Page 18 of Mountain Rescue
“Equine therapy?”
Jack nodded. “I’m liking what I’m hearing about it.”
“There’s a ranch in our area that does that for children. Annie, the owner, is a good friend of my sister. Any questions you have, I can give her a call.”
“Great. Let Noah know that. I’ve got a meeting at the bank this morning, so I’ll catch up with you around lunchtime.”
Dallas headed for the kennels. Curled into a ball, Bella didn’t look like she’d moved an inch since he’d left her the day before. He went inside and sat a little closer this time, near enough where he could touch her.
“Hello, Bella.” She trembled as she buried her face deeper into her fur. “I don’t know what was done to you, but I’m sorry that some poor excuse for a human hurt you.” He kept his voice soft, but her body violently shook. “I promise that I’ll never hurt you, pretty girl.”
Because her reaction to him was so strong, he suspected that a male had abused her. He had never dealt with a mistreated dog, but his family had taken in several abused horses over the years. Dallas had worked with his brother Phoenix in gaining the trust of those horses. Out of all the Manning kids, the two of them had a way with the horses. Phoenix even more than Dallas, which was why Phoenix headed up their equine operation.
The Manning ranch was one of the biggest in Montana. Oldest brother Austin was the chief operating officer of the entire spread, Denver was in charge of their cattle enterprise, and Cheyenne and her husband had the dude ranch. That left him and his sister Shiloh, the two youngest, with only the option of working under one of their siblings, which neither one was agreeable to. He’d joined the Navy and Shiloh was a search and rescue Coast Guard helicopter pilot, which was way cool.
He thought back to the times he’d spent with Phoenix, a true horse whisperer, and what he’d learned from his brother. Calmness, patience, no threatening moves or raised voices, and a gentle touch were all things Phoenix had stressed. “Don’t look them in the eye, as that’s an aggressive act, and talk to them in a soft voice. Talk to them a lot,” Phoenix often said.
Okay, so talk it was. “How about I tell you a wildcat story? Would you like that? She’s something else, that wildcat. Actually tried to bash my head in.” He chuckled. “Yeah, she tried to brain me senseless. Crazy, huh? She’s a stunt double. What do you think of that? I watched two of her movies last night, and let me tell you, she’s pretty awesome.”
It seemed that she was listening, so he continued on, keeping his voice soft. “I have a real dilemma though, and maybe you can give me your opinion. She’s a friend of Jack and Nichole’s, but she’s refusing to let me tell them she’s here because there’s a bad guy out to hurt her and she doesn’t want Jack involved.”
She still had her face hidden, but she wasn’t trembling anymore, and he counted that as a win. “So, Bella, what do I do? Keep her trust or tell Jack that a friend of his needs our help?”
“A friend needs our help and you’re not telling me?” Jack said.
Well, hell. There was going to be one pissed-off wildcat when she found out he’d outed her, even if accidently. He glanced up. “Thought you were gone.” When Bella whimpered, Dallas pushed up. “We’re upsetting the dog. Let’s take this outside.”
“Weren’t you headed to the bank?” he said when they were away from Bella.
“My meeting got delayed for an hour. Who’s at the cabin and what’s going on?”
“Your friend Rachel. She—”
“And you weren’t going to tell me?”
Yeah, Jack was angry, but Dallas didn’t blame him. He wouldn’t be so happy either. “I wanted to, but she begged me not to. I would have eventually if I couldn’t talk her into telling you herself, which I’ve been trying to get her to do. She doesn’t want you involved because she’s trying to protect you.”
“You need to start at the beginning.”
Dallas leaned back against the building. “Well, the beginning would be when she tried to crack my head open with a tree branch.” He related everything Rachel had told him. “If this Robert Hargrove has the resources she says he does, he’ll eventually find her, but she covered her tracks pretty impressively, so there wasn’t the urgency to tell you immediately. I wanted telling you to be her decision if I could get her to accept that she needed to. If not, I planned to.”
“And this is why you want a gun?”
“Yep. Sorry for the lie.”
“Well, now I know. Bring her to dinner tonight.”
“Not sure that’s a good idea. She’s not going to be happy with either one of us. She doesn’t even want me at the cabin with her because she’s afraid I’ll get hurt, but I told her I wasn’t going anywhere. Besides, I think you, me, and Noah need to put our heads together, come up with a plan without her there.”
“Yeah, maybe we need to do that before she knows I know she’s here. We’re going to have to talk about this without Nichole and Peyton hearing. They’ll both want to rush right over to the cabin.”
“Copy that. I still want a gun.”
“I’ll give you one tonight. Why don’t you head back to the cabin and keep an eye on her? I’m not real comfortable with her being alone.”
“Yeah, I’m not either. That’s another reason I wanted her to tell you, so the three of us could have eyes on her, making sure she stays safe.”
Jack glanced at his watch. “I need to head to the bank. Come over around five. We’ll eat early, talk about how we’re going to handle this, and then you can get back to the cabin before it gets too late.”
