Hot on the Trail. Vicki Tharp

      LYRICAL PRESS

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

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      LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

      119 West 40th Street

      New York, NY 10018

      Copyright © 2018 by Vicki Tharp

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      Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

      First Electronic Edition: July 2018

      eISBN-13: 978-5161-0452-9

      eISBN-10: 1-5161-0452-8

      First Print Edition: July 2018

      ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0453-6

      ISBN-10: 1-5161-0453-6

      Printed in the United States of America

      Dedication

      Dedicated to CW4 Seth Johansen, USAR (Retired), UH-60 pilot, and Major Dave Heronemus USMC (Retired), CH-46E pilot. Thank you for your sacrifice and service to our country, and for your insight and help with technical aspects of this book. Neither would have been the same without you.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Life isn’t always about the strength within. Sometimes it’s about finding the strength without.

      Without friends, without family, without a net to keep you safe.

      Sometimes it’s about finding the one thing in your life that matters most.

      And sometimes, it’s about the horses.

      * * * *

      Jenna Nash stopped midstroke with her currycomb on her horse’s neck and looked over at Santos, one of the Lazy S ranch hands. “What do you mean, you can’t find Kurt? I thought he was fixing fences with you and Alby?”

      “Never showed up after breakfast and no sign of him all morning.” Santos’s barbed tone pricked her attention. Normally his temperament was as level as Wyoming’s high mountain plains.

      Santos leaned against the empty stall door, his spurs tink, tink, tinking as he adjusted his stance. From beneath his cowboy hat, his dark brown eyes watched her with a quiet intensity. “This is the second time this week Kurt’s missed—”

      “Yeah, I know. And the state will, too, when I submit my weekly progress report.”

      “Look, Jenna.” He lost the thorny tone, his expression set to I-hate-to-be-the-one-to-tell-you-this. “I understand that Healing Horses is important to you, but maybe Kurt shouldn’t have been the program’s test case.”

      “‘Test case’? You make him sound like part of a mad scientist’s evil experiment. This wasn’t meant to be easy. Healing Horses is a therapy program. For troubled veterans. Not a skate party for first graders.”

      “But your program’s final licensing depends on this guy’s success. He could jeopardize the whole program.”

      “If we can’t help guys like Kurt, we have no business getting that license to begin with. You’ve seen with your own eyes—with my stepmother, with Boomer—how this place, how these horses, can heal people. And still, you doubt.” Jenna stopped before her voice went shrill, afraid if it went any higher, the coyotes would start howling.

      Her dog trotted in and sat on her toes. She ruffled her fingers in the cattle dog’s scruff. “It’s okay, Dink.”

      Santos’s face soured like he’d sucked on a lemon and added a jalapeño chaser. Dink lay down, a wary eye on Santos. Jenna resumed her brushing, maybe a tad too hard. Angel nudged her with his nose, and Jenna stumbled forward a step. That’s what happened when your horse was the Lurch of horsedom and didn’t know his own strength.

      Switching to the body brush, Jenna used long, slow, soothing strokes, more for her than the horse, and flicked the loosened dirt away.

      Jenna softened her voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take my frustration out on you.”

      It wasn’t Santos’s fault Kurt was unreliable.

      It wasn’t Santos’s fault Kurt had a history with alcohol and drugs.

      And despite how she’d defended her decision, it wasn’t Santos’s fault that Kurt was the last person Jenna should have agreed to let participate in the program. But her dad always said, go big or go bigger.

      Then again, if Kurt hadn’t been all those things, he wouldn’t have needed Jenna or the program or the horses.

      She picked at a clod of dirt in Angel’s thick black mane. “Did you check Kurt’s cabin?”

      “Checked his cabin, the barn, the round pen, the big house. Nowhere left to check.”

      The bacon Jenna had gobbled down that morning turned her stomach, and she swallowed down the icky urp. “Where’s his car?”

      “Cabin.”

      “Horse?”

      “Pasture.”

      “Then he has to be around here somewhere.” Jenna tossed the brush into the grooming bucket, unhitched Angel from the rail, and turned the horse out into his stall. “Jesus, I feel more like a parole officer than a program director. Maybe he went into Alpine or Murdock. To the hardware store or—”

      Santos laughed. It held about as much humor as a cart of manure. “Murdock’s at least twenty miles from here. Alpine even farther. What’s he going to do, walk there?”

      “A friend could have picked him up.”

      If Santos had been the type to roll his eyes, he would have. He cut her a look that screamed get real.

      “I guess he would have to have friends for that,” Jenna said.

      Santos picked up the grooming bucket and hung it on the hook by the stall door. “Want me to start calling all the bars?”

      “He knows the rules. No drinking, no drugs.”

      “Yeah, but to a guy like him, the straight and narrow fits like a straitjacket.”

      The tips of Jenna’s ears heated. She should have known accepting her ex-boyfriend’s best friend into the program would come back to bite, chomp, chew, and gnaw on her ass until nothing was left.

      Jenna scooped up her hair and