Page 38 of More Than a Fling

“It’s good to be home. The trip was fabulous, but I like my life here, I’ll be glad to settle back into it.”

“The dogs are going to go crazy when they see you,” Annie said.

“Can’t wait.”

“Here we are now.”

19

Shaking his head in dismay, Gabe secured the latch he had discovered left open. That kind of a mistake on a horse farm could have disastrous consequences. He hated to think about what might have happened had Midnight discovered it first.

Everyone could make a mistake now and then, shit happens, it seemed like he was stumbling upon quite a few around the barn recently. Yesterday he found a flake of moldy hay in Midnight’s stall, which could have caused her to colic or could even lead to respiratory problems or heaves.

He had taken Cal and Slim to the stall and showed them the mold and asked that they check every bale of hay they had left. He couldn’t contain his outrage and had snapped, “This is horse care one-oh-one, if you fuck up like this again, I’m going to have to let you both go. These animals are dependent on us, their lives rest on our shoulders, this is unacceptable.”

Slim had hung his head while Cal looked Gabe in the eye and said, “It won’t happen again Gabe. We’ll get right on checking the rest of our inventory for mold.”

“I hain’t seen no mold,” was all Slim had said, as he left the stall.

Today it was the latch, yesterday the moldy hay, last week the water troughs, whiskey bottle, and cigarette butts. What the hell was going on around here? At least there had been no other signs of contaminated hay. Even so he had instructed them to thoroughly check every flake they put out from now on.

He glanced at his watch and realized it was time to meet with Sam. After that he planned on working with Midnight for a couple of hours. She was progressing in leaps and bounds and he was proud of how much she was prevailing over her fears. He knew she was going to come around, he could sense it. She was healing.

As he walked across the gravel drive heading for the office, a police cruiser pulled up next to him. The officer got out of his vehicle and approached Gabe.

“Is there something I can help ya with?” Gabe asked.

“Is this your farm?”

“I’m the manager.”

“Got any ID on you?”

“Now why would I go around doing my barn chores carrying an ID with me?” Gabe said.

“I’d like to see some identification.”

“What’s this about?”

“I was dispatched here to do a wellness check,” the officer said.

“Oh yeah, by who? Wait one minute here, who called you?” Gabe said.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.”

“Maybe not but you can divulge your name and your badge number.”

“Do you have an elderly housebound woman living on the property?”

“No, nobody here fits that description,” Gabe said.

“What’s the address number here?” the officer asked.

“Sixty-six eighty.”

The officer glanced down at his note pad and said, “Oh excuse me, I’m off by a couple of numbers.”

“I still want your badge number,” Gabe said.

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