A Ghost at Stallion's Gate Read Online Free PDF

be okay, to heal.”
    I hate it when others know what’s good for me. I looked at Joshua and for the first time I saw him, and not Zach. “I know you are probably right. And your uncanny likeness to Zach does throw me off. When you showed up at my room that morning, with your foot in a cast, I wanted you to be Zach.” I looked down at the table and tried to find the words that would convince Joshua I should stay on this case. I looked at him, directly in his eyes and said, “I know Zach would have wanted me to work through this and doing this assignment, working with you is good for me. This was Zach’s last contracted work, please let me help finish it, for him?”
    Joshua reached across the table and took my left hand. He looked at it and gently touched my bare ring finger. His gesture spoke volumes in the silence of the moment. “Shannon, it was only my big toe that was in cast and I’m fine now. I’m so sorry to have told you the news that way, but I was with Zach when he passed and he asked me to go to you.”
    He looked so apologetic. Now it was I who reached out my hand to his. “Okay. Let’s change the subject. How about I clue you in to the mystery at Stallion’s Gate?”
    “I’d like that.”
    The timing was perfect because our waitress appeared with our meals. We waited until she left. I took a calm deep breath and pondered, for just a moment about how to explain this to Joshua. “It has something to do with the horses in the trophy room. Especially that one big horse in the center of the room.”
    “The Clydesdale?” Josh asked.
    “So, that’s the kind of horse he is? A Clydesdale, hmm, I wasn’t sure, but I suspected as much. Do you know much about that kind of horse?”
    Josh leaned over the table and took my right hand “Shannon, your technique of answering a question with a question doesn’t work on me. I will humor you this time. This time only,” he emphasized. “But, by the time we are finished with lunch, I want the whole story.”
    Since he was holding my hand and didn’t seem to want to let go, I shook on it. “Deal. Now, tell me everything you know about Clydesdale horses.”
    “They are among the largest of draft horses. The breed originated in Scotland. They’ve been bred in America for at least the last two hundred years, maybe longer than that. They were, and still are, popular in California, especially here in Pasadena where they are used for pulling buggies, carriages and cabs in the famous New Year’s Day Rose Parade.” Josh dabbed a French fry in ketchup and I almost winced, his gesture of dipping and love for ketchup was so much like Zach’s.
    “Were they ever raced?” I asked.
    “Probably not, at least not in the way you are referring to,” Josh answered. “And, if you mean the other horses in that room, well, the other horses were bred for racing, they’re thoroughbred horses.”
    “So, that Clydesdale, and that carriage it is hitched to, do you think they were in the Rose Parade?” I asked.
    “Yeah, that’s my best guess. The Coover family always had a float in the parade, at least until Reggie Coover left California. Oh, and that carriage, it’s a covered carriage with the driver’s seat above and behind the passengers, better known as a hansom cab.”
    I stopped sipping my iced tea and looked wide-eyed at Josh. “I’m impressed. I had no idea you knew that much about horse carriages. So, tell me, are hansom cabs the same kind of carriages usually seen in Sherlock Holmes movies?”
    “Sure, and about every other movie set in the 1800s. Hansom cabs were in use at least up until the Second World War. Now they’re antiques. Uncle Pedro has some out at his ranch.”
    Bingo! “Well, no wonder you know so much about them. I had forgotten about your uncle’s horse ranch. One more question, is a Clydesdale horse considered to be a horse of a different color?”
    Josh set down his sandwich. “No. That’s an old saying, it means that something is of a