“Are you happy?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said with total conviction. “But it took a while. It might take her a while, too.”

“Yes,” he said, but he didn’t sound nearly as upset about it as he had been when he’d started talking. “I expect it will.”

“It could be worse,” Charles said thoughtfully. “She could be dead.”

Kage nodded. “Yes. This may be difficult. That would have been unbearable. Difficult is better.”

CHAPTER

5

“Market’s back up, is it?” Charles asked dryly, looking at the sales list Kage handed him.

“Sort of up,” said Kage. “The very top-tier horses, the ones that will win at Scottsdale, nationals, or Paris, they sell as high as they ever did. Higher maybe. Last year a stallion sold to Saudi Arabia for five million dollars, but he was a freak of nature. The second-tier horses, good pedigree and nice horses that aren’t quite topflight—those are harder to sell and make a profit on.” He grinned at Charles. “Those are the ones I’m going to be showing you. Before we start, though, you’ll notice Hephzibah on that list.”

“Yes,” Charles said, his eyes crinkling in humor. “Her price has a negative sign by it. Does that mean he’ll pay me to take her?”

Kage laughed. “I won’t sell her to anyone. Hosteen put her on the list. My wife loves that mare. Only horse that Hosteen’s ever failed to ride. I think that’s why Chelsea likes her. Too crazy to sell, too healthy to put down. Beautiful enough that the temptation to breed her will someday overwhelm us all. A nastier horse I’ve never been around. She is all sweetness and goodness, until she goes after you.” He sobered. “She put two of our grooms in the hospital and nearly killed another. Only Hosteen or I handle her now. Treacherous. Her sire, to my knowledge, has never sired another horse with a bad disposition. Her dam was an old mare we got in trade, and Hephzibah was the only foal she had for us.”

A Hispanic man came up to them. “Hey, Kage. These the folks who wanted to look at horses?”

“Mateo—” Kage started to introduce him and paused. “Where is Teri?”

“She’s getting the first horse saddled. You wanted them in the small ring, right? You head over there and we’ll bring them to you.”

“Good. Mateo and Teri are going to wrangle horses while I do the salesman thing.” Kage grinned. “We’ll use the little ring because the big one is being prepped, as you saw. Mateo is our senior trainer, but like all of us, he steps in where we need him. Teri is one of our apprentices and she rides for us in shows.”

“Lots of people working for you these days,” said Charles.

Kage nodded. “It’s because we do the whole thing: breed, train, show. And we show in whatever class the horse is suited for. That means lots of people on the payroll, but we’re diversified. Right now the halter horses are bringing in the biggest money, but Hosteen thinks too much specialization is bad for business.”

And Hosteen would always run this place, would never grow old and gradually let his grandson take over. Anna wondered if that bothered Kage.

As they walked to the smaller arena, all along the barn aisle horses put their heads out over the stall doors—stalls that were both cleaner and fancier than a lot of hotels Anna had stayed at. As they walked, Kage chatted lightly—to Anna and Charles and to the horses.

“We train our horses, but we train other people’s horses, too. Heyya, Bones, are they feeding you enough? Most of the horses I’m going to show you are ours. But a couple of them belong to other people. That’s my girl—aren’t you lovely today? No carrots, sorry. What you are primarily looking for should not be an expensive horse. Show horses, good show horses, are expensive—so mostly what I’m going to present to you are horses unsuited, in one way or another, to the show ring. But Hosteen put a few show horses on the list, just in case. Are you my good, great beastie? Yes, you are.”

The small pen was a round arena about a quarter of the size of the big arena they’d walked by. The fence was made from plywood sheets that were scarred and battered—though still solid. Kage ushered them inside; before he closed the gate, a tiny woman who was rawhide and leather led a smallish bay mare, already saddled with a western, silver-bedecked saddle, into the ring.

“This is Honey Bay Bee,” Kage said. “She’s twelve. We showed her halter at the regional level when she was a yearling and then hunt seat for a year as a futurity horse. She is no longer breeding sound, so we’ve put another year of riding on her and are selling her as an amateur prospect.”

Anna tried to look like she knew what he was talking about, but he lost her at “regional” and “hunt seat.”

“Go ahead and ask,” said Charles.

“Hunt seat?”

“English saddle,” said Kage. “But horses trot long instead of high like they do in the English classes. You’ll see what I mean.”

Teri hopped up gracefully and walked, trotted, and cantered the mare around the pen. Teri had a big smile on her face; the horse looked vaguely annoyed.

She felt annoyed, too, when Anna mounted much less gracefully. She walked, trotted, and cantered for Anna with as much enthusiasm as a kid doing homework. Her ears weren’t pinned, but they weren’t up and eager, either. Bored, bored, bored, they said.

At least she didn’t shy at anything.

Charles shook his head before Anna got off.

“She gives me a baseline,” Kage said. “But no.”

Anna rode four horses that night. By the third horse, she lost most of her shyness about riding in front of virtual strangers who knew a lot more than she did. Which was good, because the fourth horse they brought for her was a tiny gelding who was “English pleasure but not quite a park horse,” whatever that meant. Mateo rode him for them first. Anna saw immediately what Kage had been saying when he’d told her English was up instead of out. The tiny powerhouse snapped up his knees and hocks with enthusiastic energy.

“Could I ride him in a western saddle?” she asked.

“English saddles suck if you are riding in the mountains.” Kage grinned. “Of course you can. Heylight won’t care. He’s all about getting down the road and having fun.”

Evidently they weren’t going to get the western saddle now, though, which was kind of what Anna had been asking. Anna eyed the itty-bitty scrap of leather that was missing the horn for her to grab on to.

“Don’t worry about it,” Charles said as he adjusted her stirrups. “Western or English style, it doesn’t matter. Ride balanced. The seat support is still there. Your rump will know it even if your eyes tell you differently.

“The turn signals for English are like steering a bicycle: turn by pulling his nose a little in the direction you want to go and give him a little more rein with the other hand so you aren’t just pulling back.” He demonstrated with his own hands, moving them together. “You’ll still steer mostly with your body and legs—just like at home.”

“If I screw up on the steering,” she told him, “we’ll just go round and round in circles, anyway.”

He gave her a quick grin and stepped back. She asked the gelding to move off.

The little gelding had stood perfectly still when she got on, but the minute her calves put pressure on his sides, he powered off at a trot instead of the walk she was expecting. It wasn’t the gentle slow trot her usual mount had, either. She bounced around like a rubber ball until she found her seat a little farther back than she was used to. After a few more minutes she settled in and felt a big grin cross her face. He was probably going slower, as far as distance traveled, than the first mare had been with her long striding gait, but it felt like they were flying. The gelding was like a high-performance sports car. The faster he went, the more responsive he got. The best thing about him was that although speed was always available, so were slow and stop.

Reluctantly she slowed him and brought him to the middle of the arena, where Charles, Kage, and Mateo watched.

“Usually we post that trot,” commented Kage with a grin when she stopped. “Not many people would try to sit it.”