Free Midnight Lady by Jenny Oldfield Page A

sharply.
    “Sorry.” She frowned down at her feet. Now was not the time to explain her theory. But she thought it through. “Hit the old lady while she’s down!” Leon must have told Arnie Ash. “She can’t handle this latest crisis of her horses running off. Right now she’d listen to any offer, even if it was peanuts!” Arnie Ash would get the best deal of his life. He’d be grateful to Leon for the inside information. Leon would probably be rewarded with a good raise in pay.
    Bad news. Terrible news, in fact. Made all the more real by the fact that Leon’s pickup was approaching the ranch house right now. He sped over the bumpy track and swung into the yard with a squeal of brakes, slamming the door and giving Sandy and Kirstie a long, hard look.
    “Why the trailer?” he demanded.
    “We loaned Donna some horses until she gets hers back.” Sandy’s voice sounded defensive.
    “Who asked you to do that?” Glancing angrily at Johnny Mohawk, Silver Flash, and Yukon, Leon lifted his leather chaps out of the back of the truck and began to tie them on.
    “No one asked us. We thought it was the least we could do.” Realizing that they’d outstayed their welcome, Sandy headed for the trailer. “Keep them as long as you need to,” she told Donna.
    “You gotta realize these aren’t real ranch horses,” Leon cut across Sandy and Kirstie’s path to warn his boss. “They’re used to dude ranch work, carrying amateur riders out on the trail, not professional cowboys cutting out and roping cattle.”
    Kirstie stopped in her tracks. “Hey. Johnny Mohawk is as good as any cutter or roper on Circle R!”
    Leon sneered at her. “In your dreams!” He went across to the dainty black horse, who backed away at his sudden approach. He laughed outright at Johnny’s slim build. “Are you saying this weakling can hold his ground against a fifteen-hundred-pound steer, or work up enough speed to rope a calf?”
    “Sure!” Kirstie refused to back down. “Arabians are pretty fast, and they’re known for having a lot more stamina than a quarter horse.” Her heart was thumping with a mixture of anger and anxiety. It didn’t take much imagination to guess how Leon Franks would treat the Half Moon Ranch horses while they were here. She saw the cowboy’s spurs glint in the sun and watched Johnny Mohawk pull back to the limit of his halter rope.
    “C’mon, Kirstie,” her mom said, looking worried herself. She said good-bye to Donna, who had stood nervously on the porch since Leon’s arrival, as if working up enough courage to break the news of Arnie Ash’s recent offer to him.
    For another few moments, Kirstie hesitated. “How long have you got before you have to give Arnie an answer?” she murmured quietly to the elderly ranch owner. She noticed Leon Franks hovering rudely on the edge of their private conversation.
    Donna sighed and shook her head. “Not long. He said the offer was only good for a short while, otherwise he would put in a bid on another ranch he’s been looking at lately.”
    “But how long exactly?” Kirstie knew that an awful lot hung on Donna’s answer.
    There was the dim, distant look in her eyes, a catch in her throat as she replied. “Twenty-four hours,” she whispered. “Arnie wants a decision from me by this time tomorrow morning!”
    “TJ and Jesse just found two more of their horses!” Hadley greeted Sandy and Kirstie with good news.
    It was midday when they finally got back home, having driven the trailer along the back roads around Renegade and San Luis, searching for the missing animals. They’d looked along the banks of Horseshoe Creek, in meadows hidden behind copses of willow and aspen. Once, they’d spotted movement: a reddish brown creature stumbling through marshy ground. They’d left the trailer and tracked the animal on foot, coming across it as it drank from the creek.
    “Bovine!” Sandy had said quietly, using the jokey cowboy term.
    The cow had raised her