Dead Heat

CHAPTER 12

Anna got up and put her hand on Max’s shoulder to keep him from going to Chelsea. “It will be okay,” she said. “But she wouldn’t want you to see this.”

Chelsea cried out, her voice hoarse and guttural.

“Mom,” Max whispered, resisting Anna.

She quit trying to move him, just put her shoulder between him and his mother so he couldn’t get to her without going over Anna.

“Changing hurts,” Anna told him. “It hurts every time, but the first time is the worst. Almost all werewolves awaken from their first change completely out of control. There is nothing you can do to help or stop it. And I guarantee you that with Hosteen and Charles in there, your mother will be fine.” She waited and said, “You need to be out of here before she changes. If she hurts you, it will break her.”

He stood firm for a moment more, muscles twitching with the desire to help. Then he nodded once and let Anna tug him out of the room. She took him into the big living room and led him to the far side of that before she let him stop. They listened to Chelsea’s pain from there for a few minutes, Max flinching and fisting his hands as the noises his mother made changed from human to something else.

“Would it be easier with three werewolves in there?” he asked.

“You mean me?” Anna shook her head. “Not while she’s changing. Charles will call me in when she’s done. My wolf has a calming influence on other werewolves. Right now she needs to keep her fighting edge. As soon as she’s found the wolf shape, I’ll be more useful.”

Someone knocked at the front door just as Chelsea’s voice roared out again. Before Anna could decide how to handle visitors, the door opened and Wade started in at a run.

He saw Anna and Max and paused in his dash.

“Chelsea?” he asked Anna.

She nodded. “In the kitchen.”

Wade glanced at her. “Are you coming in?”

“No,” she told him. “We’ve found that having an Omega too close slows down the first change.”

He grimaced; no one wanted to slow down a change. Then he sucked in a breath. “Omega?” He blinked at her a moment. “That’s what it was.” He gave her a smile. “Thanks. I’ve never had such a weird reaction to a wolf before.”

Chelsea made another noise and he bolted for the kitchen. After fifteen minutes or so, the sounds all died down.

“Have you seen Hosteen in his wolf form?” Anna asked Max, though her eyes were directed at the kitchen. She had a vivid memory of how alone she’d felt the first few months she’d been a wolf.

“Yes,” he said.

“Scare you?”

“Not after the first time,” he said.

She turned to him. “Truthfully. No judgment at all on you. Even a normal wolf makes most people want to find a door to hide behind, no matter how often they see them.”

He smiled. “He’s beautiful,” he said, and there was no fear in him.

“Anna,” Charles called out quietly.

“That’s my cue,” she told Max. “Wait here and if everything is okay, we’ll introduce you to your mother’s wolf.”

When Anna got back to the kitchen, Chelsea had pushed her butt into the corner between the fridge and the wall. Her head was half-lowered, but her nose kept wrinkling into a snarl.

Like Charles’s older brother, Samuel, she was icy white with bluish-white eyes, but the tips of her ears and her eyes were lined in the same medium brown that covered her belly and the underside of her tail.

Wade was the closest to her. He was on one knee with his head bowed. Yeah, Anna had been pretty sure Chelsea was going to come out dominant. They were going to have issues trying to put her down on the bottom of the pecking order with the females who had no wolf mate to gain rank. Not when the pack’s second was already acknowledging her dominance over him.

“Hey, Chelsea,” Anna said cheerfully. Silver eyes met hers and the snarl slid off the new wolf’s face. Anna kept talking. “It’s okay if things are a little mixed up right now. Just wait a second and it will all come back.” She walked in front of Wade and let her wolf bring the tension in the room down.

“Having warning doesn’t help at all,” said Hosteen.

“Sure it does,” Charles said. “You aren’t giggling this time.”

Hosteen made an odd noise, a half growl, half laugh that attracted Chelsea’s attention. The new wolf’s hackles rose and she let out an unhappy whine.

The Alpha left his post leaning against the sink and walked up to Chelsea. He took her muzzle in his hand, meeting her eyes and holding them. If he worried that she had insufficient control to keep her wolf from biting him, Anna couldn’t see it.

Slowly, shivering with stress, Chelsea dropped to the ground and rolled over, giving Hosteen the unprotected vulnerability of her belly. He held her there a moment, then let her up.

“Good,” he told her. “Begin as you mean to go on, Chelsea. You are in charge and the wolf must listen to you.”

“Max is waiting,” said Anna. “Do you think it’s safe, Hosteen?”

Chelsea gave a panicked yip and scrambled back into the corner.

“Chelsea,” Hosteen said. “I promise you won’t hurt him.”

She held his eyes for three heartbeats.

“It will be okay,” he said.

She dropped her eyes and took two steps away from the corner, still looking unhappy.

Max, summoned by Anna’s call, stopped in the doorway, and for a moment Anna thought it was going to be bad. But then he grinned. “Wow, Mom. Kage is going to have a heart attack, you came out so pretty. He’s going to have to carry a silver-loaded shotgun to keep off the wolves in Hosteen’s pack. You’ve gotta see this in a mirror. Come on, there’s a full-length one in the main bathroom.”

They had about an hour of light left when they got to the barn. Anna was tired and stressed. She was pretty sure that Charles was in worse shape even though he didn’t show it.

Hosteen had taken a good look around the kitchen and decided that what everyone needed to “heal the spiritual wounds of the day” was a ride out into the desert. That he could deliver phrases like that and not sound hokey was impressive, Anna decided.

Chelsea came down with them, running beside the four-wheeler with Charles, who was also in his wolf form. They’d driven around back this time, where there were tie posts outside the back of the barn. Four horses were tacked up with western saddles. A harried-looking Teri was hastily brushing out one horse’s tail with a hairbrush.

“New dogs?” she asked Hosteen as they all disembarked from the four-wheeler, looking at Chelsea. “Sure are pretty.”

Pack magic let people see what they expected to see. Otherwise werewolves could never have stayed hidden as long as they had.

“One new dog—the white female. The red one belongs to Anna, our guest,” Hosteen told the woman.

“What’s her name?”

“We haven’t decided yet. Would you go get Kage? I’ll take over here. We’ll put them away properly when we’re done.”

Teri gave him a bright smile. “Sure thing. He said to tell you he’d be right out, but I’ll let him know you’re here anyway.”

As soon as she disappeared inside the barn, Charles returned to human form, a little more slowly than was usual for him. This was his second change of the day, Anna thought. If he had to do another one, it would be slower yet. Charles stretched, trying to loosen cramped muscles.

“Chelsea,” said Hosteen. “The horses won’t care as long as you don’t stare them in the eye for very long. If you make eye contact, they recognize you as a threat.” He turned to Anna. “Let me introduce you to Portabella while we’re waiting for Kage.”

Chelsea stayed close to Hosteen as they walked over to the horses. As promised, none of the horses seemed particularly bothered by her.

“Here she is,” Hosteen said, then stood back and let Anna look.

Portabella was a big mare. Anna had to stand on tiptoes to look over her back. Her color was not dark enough to be black, but very dark just the same. Bay, Anna thought, though the characteristic black points—legs, mane, and tail—were really very close to the same color as her body. A white streak dropped from a star between her big eyes to another splash of white on her nose. She was polished and beautiful. Even Anna, amateur that she was, could see that she was spectacular.

Anna couldn’t help but put her hands out to touch and found herself stroking steel clothed in silk. She ran her hands down the horse’s legs, and the mare lifted her front hoof to Anna’s asking. She wasn’t shod and the bottom of her feet looked—like the bottom of a horse’s foot. She laughed inwardly at herself, because she didn’t know enough for the examination to tell her anything except that the mare would stand quietly while an idiot ran hands all over her.

Somewhat to her own surprise, Anna’s fingers found a bump on her neck that struck her as odd. She was more surprised by her understanding that it was out of place than she was at finding something wrong with this paragon of a horse.

She glanced at Hosteen.

“From a vaccination,” he told her. “Some horses just do that sometimes. I have a vet report on it in her file.”

“Is she a mare you bred?” she asked, after looking for a question that wouldn’t make her sound too stupid.

Charles was being very quiet, even for Charles. He must have been as exhausted as she was. Hosteen was right: it was a tiredness of spirit rather than body. Even so, she was pretty sure she should have insisted that they retire to their room.

Hosteen shook his head. “Three years ago, Joseph was out at a trainer’s barn looking for interesting horses,” Hosteen said. “And he found this mare. She’d been soured in the ring so they’d put her in the breeding barn, but she wasn’t sound for breeding. So they’d sent her back to the trainers. But sour didn’t even touch on how much she hated arena work. She put the trainer’s assistant in the hospital and he was done with her.”

Hosteen shook his head. “My son is magic on a horse, and game for any challenge. He wanted to retrain her himself. We got her for more than we should have paid for her, but a lot less than she’d be worth if he could fix her. Before he could start working with her, his health started going downhill again.”

Hosteen turned away and ran a hand down the mare’s shiny neck. The smile he gave Anna when he turned back was unhappy, but not, she was sure, because of the horse. “Anyway, since then she’s been one of our trail horse band. We keep them in shape and ready to go for buyers or clients who want to take a ride out in the desert. So she’s been ridden steadily since she came, but not in the arena.”

“Portabella,” Anna said, having thought about the name and come up with an alternate theory for it, instead of the one attached to the mare’s pedigree. “Because someone fed her BS until she turned into a mushroom.”

Hosteen laughed. “Kage tried working with her last spring and he wanted to call her Soyuz.”

Anna frowned.

“After the Russian single-stage-to-orbit rocket,” said Kage dryly as he emerged from the barn. “I’ve never been dumped so fast with such authority in my life. It was a lesson in humility, especially since my eighty-year-old father had ridden her in the arena a couple of times before…” His voice trailed off as he caught sight of the wolf standing next to Hosteen.

Chelsea regarded him warily and, well versed in dealing with skittish animals, he stopped where he was and crouched down. “Oh, honey,” he crooned. “I’d have known you if you had six legs and scales. But I had no idea what a beautiful wolf you’d be.”

She leapt toward him—and misjudged, knocking him right off his feet. Portabella jumped back and Hosteen yanked at the rope that attached the horse to the tie post. A single jerk and she was loose from the post, her lead held in Hosteen’s hand instead. She took a couple of steps away and then settled, regarding the pile of wolf and man with pricked-ear disdain.

Chelsea backed off and looked distressed. Kage laughed and leaned forward until he could rub her neck. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll get the hang of it.”

Anna thought he hesitated a little as he got to his feet, but if he was hurt he wasn’t showing any other sign. Smart man. If Chelsea thought she’d hurt him, it would unsettle her, and unsettled was a bad thing for a werewolf in her first time out.

“If you get Anna taken care of,” Kage looked at Hosteen, “I’ll introduce Charles to his horse.”

A little snorty after the excitement, Portabella still let Hosteen bridle her with little trouble. She mouthed the bit and then stood, ears up and muscles quivering, while Anna mounted. She didn’t move, but Anna got the feeling it was an effort for her to remain still while the others got on their horses.

Charles’s horse was a rawboned gelding with a long, flexible neck and a Roman nose.

“I didn’t think Arabs ran to convex noses,” Anna said.

“Not a purebred Arab, anyway,” said Kage, seeing where she was looking. “Though I could show you a few pictures … But Figaro is a national show horse that’s half-Arab and half-saddlebred. He turned out all saddlebred in looks and Arab in gait. That’s pretty much the opposite of what we’re trying for when breeding national show horses. He’s a terrific jumper, though, and loves the trail.” He looked at Charles. “He’s for sale, too. He’s big enough to carry you.”

Charles patted the gelding. “We’re shopping for Anna.”

Charles’s gelding was a little smaller than Portabella, Anna found when she started out riding next to her husband.

The big mare had big gaits, too. She quickly outpaced the rest of the horses. Anna was forced to circle her to stay with the others. Like Heylight, the gray gelding from her first day, the mare was very sensitive to cues. Anna finally quit using the bridle for anything except speed control and just shifted her weight from one hip to the other to turn.

“Comfortable?” asked Hosteen, coming up on her left side. He rode a short chestnut gelding with a wide blaze and a friendly demeanor who trotted to keep up with Portabella’s quick walk.

“Very,” she said, straightening her back a little and making sure her heels were down. Portabella slowed.

“Ah,” Hosteen said, effortlessly keeping his horse next to hers, “don’t worry about me, just relax. Charles would never teach anyone the wrong way to ride. You ride better than a lot of the people you’ll see at the show tomorrow. Ready for a trot?”

“Sure,” she said. Were they going to the show tomorrow? She’d have to ask Charles.

“Go ahead and ask her, then,” he said. “We’ll follow. Just keep her on the trail. There’s a fork ahead, take either one you want.”

Portabella’s trot was lilting, but not heavy, so Anna didn’t bang into her back, but she had to really relax to keep her seat. As she did so, the mare’s ears perked up and her gait softened.

“Canter,” called Kage.

And before Anna cued her, Portabella broke into a blistering run, head up and tail flagged. Anna laughed and sat back, slowing her with a light hand on the reins until she was cantering. This was a lot different from riding Jinx. Chelsea ran beside them, stretching out with her tongue lolling in pleasure.

See, thought Anna, there are some things that are amazing about being a werewolf.

As soon as Hosteen tried to ride even with them, Portabella put on an extra burst of speed. The trail forked and Anna took the left, which was up a little hillock. At the top of the hill, she asked her to walk. Willingly the mare dropped speed and let the others catch up.

“We’re going to lose our light,” said Kage. “We ought to turn back soon.”

“I’d like to see what she does in the arena,” Charles said. Maybe there was something to what Hosteen had said, because Charles looked better. He had expressions that Anna could read again, which was an improvement.

“A challenge,” said Hosteen, laughing. “You always were up for a challenge. Okay, fair enough.”

They walked back to the barn. Anna ended up beside Hosteen again.

“I just remembered,” Anna said. “It’s not important to help us find the fae anymore, but I’d like to know, I guess. Do you know a werewolf named Archibald Vaughn who was here back in the seventies?”

“Archie?” asked Hosteen, startled.

“He’s dead,” said Charles, riding up beside them. “Killed by a fae … at least thirty years ago, now. Why do you ask?”

“Killed by a fae?” she asked. “Are you sure?”

Charles just looked at her, but Hosteen said, “I found the body. Yes. I’m sure. It was in the fall, 1979.”

The hair on the back of Anna’s head stood up. “Did he ever tell you that he saved a little boy from a fae creature? June of the year before. We’re pretty sure it’s the same one who built the fetch that tried to make Chelsea attack the kids.”

“Not that I heard,” Hosteen said. “After his mate died, he went to live with his family for a few years. We hoped it would help, but then I found out he’d stayed in his wolf shape the whole time. So I picked him up and brought him back to the pack and made him change to human. He never did go back to being his old self. When I felt him die, I was sure he’d found a way to kill himself. I thought it was suicide by fae.”

“I think,” Anna said, “that maybe it was revenge because he stopped this fae from stealing his grandchild. Or great-grandchild. Great-something-grandchild, anyway. It’s an awfully big coincidence otherwise.”

“Maybe he went looking for the fae,” offered Charles thoughtfully. “And both of you are right.”

“Any way you look at it,” said Anna. “The fae we’re chasing is powerful enough to kill a werewolf.”

“Tore him to pieces with magic,” said Hosteen thoughtfully.

“Makes you wonder,” Charles said slowly, “that such a fae let a handful of federal agents and police officers escort him off to jail.”

“Do you think they have the wrong fae?” Anna asked.

He didn’t quite answer. “I think … I think, Hosteen, that we need to borrow your wolves. This is not a fae that is going to let Amethyst, the little girl we rescued, stay rescued. We probably should send wolves out to protect Dr. Vaughn, too. And we’ll keep a weather eye on Chelsea and the kids.”

“Who is Dr. Vaughn?” Hosteen asked.

“The little boy that your wolf rescued back in 1978.”

“How many do you need?”

“All of them. On our victims, and on the FBI agent and the Cantrip agents who found his latest victim with us. At least two werewolves at all times. And they’ll have to stay out of sight,” he said. “I know that’ll put a strain on the pack. You can tell them that the Marrok will make sure they don’t suffer financially and that I don’t think it will last long.”

“Maybe they do have the right fae,” said Hosteen. “With them, it’s sometimes hard to predict why they do things.”

Charles’s horse snorted and Charles tilted his head sideways, closing his eyes, and murmured, “Can’t you feel it in the air? There’s a storm coming.” When he opened his eyes, they were yellow. He straightened and, though Anna couldn’t see that he moved again, his horse broke into a gentle canter.

They put the other horses away before taking Portabella into the same smaller arena that Anna had ridden in the day before. The mare didn’t look any different than she had before Anna had gotten on her outside. Or if she did, she looked even calmer, because she’d still been a little huffy about Chelsea when Anna had hopped on.

Charles lengthened the stirrups a lot, checked the cinch, and then swung up on the mare. Her head went up, her eyes rolled until Anna could see the whites that were normally hidden, she shifted her weight to her haunches, and she danced uneasily from foot to foot.

Charles just sat there, his body loose and easy; the only motion he made was the motion generated by the horse’s movement. She shuffled a few steps forward, two backward, a hop sideways. He made no move to correct her, just stayed balanced and light on her back.

They fit each other, Anna thought: big dark man, big dark horse, both elegant and strong. The idea made her lips quirk up, even with the worry that the janitor wasn’t the fae they were really looking for.

“You coming to the show tomorrow?” Kage asked. “Michael’s riding in the lead-line and Mackie’s taking the little gray you rode yesterday in the English walk/trot class.”

“I’ll ask Charles,” she said, watching as the mare, left mostly to her own devices, finally stopped moving except for the unhappy swish of her tail. “I think we’re going to try to get in to see the guy the FBI has locked up if we can. But I’d love to come see the kids ride.” And to make sure that they were safe.

After five minutes more (Anna checked her watch), Charles still having done nothing but sit there, the mare lowered her head and began to chew her bit. Immediately, Charles slipped off. He patted her neck and led her out of the gate. “If you want to put her on your list of possibles,” he told Anna, “that would be okay.”

And she knew for sure that he really liked her. Anna liked her a lot, too. “Okay,” she said. She looked at Kage. “She’s on our list of possibles, but not on the price list you gave us. Do you have a price for her?”

“Ten thousand,” said Hosteen.

Kage snorted. “Not anywhere near that, Hosteen. Five thousand for a pretty horse, well broke for trail. Twenty-five hundred for the well broke plus twenty-five hundred for the pretty. But don’t make up your mind yet, there’s some nice horses you haven’t seen.”

And as Kage and Hosteen left to put the mare away, Anna heard Hosteen chortle, “Did you hear him? She’s a challenge. He wants her. He’d have paid ten thousand for her.”

“We don’t overcharge for our horses, old man,” said Kage. “That’s a good way to get a bad reputation. And I suspect that Charles knows just exactly how much that horse should cost.” He paused. “I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I could have just told Dad what you tried to do; then you’d be in real trouble.”

Hosteen made a reply, but Anna couldn’t hear what he said. His voice sounded happy.

“I like them,” Anna said, very softly.

Charles’s lips quirked. “Hosteen was watching Kage when he gave us that price, did you see?”

“He was right, though,” Anna observed. “You’d have paid ten thousand for her because she’s a challenge.”

He smiled, eyes soft. “I already have a challenge,” he told her in a gravelly voice.

She shook her head with mock sadness. “I’m not a challenge, Charles. I’m just another woman panting after you like that teacher with the hungry eyes at the day care.”

He laughed out loud. “Sure you are,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Sure you are.”

Well, she knew it was true, even if he didn’t believe her. His arm pulled her a little off balance, and paradoxically it steadied her at the same time. That was what Charles did to her heart, too. He knocked it off balance into what felt like the right position, a safe place that was still exciting, exhilarating, and terrifying.

What if I lost him?

Anna called Leslie in the morning.

“No, I can’t get you in to see Sean McDermit,” she said in a distracted voice. “His lawyer is a shark, and he’s not saying anything. Apparently all we have on him is that the bodies were found in his house, a house that he’s never lived in. And that he’s a fae. Which makes this all the more politically hot, given the current tension with the fae.”

“We’re not sure you have the right person,” Anna said.

There was silence on the other line.

“I found Archie Vaughn,” Anna told her. “He was killed a year and a half after he stopped that kidnapping. Torn to pieces by a fae. Why would someone who could tear apart a werewolf let human police officers pick him up without a fight?”

“I’ll take your concerns to our fae expert,” she said. “I hate to say it, but I’m suspicious about how easy this was, too. So I’ve got people doing background checks on anyone who was ever employed by or used the day care and everyone they knew.” She paused. “We’re also searching records of missing children, trying to identify the bodies. Some of that is on computer, some of it on microfiche, and still more of it is in paper files scattered all over the city. We’ve got a pair of poor flunkies wading through microfiche of hundred-year-old newspapers, too. It doesn’t help that it’s not just Scottsdale, it’s Phoenix and all the rest of the suburbs, too. We’ll be decades identifying the bodies in that attic.”

Anna made a sympathetic noise.

“Anyway,” Leslie continued, sounding more grounded and less frantic, “you’ll be as happy as I am that it looks like that poor baby we rescued yesterday wasn’t raped. She’s still traumatized, scared of the dark, terrified of dolls—and who could blame her—and she cries every time her parents aren’t in the room with her.”

“What did he do?” she asked.

“Dressed her like a doll, sang to her, hurt her. She said his touch hurt like a bee sting all over her body. Made her so she couldn’t move. She wasn’t asleep, she just couldn’t move.”

“Terrifying,” Anna said.

“Yes,” agreed Leslie, sounding tired.

“Since you have your manpower focused on research, you’ll be happy to know that we have werewolves guarding Amethyst’s parents, Dr. Vaughn, and his partner and his mother. Also, you and Leeds and Marsden. You won’t know they are there.”

Anna kept speaking over the top of Leslie’s indignant protest. “This one killed a werewolf, tore him to pieces with magic. A human simply doesn’t stand a chance. The werewolves will be wearing black Converse sneakers, so you’ll know not to shoot them or react to their presence. They are doing this because we feel it necessary, Leslie, putting their lives on the line. They are, all of this pack”—Hosteen had clarified this—“living as human. If you reveal what they are to the public, it might ruin their lives.”

Leslie made an unhappy sound. “I will keep their secrets, and make sure Marsden and Leeds are apprised, too. How long are we going to be protected?”

“Thank you,” Anna said, air leaving her in a whoosh of relief at Leslie’s agreement. “Until we are all convinced you have the right fae. If you need us, we’re going to the Arabian horse show at WestWorld in north Scottsdale. If we don’t pick up the phone, text us.”

“The horse show?” said Leslie. “Let’s see. Ms. Newman’s four-year-old class is going to be there in the morning and Miss Baird’s five-year-old class in the afternoon. Apparently they do it every year. Tomorrow it will be the two-year-olds and then Mrs. Hepplethwaite’s three-year-old class. Do you want any of the classes’ daily schedules by day? The music teacher on Monday and Wednesday is also the swimming instructor Tuesday and Thursday. Did I tell you we are taking a very close look at that day care?”

Anna laughed.

“Why do the two-year-olds have a teacher?” Leslie asked. “Don’t you think they should have a babysitter? Or even an entertainer? Can’t they just be toddlers and not students?”

“Students pay more for school than toddlers pay for babysitters,” Anna suggested.

“Hmm,” said Leslie. “Okay. That makes more sense. Thank you.”

“Just don’t talk too much to Ms. Newman,” Anna suggested, “or you might be overcome with the temptation to steal all of her students out from under her iron rule and take them outside to run around and have fun like normal four-year-olds.”

Leslie laughed. “Look,” she said. “There is no way I can get you and Charles in to see McDermit before our expert has a go. But call me this afternoon.”

“We’d appreciate it,” Anna told her.

“No promises, but I’ll try,” Leslie said, and ended the call.

Anna pulled on her socks and boots and trotted down the stairs through the empty house; everyone else, including Maggie and Joseph, was already at the horse show. Both of the little kids were riding today and no one wanted to miss it.

No one. A chill ran down Anna’s spine. The fae were tricksy. They were also supposed to be all locked up in reservations, but one fae had been in Kathryn Jamison’s garden. Presumably, because neither she nor Charles had seen him, the janitor was a second. The bodies had been found in a house he owned. But Anna had learned to listen to her instincts; they told her there was a third fae, the real Doll Collector, complete with ties to the day care, the fetch, and the janitor.

Happily Anna wasn’t the only one whose instincts were on edge. Hosteen had claimed guard duty on the kids for himself, and Wade was assigned to Chelsea. But Anna thought it was a good thing that she and Charles were going, too. Two more werewolves keeping an eye on four victims who had escaped, mostly escaped anyway. Their job would be floating security, looking for any signs that the fae was stalking the Sani family. She found it very interesting that Sunshine Fun Day Care was scheduled so that the whole day care, staff and students alike, was going to be at the show at one time or another.

Charles was down in the kitchen finishing his breakfast. The family and most of their staff had left before dawn. Hosteen had suggested she and Charles come after the show opened to the public.

“I warned Leslie,” Anna told him. “She told me that the whole day care is going to be at the horse show today and tomorrow. She also said there wasn’t a chance of us getting in to see their captive fae today. She’s going to try to get us in this afternoon.”

He had set his silverware down as if he were finished eating. She sat on his lap and ate his last piece of bacon. “So I guess you get to take me to my first horse show.”

“The last time I went to this show it was at Paradise Park. I think it was about 1965, long before you were born.” He quit speaking, frowning a little at her.

“Are you planning on worrying about how much older you are than I am when you are four hundred and I’m only two hundred?” she asked him in an interested voice. “I’m only asking because my father said it was dangerous when you start tuning out your spouse, but I don’t know how long I can worry about it.”

He laughed; his arms surrounded her and pulled her tighter in a brief hug.

“Besides,” she said airily, sliding off his lap, “I’ve heard that Vlad the Impaler established without a doubt that having a stick up one’s ass was detrimental to one’s health. And I am very interested in keeping you healthy.”

She didn’t make it to the door before he had her, one arm wrapped around her shoulders and the other around her middle, pulling her back into his body.

He put his mouth against her ear and growled playfully, “So I’m in danger of suffering the fate of Vlad’s victims, am I? Maybe you should do something about rescuing me?”

The vibration of his voice against her ear made her shiver, but she tried to keep her voice steady anyway. “Why, sir, what could you possibly mean? Are you propositioning moi?”

He growled in her ear and she squeaked because it tickled, and caused a more interesting sensation in her stomach. Then he moved his right hand down to cup her breast and his left hand slid south. He said a few sentences in French, his voice rough and hungry. She thought maybe he’d forgotten she didn’t really speak French.

“Charles,” she said, her own voice husky with need, because her mate was hard to resist at any time. But he was never sexier than when he was feeling playful.

He picked her up and took her to their room, his steps slow and deliberate—and that was its own kind of foreplay.

It was a while before they actually got to the show grounds. They were still early. Kage had said that crowds didn’t get really big until the last three or four days. That being said, the place they finally found to park was a quarter-mile walk to the entrance.

Armed with a map, Charles led the way briskly through what felt like miles and miles of kiosk shopping in the huge main building. He ignored the surreptitious attention he was garnering, for both his looks and, Anna thought, his air of dangerous intent.

Michael’s class was getting its fifteen-minute warning call as they finally found the seats the Sanis’ ranch had reserved in the indoor arena. Anna had been beginning to despair when Charles spotted the mobility cart bearing the ranch’s logo in silver and brown parked tightly behind the rows of blue stadium seats. From there it was easy to find familiar faces.

Anna and Charles found seats next to Mateo and Teri, just behind Maggie, Joseph, Max, Chelsea, and Wade. Max twisted around and grinned at Anna.

“Mackie is a little tyrant,” he said. “She declared that everyone had to see her ride.” He raised his voice to a squeak that was supposed to sound like his little sister. “Ev-er-ee-bo-dee.” He grinned. “And then Michael, not to be outdone, declared that we all had to be here to watch him, too. So Dad and Hosteen are getting the kids and horses ready for the class so that the rest of the crew can watch from the rail.”

Anna thought it seemed reasonable to her: children ought to feel comfortable demanding an audience if they were going to ride in this huge building. The bleachers were empty, but the stadium seating along the arena railing seemed to be pretty full.

“Where’s Mackie, then?” Anna asked. “Her class isn’t until this afternoon, right?”

“She seems to think that Michael might need some coaching,” said Joseph. If his voice was hesitant, the twinkle in his eye wasn’t. “Bossing, more like. It’s a good thing that boy is laid-back or Kage’s household will be hell until they both grow up and go out on their own.”

“She’s got a good heart,” Maggie said repressively.

Joseph looked at her, and Anna saw that he adored the woman who sat beside him. “She’s just like her grandma,” he said, patting her hand. “Tough, straightforward, and determined. You didn’t turn out so bad, Maggie my love. If she’s half the woman you are, the world better watch out.”

“Joseph,” said a stranger who came down the short stretch of stairs until he could stand next to Joseph’s chair, which was on the aisle. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“My grandson’s riding,” Joseph said with dignity. “Where else would I be?”

And the two men started talking about other days and other shows. Horses they’d owned, horses other people had owned. They were joined by an older woman who could have stepped out of the Grand Ole Opry of the ’80s. She glittered in gold and black tiger stripes, wore too much makeup, and had a voice that decades of smoking had roughened to Marlene Dietrich level. She was bawdy and made both of the old men laugh. Maggie leaned sideways and added a sharp remark that showed that she, too, was a welcome part of this group.

They tried to include Chelsea, and she smiled on cue, but she was noticeably tense in the big, noisy crowd. Anna glanced at Charles, who was watching Chelsea, too.

He didn’t look worried, so she sat back and looked around. Directly in front of them, a large group of very well-groomed and glittering horses circled the arena at a very, very slow canter. As soon as she started watching them, Charles whispered in her ear, “Half Arab, Anglo-Arab western pleasure, amateur owner to ride, section one. This is an elimination round. The best of them will go on to the semifinal round. That’s why no one in the audience is too excited about it, except for the cheering sections for each horse and rider.”

“They are very slow,” she said after a moment. “Shouldn’t they be going faster? What if something was chasing them? I think Portabella walked faster than this yesterday. What’s an Anglo-Arab?”

“Half Thoroughbred, half Arab. It was the first of the half-bred Arabs to gain popularity. The Thoroughbred added size, so bigger people could ride. These are almost all quarter-horse or paint crossbreeds, except for the Appaloosa down there.” He paused. “That’s a really nice Appaloosa.”

Joseph, still chatting with his buddies, had apparently been paying attention to them, too. “Still got the eye. That mare won this class the past two years running. If this is a fair sampling of her competition, she’s got a good chance of winning it again. If Helen’s daughter-in-law doesn’t take it with her Shining Spark gelding.”

Anna quit trying to parse the horse talk (for instance, what in the world was a Shining Spark gelding?) and just settled in and watched pretty horses moving very slowly with pretty riders wearing sometimes garish colors and lots and lots of glitter. The men were better off than the women, coming off conservative in comparison.

All the while, Anna breathed in deeply, paying attention to what her nose could tell her. Mostly it told her that at least two people around here were wearing too much perfume, and there were lots and lots of horses around.

The riders were called into the center, those advancing to the next level were announced, and then they cleared the ring. Almost instantly the stadium seats filled and the nosebleed bleachers saw some use. Joseph and Maggie’s gossip partners wandered off to find their seats.

Over the loudspeaker, the announcer said, “This is class one-sixteen, lead-line ages two through seven. First in is Candice Hart, riding Little Joe Green by Mister Vanilla out of Desert Wind Doll, with handlers Josie Hart and Karen Tucker.”

And a tiny girl who was younger than Michael came into the ring wearing a tiny pink cowboy outfit that glittered with pink rhinestones under the lights. She wore itty-bitty pink boots and bright pink fringed chaps. She sat on a very small black saddle that looked utterly ridiculous and precious at the same time. Instead of a cowboy hat, she wore a bright pink riding helmet. The horse, a very pale palomino, carried his tiny burden with solemn majesty. The two adults walked on the left side, one holding a lead clipped to the bridle, the other with a hand on the tiny girl’s leg.

“That is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Anna seriously.

“Just wait,” said Maggie. “It’s not over yet.”

And one at a time, each little rider was announced and led in. There were English riders, western riders, and one who looked like an extra from The Sheik in what the announcer called traditional costume. The costume was a bright-colored flowing thing with enough tassels, jewels, and bangles to leave any self-respecting Bedouin tribesman running for the hills.

“Next in we have Michael Sani on three-time national champion SA Phoenix by Xenophonn out of SA Rose Queen. Leading them in is Kage Sani.”

Michael couldn’t compete with the little fairy doll in pink. Instead, like some of the men Anna had seen in the last class, he was wearing a perfectly respectable blue western-cut shirt with a black shoestring tie. Like his father and Hosteen, Michael looked very much at home on top of the big bay gelding his father led.

When Michael rode past them, he gave his grandfather a solemn nod and patted his horse. Joseph returned the nod but added a grin as he held up both hands clasped together in the traditional victory sign. When the last rider was in, the announcer asked the group to reverse at a walk. They paraded for about five minutes, so that everyone had time to take photos, and then they were taken to the middle of the ring.

Anna couldn’t help a ridiculous twinge of anxiety. Michael looked awesome. But who could compete with a toddler in pink? Or a princess dressed in tassels on a white horse with a tail that dragged the ground? She clenched Charles’s hand, and he clenched her hand back, looking so serious that she knew he was having fun. She had the suspicion that it might be at her expense.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” said the announcer. “Our judges have been very impressed with this group this morning. What do you say?”

The crowd exploded in a chorus of clapping and whistles. Charles covered Anna’s ears to protect them and winced a little. It was loud. Chelsea had covered her own ears. Good for her.

When the crowd quieted, the announcer said solemnly, “That’s exactly what our judges said. With this quality of competition they have been unable to pick a clear winner. If this were a race they’d have to declare it a dead heat. Because of this, we have decided to award first place to every child in the class.” More applause followed.

Anna sat back and gave Charles an indignant look. “They all get first prize,” she said.

“That’s right,” Charles said.

“Every time.”

“Could you have picked out a winner?”

She smacked his thigh lightly and then rubbed it to wipe away any hint of sting in case she’d hit too hard. When the last child was led out of the ring, Anna gave a happy sigh as the group of Sani stablehands, trainers, and riders stood up and began shuffling out.

“Joseph and I will watch from here,” said Maggie. “You should go out and walk around. Mackie’s class isn’t until just before the lunch break. We’ll keep Max here to run for food and drink.”