A group of women came between her and the man. When the women disappeared into the bathroom, the man in the baseball hat was gone. She took several steps back toward the bleachers. The gates screeched open and another draft horse thundered by. The animal yanked suddenly away from the handler and the crowd dispersed like cockroaches in the light. Panicked cries rose up. Morgan’s heart beat a little faster.
The handler regained control and three other men swarmed in to help. Once the spirited horse was secured in the arena, Morgan made her way to the bleachers. She spotted the beige hat moving through the crowd in front of her. On instinct, she pivoted. She couldn’t go back to the bleachers. If this man was after her, she’d be putting Alex in danger.
She scanned the area looking for a security guard. What would she tell them anyway, that a man in a baseball hat was staring at her in a menacing way?
To calm her nerves, she walked outside past several corrals containing different breeds of horses from quarter horses to miniatures and ponies. She crossed her arms over her chest and kept up a brisk pace until peace overtook the rising panic.
It’s not like beige was a unique color. Plenty of people probably wore that kind of hat. Still, the memory of the man’s sinister eyes narrowing as he looked at her made her keep walking. She stopped at a corral filled with Clydesdales. She watched owners and trainers bridle horses and lead them around the corral.
The day had warmed and the sun soothed her nerves. She closed her eyes. She had to let go of the notion that someone could come after her. The marshals knew what they were doing. Her fears about the prowlers had proved to be unfounded. Still, the memory of Josef’s words to her echoed in her brain: I will find you and kill you.
She opened her eyes and watched the horses awhile longer. A cluster of people slowly dispersed, leaving only a few stragglers. The man in the cap stood across the corral. Her breath caught even as her heart rate soared. He’d pulled his cap down so all she saw of his face was shadow and chin.
The man stepped in her direction.
She turned to run, smashing against hard muscle.
Alex gazed down at her. “What’s going on?”
“I...um...ah...” When she glanced across the corral, the man in the hat had vanished.
“You’re shaking.” He gripped her hands, his voice filled with concern.
Morgan struggled to pull it together, to at least manage the veneer of calm. What explanation could she possibly offer? “I thought somebody was following me, but I was wrong.”
He squeezed her hands a little tighter. “When I saw you turn the other way, I thought maybe you’d gone to check out the horses.”
She looked into his warm gentle eyes. She couldn’t lie to this man again, so she said nothing.
His voice held only compassion. “I can see that this has you upset. Why don’t we find a place to get a cup of coffee, and then we’ll go have a look at those horses?”
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