Page 1 of Beehives and Broken Heroes

Chapter 1

December

Titan, a sixteen-hand-tall Appaloosa, pawed at the dirt in front of him, snuffed, and threw his head from side to side. He knocked into a shovel with which Brandon Carroll was cleaning out the horse’s stall; it fell to the ground with a clank that reverberated two stories up to the barn’s rafters.

“It’s okay, boy,” Brandon soothed, affecting his calmest voice, one he’d used to train horses since he was sixteen.

Titan glanced in Brandon’s direction as Brandon moved in an easy gait toward the horse, hands up in a calming gesture. But just as quickly, the horse flicked his gaze back to the ground in front of him, narrowing in on the threat slithering his way. The crack of a rattle made Titan step back.

Brandon held up a hand to soothe the animal. With his other hand, he tipped his black Stetson cowboy hat up a touch, never once looking at the rattlesnake that separated him from the horse. He needed to keep Titan calm, and looking at the snake would only confirm to the horse’s mind that it was indeed a threat, making a bad situation worse.

“It’s okay, Titan.” Brandon reached for the shovel.

It was the third rattler he’d found in the barn since he’d moved here. The weather had started turning cold, and the snakes were seeking out warm spots. It was only November, which meant there were likely to be more unless he did something to stop it before one of his horses got hurt.

He’d caught the first two rattlers and released them far away from his property. That’s what he intended to do again if he could.

He pulled out the two heavy-duty work gloves he’d kept in his back pocket while cleaning the stalls and slipped them on tight over his hands. He wore a thick Carhartt jacket that had been left with the house when he’d bought it. Titan loved the smell of it, always nuzzling his nose into it whenever Brandon put it on. A good way to help the horse start to trust him. By the time spring came around, Brandon hoped the horse would equate his smell with the smell of the jacket.

He figured it must have belonged to David Ward, Allie and Jocelyn Ward’s father, who’d passed away earlier on in the year. He remembered Allie mentioning that her father had been the only one Titan allowed to ride him. So far, that was still true, but Brandon hoped to change that.

The rattler coiled up as Titan stomped his front hooves back and forth. The horse lunged, barely missing the snake. The snake moved forward just a little, and Brandon saw what would happen in a flash across his mind: the snake would spring forward, attaching to Titan’s leg with its long fangs dripping with venom. Titan would stomp the snake to death after that, but it wouldn’t matter anymore. Titan would die too. It’d be too late. The magnificent black Appaloosa with mottled black-and-white rump would be gone.

He thought of Allie then—her deep blue eyes, red hair, and mischievous smirk—and he shivered. Brandon would never be able to look her in the eye again if he had to bury what had been her father’s prized horse.

His stomach clenched at the thought, though he berated himself for it. He barely knew the girl.

The horse kicked forward again, and Brandon caught up the shovel. On instinct, he jumped forward so fast Titan startled back just as the snake lunged from its coiled position. The snake missed Titan by inches as Brandon brought the shovel down in one swift motion and severed the head from the body.

He almost breathed a sigh of relief, until Titan started trampling. His front feet came up, and Brandon leaped past the front of the horse and back into the stall, barely missing the horse’s hooves as they came down hard right where his foot had been next to the snake. Brandon tried to get past, but Titan cut off his exit as he stomped what was left of the snake.

Titan reared up, his backside whipping back and forth, and nailed Brandon, knocking his hat off and tossing him into the wall with a thud so loud that Brandon worried the wall might collapse altogether, taking him and Titan with it. It held, though, as a jolt of agonizing pain shot through Brandon’s side and down his hip.

Brandon dodged to the left just as Titan’s hooves came at him again. He pulled himself up and over the wall in one quick movement, dropping in a bale of hay on the other side.

Scout, his other gelding, stared down at him while chomping on a pile of hay cubes. The deep reddish-brown Arabian with a black mane hadn’t so much as flinched through the entire ordeal. He was the calmest horse Brandon had ever seen. The horse snorted at him, then sniffed his palm as Titan, now free of his stall, ran out the back door of the barn to the corral.

Brandon rubbed Scout’s muzzle. “Think you could teach Titan your secret?”

The horse flipped his mane and lifted his chin in the air.

“That’s what I thought.” Brandon quirked a grin as he rubbed at his side and hip—he was going to have a nasty bruise from this.

Pulling himself to an upright position, Brandon limped out of the stall. He looked at the snake, now severed in two—body crushed—and cursed under his breath. He hadn’t wanted to kill it.

He picked up the shovel, then scooped up his Stetson from Titan’s stall, and yanked it down on his head. With the new shovel, he scooped up the snake head in case the head tried to bite—which severed heads were known to do—grabbed the body with his free hand, and hurried outside.

He went to the end of the barn where the tree line met up with the gravel driveway to bury it, but he came up short when a large black pickup pulled down his drive. Brandon let the head slid off the end of the shovel.

The cab swung open and out stepped Andrew Phelps, only a few inches shorter than his Ford F-150, and at six foot two, he was only three inches shorter than Brandon. Andy had served as military police with Brandon for years; he was tougher than rawhides and always got his man. Brandon had coined him Pitbull years before for that very reason. The two men, along with three others, had become a tight group of friends.

Andy lifted a large, dark hand to his face and removed his aviators, his dark brown gaze honing in on Brandon. His lips quirked up, and he nodded at the snake body Brandon held. “Making dinner?”

Brandon grinned and held the limp corpse out. “Only the best for my guests.” He turned his back on his friend, chucked the snake’s body aside, and started digging. The rocky ground and repetitive motion making his side whine like an air raid siren.

Andy sauntered over, taking a wide-gait stance by Brandon. “You killed it?” Brandon could hear the pity in Andy’s voice, though he wasn’t sure if it was for him—because his buddy knew he didn’t like to kill—or for the snake.

“Yep.”

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