Moonrise (2 page)

J
ake Ely was no evil horseman. The youngest of six sons, he lived on Three Ponies Ranch, which bordered the Forsters' River Bend Ranch, and he'd been Sam's friend since childhood. Jake understood her love for horses better than anyone except Jen, and he'd stood beside her when she needed help.

But the price of Jake's help was merciless teasing, and her predicament, right this minute, couldn't have been more perfect for the mockery cowboys called “joshing.”

She still had a minute until Jake reached the pond.

“Ace, be a buddy,” Sam begged the horse. She settled into the saddle, let her boots drop to a normal
position, then firmed her legs against him.

Silly nickered nervously when she saw Jake's Quarter Horse. Witch considered herself a queen among mares and she didn't mind proving the point with kicks and nips. But she got along fine with Ace.

“Let's go see Witch,” Sam said, encouraging her gelding.

But it was already too late. Jake had drawn rein just a few feet away from Jen.

“Hey Jake,” Jen said.

“Jen,” Jake said, and he actually sounded friendly.

What's this?
Sam wondered. Usually, Jake and Jen were rivals, sparring with words while Sam tried to keep them from actual arguing.

Jen had a great, sarcastic sense of humor, but she couldn't actually be enjoying the fix her best friend was in, could she?

“Ace won't come out of the water,” Jen told Jake, and her voice carried to Sam much too clearly.

“Jen.” Sam tried not to sound as if she were pleading. Couldn't Jen have made something up? Like, Sam was giving Ace a mud bath? As therapy for sore legs, or something?

“That a fact?” Jake asked.

“Keep riding, cowboy,” Sam shouted at him. “I don't need your help.”

Instead of jogging away, Jake leaned his forearm against his saddle horn. Beyond the cuff of his faded blue shirt his fingers tapped one at a time, as if pressing
piano keys. Was that a sign of impatience or was Jake just thinking? The rest of him was still as he sighted past Witch's neck, studying Sam's situation.

“It'd be no trouble at all,” Jake offered.

“We've got it handled,” Jen said, but since she was a terrible liar, Jen's voice tilted up, like a question, and she gave a grimacing shrug in Sam's direction.

Then, both Jen's and Jake's voices dropped to inaudible levels.

Unfair! They were muttering, plotting her rescue without consulting her!

“Excuse me?” Sam shouted, but they didn't stop scheming.

Jake often called her “Brat.” Sam bit her lower lip, thinking he should take it back for all the self-control she was showing now. A brat would have bragged that she could ride out of this silly mudhole whenever she felt like it, even if the logical part of her brain knew otherwise.

Jake rolled one shoulder, flexed his fingers, then unsnapped the leather loop that held his rope.

He was going to try to lasso Ace.

Sam's heart did a nosedive. Jake never missed. He'd rope Ace, then lead him from the water. She'd just sit still, along for the ride, like a child on a pony.

“Don't bother,” Sam called to him.

“It's no bother,” Jake replied. “Settin' a loop on him should be easy as lickin' butter off a knife.”

Sam gritted her teeth.

Jake's dad was Shoshone, a native Nevadan. Jake's mother had been born in California. Jake had never lived anywhere he could have picked up that drawl. He only did it to make her crazy.

But she would
not
give him the satisfaction of scolding him. Instead, Sam closed her eyes as the loop sung in her direction. She only flinched when, at the last minute, Ace ducked his head.

“Why, you—!” Jen's gasp of disbelief could have been aimed at Jake or Ace.

All Sam knew was that the rope tightened around her arms, pinning her elbows against her ribs. Her legs clamped closed. Her wrists cocked up and her fingers scrabbled for the reins as Ace shied sideways and the taut rope pulled her from the saddle.

“No, no, noooo!”

Sam pitched face-first into the lake. Water gushed up her nose.

Boots down!
she told herself.
Now, push up. Up
. A deluge of lake water rushed off her shoulders. Her boot soles slipped on the slimy footing, but she managed to stand.

The length of rope leading back to Jake flipped. The loop loosened. Sam bent forward, clawed her fingers through the circle of rope, and widened it.

She pushed it up over her head in time to glimpse Witch trying to bolt from the watery commotion.

“You
better
run!” Sam sputtered.

When she shook her head to clear her nose and ears, locks of wet hair splatted against her cheeks.

Unsteady on her boot soles, Sam staggered as she shouted, “You did that on purpose!”

Jake was an excellent roper. If he'd meant to lasso Ace, he would have done it.

“He dropped his head!” Jake shouted in denial.

Sam slogged through the water. She was almost ashore and Jake must have seen the fury in her eyes because he added, “No horse shies like that. How'd I know he was going to?”

Sam could hear her own loud breathing as she reached Jake and Witch. He must have been banking on her reluctance to hurt his horse, because he didn't ride away.

Jake was an expert roper. He never missed, but no one was perfect, right? Sam studied him for a clue that he'd done it on purpose.

“It was an accident,” Jake insisted, but laughter rolled beneath the surface of his voice.

That's it
, she thought. He wouldn't be laughing if he'd accidentally missed. Even though he managed to keep a straight face, she didn't believe him.

“Anyone can miss,” he added.

Not this time
, Sam thought. She made a fist and socked him in the leg.

“Now, Samantha, act like a lady,” he scolded and actually brushed at the mud she'd smeared on his jeans.

Jen must have known that would send Sam over the edge.

“Oh, I'm out of here,” Jen said, backing Silly away.

“Can't say that I blame you.” Jake backed Witch, too.

Both mares, the black and the gold, stayed just out of Sam's reach.

“Come back here,” Sam started, but then she thought of the laughable picture she must be making.

Hair dripping down her neck and into her eyes, walking stiff-legged because of her soggy jeans, she probably looked like a horror movie monster.

“I don't know what's gotten into you,” Jake teased. “All I did for you was a favor.”

Sam told herself to get a grip, because Jake was enjoying this way too much. She had to pretend it wasn't bothering her.

Sam closed her eyes, clenched her fists, and swallowed. She took one deep breath. Then another.

A sharp whistle sounded.

“Ace,” Jake shouted, summoning the horse.

Don't move, Ace. Don't you dare take a single, solitary step.
Sam said it silently, inside her head. If she'd said it aloud, would Ace have obeyed?

Sloshing legs and plopping hooves moved through the water behind her.

No. Ace was not just walking out of the lake because Jake had called him.

But he was.

“Good pony,” Jake said.

“Go away,” Sam said.

“Not talkin' to Ace, are you?”

“I'm talking to you!”

She would have yelled, except that Ace gave her such an energetic nudge between the shoulder blades, her words turned into a gasp and she barely kept from tripping.

“Guess I'll be riding along,” Jake said.

“Where are you going, anyway?” Jen asked. “Gold Dust?”

Sam couldn't believe Jen sounded so conversational.

“Yep,” Jake said.

“That's nice,” Jen replied. Sam sent Jen brain waves not to ask why. Jake didn't like Linc Slocum, owner of the Gold Dust Ranch. If anything, he liked Linc's kids, Rachel and Ryan, even less.

“Matter of fact—” Jake began.

“We didn't ask!” Sam interrupted.

“I'm about to go trackin' some trackers.”

What?

Jake meant to intrigue them, to tempt Sam or Jen into asking what he meant by that, of course.

Which trackers was he tracking? Sam wanted to know, but right now, with rivulets of mud tickling down her legs, all because of Jake, she wouldn't ask.

She flashed Jen a pleading look. They'd had their
ups and downs, but Jen proved herself a best friend by closing her lips in a purposely tight line, and rolling her eyes in pretend boredom.

Jen might be dying to know what Jake was talking about, especially since her father was foreman at the Gold Dust Ranch, but Jen backed Sam up.

Thank you
, Sam mouthed. Jen gave a no-big-deal shrug.

Unfortunately, Jake didn't look a bit annoyed. He touched his hat brim in a polite good-bye. As he swung Witch away, Sam noticed Jake's glossy black hair, bound back with a leather tie.

It swayed against his shirt collar as Witch rocked from a walk into a lope.

Ace nickered after them, then looked at Sam with wide, surprised eyes as she snagged his reins.

“Don't play dumb with me,” Sam told him. “You know why I'm mad at you.”

Ace slung his head over her shoulder and rubbed his chin against her back. Sam sighed in frustration. If that wasn't a horse hug, she didn't know what was, and she couldn't resist his affection.

“He's saying it was all Jake's fault,” Jen said.

“All except for that part where I was stranded in the middle of the lake in the first place.” Sam rubbed Ace's neck. Water dripped from her sleeve.

“If you don't want to go for a ride water-logged, I don't blame you,” Jen said. “I have to be home soon, anyway. My parents saved most of my chores for me.
Can you believe that? I'm off taking a college chemistry class during summer vacation and they couldn't brush a few ponies for me.”

Jen made a face. “And they say that if I want to help out with HARP next week—which I absolutely do—I have to finish my work first.”

“It will be so cool working with you on the HARP program,” Sam said.

HARP was the Horse and Rider Protection program, which matched at-risk girls with captive mustangs that had been relinquished by their adoptive families. River Bend Ranch, with Sam's stepmother Brynna in charge, had been chosen to host the program for several weeks this summer.

Last week had been their first official session, and though only two girls had stayed in the new bunkhouse and Sam and Brynna had worked together as teachers, the week had been way more exciting than Sam had bargained for.

In fact, Sam had learned to watch where she stepped around the ranch. One of the HARP girls had been bitten by a snake, and though it hadn't been a rattler, Sam knew there were poisonous snakes around.

“Next week shouldn't be as crazy as last week,” Sam told Jen. “I mean, Brynna will be back at work during the day, but I sort of know what to expect now.” Sam felt a little guilty as she lowered her voice. “It's not just doing a good deed and playing with horses.”

“I never thought it would be,” Jen said. She blinked owlishly behind her glasses.

“Well, I did,” Sam confessed. “Anyway, I'm pretty sure the three of us can handle it.”

“Tell me how Brynna convinced Jake to do it, after he said he wasn't cut out to be a teacher.”

“He needs the money,” Sam said simply. “He and Darrell were able to make his mom's Honda look good as new after he crashed it trying to miss Jinx—”

“Hey,” Jen interrupted when Sam mentioned the hard-luck horse Sam had ridden in a claiming race just days ago. “When do I get to see Jinx?”

“Maybe we can get someone to drive us to Sheriff Ballard's house,” Sam said.

“That would be kind of weird,” Jen said.

Sam gave a disagreeing hum, but she knew what Jen meant. Even though Sheriff Ballard was friendly before he'd purchased Jinx from the claiming race, you didn't just drop in on the local sheriff.

“For sure you'll see him at the Fourth of July parade,” Sam said.

“And Jinx has what to do with Jake teaching for HARP?” Jen asked.

“Money,” Sam reminded her. “Even though it wasn't his fault, Jake's car insurance has gone up big time.”

Ace moved to the end of his reins and Sam clucked at him to keep his attention. She really should remount, but she was pretty sure she'd be even less
comfortable in the saddle.

“That's not even fair,” Jen said.

“No, but his parents say the extra dollars aren't in the family budget, so if he wants to drive—”

“—he has to pay for it,” Jen finished. “Just like I have to go out and look for stray cattle because Linc Slocum was too lazy to hire cowboys for the roundup.”

Sam nodded. The range was divided into sections. Each spring and fall, ranchers were responsible for bringing together the cattle—their own, and cows that had wandered from other ranches—on their sections.

Linc Slocum had neglected his part of the job this spring. Ever since the roundup had ended, calves from Gold Dust, River Bend, and Three Ponies ranches had been showing up unbranded.

“So, you'll be the responsible one, and Slocum gets off again,” Sam said.

Jen nodded, then her face lit with an idea.

“You know what would be unbelievably cool? Oh wow,” Jen paused. Sam could see that Jen, in her typically analytical way, was processing her idea before blurting it out. “It could work. You know our campout? What if we gathered strays at the same time—oh, and it could be a Father's Day present. So my dad and yours can quit worrying about all those unbranded calves.”

Despite the warm June sun, goose bumps rose beneath Sam's wet clothes as a breeze passed by, but she nodded eagerly.

“We'll talk,” Jen promised. “But you're starting to shiver. Time for you to get home,” Jen said.