Free One Hoof In The Grave [Carriage Driving 02] by Carolyn McSparren

Amos Royden in Mossy Creek if you want a run down on Peggy and Merry. They can be a handful, but the only reason I can think of that Merry Abbott might consider killing someone is if she caught him hurting horses.” He stopped with his hand on the door. “Raleigh didn’t hurt his horses, did he?”
    Stan guffawed. “Not to the best of my knowledge. Man, you ought to see your face. You’re dead serious, aren’t you?”
    “I just came back from an assignment in the Caribbean,” Geoff said with as much dignity as he could muster. “That’s why my face is red. Sunburn.”
    “Riiiiggghhhht.”
    He threaded his way through trucks and trailers until he spotted Merry’s white dually and its attached horse trailer. He didn’t see Merry, but Peggy stood on the step of the tack storage area hanging a set of harness on one of the hooks inside.
    “Need a hand?” he asked.
    She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and said, “Thank God, you came.” She stepped off the trailer and hugged him. Surprised, he hugged her back.
    “I don’t think Stan Nordstrom is going to arrest Merry,” he said when she’d released him. “Not at the moment. Where is she, by the way?”
    “Borrowing a set of VSE harness and a small cart. It folds flat, so we can stow it under the marathon carriage. You can help slide it in and help put the carriage cover on.”
    “What’s a VSE?”
    “Stands for Very Small Equine,” Peggy said and shook her head. “Miniature horses. Worse. Miniature donkeys.”
    “Like Don Qui?” Geoff said. He flashed back to Don Quixote, Merry’s miniature donkey that had tried to stomp and bite him at every opportunity.
    Peggy leaned her hip on the side of the pickup. “Merry is teaching Don Qui to drive.”
    “You’re kidding, right? When did she develop the death wish? Sorry, bad choice of words.”
    “She read up on the breed. Apparently, they have a reputation as kind, easy-going animals . . .”
    Geoff snorted.
    “And she says if he’s going to continue to eat her grain, he’s going to have to pay his way by training students.”
    “Training them to do what? Bail out of a carriage at a dead gallop?”
    “I know, I know,” Peggy said. “But she is bound and determined. So we’re borrowing a miniature Meadowbrook cart and small harness from Juanita Tolliver. Her grandchildren have outgrown their VSEs and graduated to Welsh ponies, so she’s not using it at the moment. We’ve been longeing and long-reining him since February, but we don’t have a small cart.”
    He glanced up.
    “Here she comes. Don’t say a word about Don Qui. She doesn’t want anyone to know until she’s certain he’ll be trustworthy to a cart.”
    Merry had draped the VSE harness around her neck, and balanced the little two-wheel cart behind her. Built of natural wood, it wasn’t much bigger than a dog cart. She walked between the shafts in front as though she were a horse and pulled the cart behind her.
    Since the Meadowbrook cart was entered from the rear, both left hand and right hand seats folded down so driver and passenger could climb through, open up the seats, and sit behind the dashboard and between the two wheels. With the seats down, the cart stood no more than three feet from the ground to the top of the wheels. It probably weighed less than a hundred pounds, but it was cumbersome for a human being to pull. It was one of the few carriages that could be folded flat, so that it would fit into the back of a van.
    When she reached the open door of her trailer, Merry began to collapse the cart. Both Geoff and Peggy hurried to help her. Her face was streaming with sweat despite the cool breeze.
    She glared at Geoff, and said, “Take this harness off me before I trip over the reins and break my neck.”
    He reached for it. “Please might be nice,” he said.
    “I’m not feeling polite. Not after you disappear for months and then barely say hello before you accuse me of murder.”
    “Hey,” he said and