Red Thunder Reckoning. Sylvie Kurtz

errand boy on his way, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think that would end the situation. The weight of that exhaustion finally caught up with her. Her hands fell back onto her lap. “What was the judge thinking?”

      “Let me take a look,” Chance said. He leaned his backside against the desk and read the letter.

      A ceiling fan stirred the air-conditioned air, keeping the sheriff’s office cool in spite of the June heat blazing outside. Fluorescent light poured from an overhead fixture, drenching the room in white. The muted sounds of radio chatter crackled from a unit behind Chance’s desk. A wanted poster, along with half a dozen notices, were tacked on a corkboard above a bank of black file cabinets. Wire baskets and folders kept everything on the desk contained and neat.

      The only thing in the room that added a touch of personality was the portrait of Chance’s family. His wife, Taryn, and his daughter, Shauna, smiled at him from a quilt spread on the grass behind their home.

      A pinch of jealousy tweaked at her heart but she brushed it aside. Chance deserved his happiness.

      She’d once dreamed of raising horses and babies with her high-school sweetheart, but Kyle was dead, and she was relearning to live. Rubbing the heel of her hand on her chest, she erased the edge of sadness creeping around her heart. Her body’s betrayal made babies unlikely. Besides, the horses were almost more than she could handle.

      She glanced at her watch. She flipped her braid behind her back. She rubbed a hand on the thigh of her jeans. Chance’s care was a quality she admired but today his slow reading of the judge’s writ was driving her crazy.

      “You’re holding the man’s property,” Chance said finally, letting the letter fall to the desktop. “He wants it back.”

      “The horses are too weak to travel.” Her hackles were going up. They did so much too easily since she’d come back to herself. Impatience, not temper. So much wasted time. She couldn’t abide to squander a minute more than she had to.

      “Judge Dalton seems to think they’re strong enough.”

      Chance’s keen dark eyes were studying her. Irritation twitched her foot into a jittery dance. “But he didn’t give me a chance to show him they aren’t. How can this happen?”

      Chance gave a slow shake of his head. “Influence.”

      Her stomach churned. Influence had kept her a prisoner in a nursing home for fifteen years. Influence had nearly cost Chance and Taryn their lives a year ago. All because of one man’s greed. Now someone else’s greed was willing to sacrifice six horses who’d gone through hell just for the sake of convenience.

      The unfairness of it all was enough to make her want to roar. She swallowed back her outrage. “How can I fight this?”

      “Let it go, Ellen.”

      Her mouth gaped open. “After all you’ve been through, I thought you’d understand. I thought I could count on you.”

      “Ellen—”

      “I can’t let it go.” Her voice cracked and her vision was blurring again. “They deserve a voice.” Just as she had.

      Chance pushed himself off the desk, scrubbed a hand through his hair, then faced her once again. “I know they mean a lot to you, but they’re not yours. I can’t do anything but follow the law.”

      “They’ve been abused.”

      “There’s no way to prove that.”

      “All it would take is one visit by the judge to see how bad off they are.”

      Like a soldier about to face a firing squad, Chance stood ramrod straight. “There’s the other side, Ellen.”

      “What other side?”

      He hesitated.

      “Just spit it out, Chance. I’ve wasted too much time already to worry about couching words because you’re afraid I’m not strong enough to handle them.”

      He nodded. “You’ve come a long way in a year—”

      “But.”

      “But you’re still weak. After fifteen years of near vegetation, you’re expecting too much of yourself. You’re still going to physical therapy. You can’t operate at one hundred percent.”

      She gaped at him. “You don’t think I can handle taking care of the horses?”

      “You’ve got three of your own, plus these six—”

      Fisting her hands by her side, she jumped up. “Wait a min—”

      “Now let me finish.” He held up a hand. “All of these horses have special needs. I think that’s a load too heavy for anybody, let alone for someone in your position.”

      Her mind reeled at the possibility of losing the horses due to her own weakness. “So what, you expect me to just let them go and say, hey, sorry I can’t take care of you, so goodbye and good luck? I’ve been taking care of them for nearly a week. I’m handling the work just fine.”

      He cocked his head, a dead-serious look on his face. “You asked me to shoot straight.”

      “And you did,” she acknowledged, bracing herself for the next attack.

      “You spend half your life in the sunshine and you look as pale as the moon. You don’t just look tired, you look downright exhausted. You’ve lost weight when you should be gaining. If you don’t start taking care of yourself, none of these horses will be able to count on you.”

      With that, he’d hit her rawest nerve. She stumbled back a step, losing all her fury. He was right. If she did run herself ragged, the horses would have no one to give them voice.

      “There’s also the question of space,” Chance said. “You’ve got eight stalls and nine horses.”

      “That’s okay, I’ve got two that won’t come inside. I’ve got enough pasture for them all. I’ve got two corrals, a ring and I’m working on a round pen—”

      “You’re not digging holes and lugging lumber on your own, are you?”

      She jutted her chin, straightened her stance. “I’m doing what I have to do.”

      “Ellen…”

      He reached for her shoulders. She shrugged off his hold.

      “So, how do I resolve this? I’m not going to let the horses go. Not while they still need care.”

      Chance blew out a long breath and squeezed the nape of his neck. “Tell you what, you hire yourself a hand and I’ll talk Judge Dalton into taking a look-see at your operation.”

      The pinprick of escalating panic stampeded through her. Shaking her head, she said, “Chance, you know how I feel about the ranch.”

      “It’s non-negotiable. You want my help, you’ve got to give me something to work with.” He offered her his hand. “Deal?”

      This wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t have anybody looking, watching…reporting. She couldn’t do it. Not after having no choice in the matter for fifteen years.

      But if you don’t, she reminded herself, you’ll lose the horses and they need you.

      “This way, you’ll at least get the chance to convince the judge you can handle the load.”

      For fifteen years she was forced into silence, drugged against her will, kept a prisoner in her own body by a man who cared nothing about her. She’d had no voice, no one to fight for her. Stuck in the prison of her mind all she’d had for company was the nightmarish image of Kent and Kyle drowning in the river, of her dreams dying with them. Only in the collection of crystal horses catching rainbows of light on the dresser had she found a ray of hope. Horses had kept her fighting for her life.

      She had to keep fighting