Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 01 - Dark Horse Read Online Free PDF Page A

the barn door.
Robyn isn’t put off for long. As Dan leads Monty outside, she follows with another horse, and calls up to Dan. “But that’s pretty good already, Dan! It’ll give me something to look for when they’re here!”
He opens the gate to the field and takes Monty inside. “Just don’t be obvious about it. Karl and Molly are already pissed at me. I don’t need to get blamed for ‘outing’ customers.”
“I’ll be good, I promise.”
Robyn brings her horse into the field and waits for Dan to shut the gate before releasing him. Dan takes the halter off Monty and watches fondly as the big horse takes a few springy trotting steps and then erupts in a series of high-spirited bucks. Dan knows he did the right thing the day before, so he doesn’t feel guilty about being glad that Monty is still at the barn.
He helps Robyn take the rest of the horses out, except for Sunshine and a couple others that might be of interest to the Kaminskis. Karl and Molly haven’t left him a note as they normally would, letting him know about the buyers, but it’s a lot easier to leave a horse inside for an extra hour or two than it is to catch one that doesn’t want to be caught. He also keeps Chaucer in, and sets to work grooming him and tacking him up. They’d done dressage the day before, so Dan puts his jumping saddle on today.
He keeps an eye out for the Kaminskis as he works with Chaucer but doesn’t see them. He also doesn’t see Karl or Molly, which is a bit unusual. They’re both strong riders and do their fair share of work in the barn. He hopes something else hasn’t gone wrong. Sunshine wouldn’t bring nearly as much money as Monty would have, but at least it would be something. He gets an unpleasant churning in his belly when it occurs to him that they might be away because of a problem unrelated to the barn. He’d checked his cell that morning, but if they were still angry from the day before, maybe they wouldn’t want to tell him….
When he’s cooled Chaucer down and turned him out, Dan decides to take a walk over toward the main house. It’s not that he’s looking for Karl and Molly. Really, he’d be just as glad to avoid them for a while. But it’s a little unnerving for them to not have left a note or anything.
He reaches the clump of trees that separates the house from the barn area, and peers around. He can see their car in the driveway, with another car and a truck parked behind it. He squints. The car looks like the rental the Kaminskis had been driving yesterday, and the truck really looks like Chris’s. He knows Chris handles the barn’s legal matters, but he wouldn’t usually be involved in a simple horse purchase, and it doesn’t make any sense for the Kaminskis to be buying without even trying Sunshine, especially not after the failure with Monty.
Dan leans a little farther, and then catches himself. What’s he doing? Whatever’s going on, he’s established that everyone is fine, so he really has no excuse for further spying. He turns and heads back to the barn. He’s frustrated about being kept out of the loop. If he hadn’t run into Jeff and Evan the night before, he’d have no idea that buyers were expected that day. And without knowing the situation, he can’t really make intelligent decisions about what to work on.
Robyn is still cleaning stalls when he gets back to the barn, and instead of figuring out which horse to ride next, he makes a snap decision. “I’m going to get changed and take a long lunch, okay, Robyn?” “I thought you said the Kaminskis were coming?”
“Yeah, I thought so, but I don’t really know. Maybe they changed their minds. Anyway, it’s Sunshine—Karl or Molly can ride her if they need to.”
“Yeah, okay.” Robyn’s brow creases. “You know it’s, like, ten o’clock, right? That’s a pretty early lunch.”
“I’m taking a drive. It’ll be almost lunch by the time I get there.”
Robyn nods understandingly. “Oh, okay.” Dan