Page 116 of Stables

Libby chokes down her laughter. “Well, that didn’t take long.”

“I heard you’re the one who taught her that?” I ask as I adjust Paisley to my side.

Color rushes up her neck. “Yea, um—”

“Thank you.” I wink at her before pulling out my chair and grabbing a piece of bread for Paisley.

Sophia groans with a smile, then sits across from me and a giant bowl of spaghetti noodles.

“Lori, everything looks delicious, thank you.” I can’t imagine cooking for this many people is easy.

Blue’s long legs stretch out to the side near Ceasar’s dog bed. The black and white Border Collie tilts his head when Blue crosses his boots.

“Yea, thanks for having me at dinner. I feel mighty lucky.” Blue grins at me. “Just like ol’ times when your mom would cook after we were out riding all day, huh?” He looks around. “If Wade and Ford were here, it’d be like a reunion.”

Mason snorts. “A court of jesters.”

Blue scratches his whiskers. “Only when Wade was here. Remember that time he got caught in the south pasture because he tried to team up that colt and a steer, then we had to go through all that mud to get him out?”

Sawyer, who’s been sitting quietly at the end of the long table staring at his phone, pops his head up. “Wait, he did what?”

Mason laughs, leaning back to move Jack up onto his shoulder. “He gave zero shi—” He pauses and glances at Paisleyon my lap. “—cares. I swear he has no impulse control. Pretty sure he was two inches shorter after getting bucked off that mess.”

It makes me chuckle. “Mom was so ticked, she made him scrub the floors when we all came dragging dirt in after rescuing him.”

Libby places half a dozen bottles of salad dressing next to a heaping pile of greens, then finds a spot on the other side of Char. “Sure was nice they let me stay,” she whispers towards Char, but I catch it.

As far as I’m concerned, she’s family, too. She stood up for Char and protected her when I couldn’t.

Doesn’t matter that I didn’t even know Char then, I’m still grateful.

Once the food is all ready and plates are full, I take it on myself to prompt Blue.

“Go ahead with business. We need to know what you found.” I take the moment to chop up more noodles to add to Paisley’s little plastic plate.

I don’t know who’s messier, her face, or my knee where she keeps dropping bits.

Caesar will eat well cleaning up the tidbits after dinner.

Blue lets out a long sigh. “It might want to wait until after we eat.” He mops up some sauce with the heel of a roll and chews slowly before continuing. “There’s only a tad of good news.” He turns to Mason. “I tracked down a few more of your cattle, but after they were sold. Seems that shell company that was running them under their brand is based out of Texas.”

“Texas? Who in the hell would want to screw with us from there?” Mason puts his fork down and rests his palm on Lori’s thigh.

Blue shakes his head. “All we can figure is that it’s new, only about five years old. And they’re funneling every animal from the local yards down through Mexico.”

“I don’t think I understand what that means,” Char says quietly.

Blue runs his fingers through his short dark hair. The silver in his mustache hasn’t reached his head yet. “They’re stealing livestock from up this way, western Montana into Idaho, shuffling through the Mexican stockyards, then bringing back up to disperse through different sale barns around the country.”

“Oh.” Her mouth forms a circle, making my eyes fix on the small split in her lip.

It stopped bleeding before we left the barn, but I still know it’s there.

“Then what’s the bad news?” Libby asks, watching Blue intently.

His mouth twists into a wry smile. “I found one of the horses, but it’s already heading south. From the sale notes, there might have been two more in that batch.”

Char slumps against my shoulder, her fingers wrapping my forearm.

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