alex focused on the road ahead.

She appreciated that he hadn’t pressed her for answers she couldn’t give. He had a gentle unassuming quality that made him easy to be around.

“I had a good day,” said Morgan.

“Me, too,” he said. “The horses are my favorite part of the job.”

“But you don’t get to spend as much time with the horses as you’d like?”

“Take the good with the bad. It beats sitting in an office with no windows ten hours a day.”

“Is that what you used to do?”

“I worked for a financial firm. I like an office without walls or windows.”

She laughed. “I like wide-open spaces best, too. I feel like I can get a deep breath.” Something they had in common. “What was the reason for the job change?”

His jaw tightened. “That was a lifetime ago.”

She detected a twinge of pain in his words. Even he had things he didn’t want to talk about. So they both had secrets.

Alex checked his side and rearview mirrors. Morgan craned her neck.

“That car’s been behind us for a while.” She purged her voice of the fear that settled in her stomach.

Alex nodded. “Seems like it, doesn’t it? Probably just a man headed in the same direction as us.”

And maybe she had just imagined that the man in the baseball hat was following her. Her heightened awareness made her assume things, which only fueled her fears. She had to let go, had to learn to relax.

You’re safe now, Morgan. You’re safe.

She wanted to believe that.

FOUR

Alex’s hand curled into a fist and tension knotted up his back as he stared across the corral. He didn’t have to hear the conversation between Morgan and Craig to know that Craig was giving her trouble. The teen’s body language and snarling expression revealed the tone of the exchange.

Morgan had asked Alex not to interfere. She wanted to win Craig over on her terms. He wanted to respect her wishes, but it took every ounce of restraint he had not to jump in. Twin twelve-year-old girls waited for their first riding lesson. Morgan had saddled the first horse and pointed toward Craig to get the second saddle off the fence. The boy rested his arm on the fence and lifted his chin in defiance of her request.

That was it. He didn’t like seeing Morgan treated this way. This kid was out of line. Alex jumped over the post fence and stalked toward the saddle. He lifted it with a sideways glance toward Craig. “There’s a stall gate latch that needs to be repaired. Why don’t you go take care of that?”

“Sure, Mr. Reardon. I can do that for you.” After a disdainful glance toward Morgan, Craig meandered through the corral toward the gate.

Alex flung the saddle over the second horse while the two girls, Debbie and Doris, waited off to one side.

“Thanks, Alex,” said Morgan. The exasperation was evident in her voice as she looked over at Craig entering the stable. She turned her attention back toward her students. “Since you watched me do the first saddle, why don’t both of you come over and do the second one?”

The girls grimaced at each other, shrugged their shoulders and trudged toward the horse.

“Don’t be afraid,” Alex encouraged.

Both of the girls had ginger hair and an abundance of freckles. They stepped toward the horse, consulting each other in whispered tones. Doris had been the more talkative of the twins when their mother had dropped them off. Now both of them had fallen silent as they glanced nervously at Morgan.

“Doris, grab the front strap from underneath the horse and cinch it up,” Alex said.

His prompting seemed to trigger their memory for what they were supposed to do.

Morgan stood beside Alex but spoke to the twins. “Go ahead and run through the steps. I’ll stop you if I see anything incorrect.” Morgan crossed her arms and continued to watch the girls while she leaned in to talk to Alex. “Craig would have gotten the saddle for me eventually. He’s just testing his boundaries.”

“I couldn’t stand to watch it. And I don’t like the way he’s treating you.”

Morgan raised her voice. “Debbie, remember you don’t want any of that strap hanging loose. Hook the stirrup to the saddle horn if that makes it easier to see.” She watched for a moment. “There you go.”

Debbie turned toward Morgan and grinned at her mistake, jerking her shoulders up to her ears while her cheeks turned red.

Alex continued to speak in a hushed tone while he kept his eyes on the twins. “I could find a dozen other kids in town who want this job and wouldn’t be this kind of trouble.”

“You said yourself you want to help him. His conflict is with me.” Morgan grabbed Alex’s wrist. “Please, don’t fire him. I think the money from this job is the only income he and his father have right now. Craig mentioned something this morning about his father losing his janitorial job.”

Alex felt a pang of guilt. He wanted the kid to have a shot at something better than what he had, but Morgan didn’t deserve to be disrespected. “I’m not going to stand by and watch him mess with you like that. He needs to know that’s not right.”

Doris raised her hands in triumph. “We got it.” She turned to her sister for a high five.

“Give him some time,” Morgan said in a low voice before walking over to the girls. “Let’s check the tightness on the front and back strap.” Morgan placed her fingers between the saddle strap and the horse. “Good job—tight enough so it’s not going to fall off, but loose enough so it won’t dig into the horse’s side.”

“I can’t wait to race,” said Debbie.