Free Saddled With Trouble by A. K. Alexander Page B

from the islands a couple years after Dwayne had joined on with her uncle, to help out temporarily, and wound up never going back. He wasn’t the rider that Dwayne was. He carried quite a bit more weight on him than his younger cousin. But from everything Michaela knew about him, Sam did a good job with the horses.
    “Thanks, Dwayne, for coming back. Is Cynthia okay?”
    “As good as you might expect. You know, she had a terrible blow, losing a loved one. Lou was a good man. Did not deserve this fate. She is resting now.”
    Michaela could hear him choke back emotion as she felt it rise again in her own throat. “I was hoping to speak to her. But it’s good she’s sleeping.”
    “You going to come by in the morning for a coffee, right? Maybe she be up to talking then. I hope I can get back to the horses in a day or so. Lou would want that.”
    “You’re still going to ride?”
    There was a pause on the other end. “You know, Michaela, I run it through my brain the whole drive home about what is right thing to do, or how it looks if I am still in the rodeo. I talk about it with my cousin Sam on the drive and he say to me that Lou was a cowboy. He was a horseman. He did not raise the animals and make investment in them without want of an outcome. He raised champions and I have to go and get a championship again. You know that is what he would have me do. Sam be right. I have to ride.”
    Dwayne was correct: Uncle Lou had never been a glass-half-empty kind of guy. “You’re probably right. Yes, I’ll stop by in the morning.”
    “Good. Get some rest and we will talk tomorrow.”
    Michaela hung up and turned off the light. She sat in the dark for several minutes, trying to clear her mind of the image of Uncle Lou lying dead on Loco’s stall floor. But she couldn’t. After a few minutes she decided to get a glass of water.
    She passed Camden’s room and could hear her still talking. Probably to Kevin. She reached for the doorknob, thinking she’d say goodnight, but before she could turn it, her friend’s words came through the door.
    “. . . with him gone it will be a lot easier acquiring that land. I understand you don’t want to look suspicious, but I seriously doubt it. You’ve been trying to get your hands on that property for a while now. Besides, you don’t exactly have a killer instinct. You know how to get people eating out of your hands. It’s one of the things I love about you. But we both know just what a killer you are, don’t we?” Camden laughed. “Listen, I better go, I need to check on Michaela. Today has been rough on her. Tomorrow night? Yeah. Sure. Well, maybe I should stay home and take care of her. No, she won’t want to come. Even when she isn’t down in the dumps she’s not exactly a party girl. Okay, I’ll try. You’re right, maybe it would help. Yes, and it would be good if she had a different impression of you. I know. I won’t. Okay, sweetie. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
    Camden hung up the phone. Michaela hurried back to bed and slid under the covers. A few seconds later she heard her door open. Camden whispered her name and stood over her. She reached out and rubbed Michaela’s arm. “Poor kid. Get some rest.”
    After Camden left she lay awake for quite some time, her friend’s conversation playing over and over again in her mind. She had been talking to Kevin. The way it sounded, they were talking about it being much easier now for Kevin to get his grubby hands on her uncle’s land. Granted, Camden hadn’t mentioned her uncle’s name, but it made sense. The scenario about the killer instinct, the land being easier to acquire, all of it. Her stomach took a turn for the worse as she couldn’t help wondering: Did her best friend have something to do with her uncle’s murder?

 
     
     
     
     
    ELEVEN
    ETHAN WAS GONE BY THE TIME MICHAELA MADE it out to the barn the next morning, but he’d fed the horses and left her a note that said he’d stop by later on