Page 79 of Iron Unicorn

With her breathing difficulties, I could understand how she wouldn’t want to make a long walk back if there was a problem on the course. “Technically, that’s what we’ll be doing starting tomorrow. It’ll be like a cross country race, but instead of a ribbon, we’ll be escaping the RPS and heading for the border.”

“Which border?”

“Let’s head towards California. And honestly, if we evade the RPS for the two and a half months it would take us to make that ride, we deserve to strut our stuff.” I laughed at the thought of skipping out from work for that long. “We should pretend like we’re headed to Dallas but angle towards Austin after we’ve gotten the RPS comfortable. You know, to remind them we aren’t to be taken lightly.”

“Tell me more,” Olivia murmured.

“Our first step will be convincing Eddie that we will be heading to Dallas. Once we have him good and comfortable, we’ll make a break for it. If we play our cards just right, we’ll be able to snatch that young Texan right out from under the noses of his co-workers.”

“And what will we do with him once we have him?”

“Ransoming him might win us a few extra horses.”

“We should demand a barbecue feast, too.”

I nodded. “Then it’s a plan. We’ll see if we can steal Eddie and make it all the way to Austin without the RPS apprehending us. And I think I know just who to ask for some help that the RPS would never expect.”

EIGHTEEN

“We’re going to regret this,” she warned.

Luck was with me;a boisterous Olivia bounced towards the limo, bumping into a reporter who happened to be mingling with the paparazzi. A quick grab of his arm not only saved his fancy camera but gave me the opportunity to slip him my cell number, which I’d jotted on the back of a corner of the restaurant bill.

“You all right?” I asked, aware the Montana princess hadn’t even noticed the man in her excitement.

“Thanks,” he replied, straightening and checking his camera. “We’re good.”

I gave him a slap on the shoulder and made it to the vehicle in time to observe the princess fling open the door. I caught it before she banged it into someone, waited for her to climb in, and followed, taking my time so the paparazzi could get all the photos they wanted. Once inside, I buckled in and laughed a storm. “Did you about plow over that reporter on purpose?”

“Yep. I saw you write your number down, and I know that one. He’s good people. So, I figured if you needed a good people for whatever reason you wrote your number down for, he was a good pick. My second option would have been a paparazzi, and we’ve been too nice to them as it is today.”

I laughed at the woman’s cunning. “Thank you for that. I’m hoping he’ll shoot me a text.” Aware the limo likely had a recording device, I held a finger to my lips.

She nodded.

“We should discuss which route we want to take to get to Dallas. It needs to be a bit obscure to keep the RPS off our backs for a while.” I grabbed my phone, opened the map app, and chuckled at the ping of an incoming text. Olivia grabbed her phone and began investigating as well. “Have you done any of the Texas trails?”

“Not any that are between Houston and Dallas. I know there are a few, but I haven’t done them. They’ll expect us to take a more obscure route, but if we ride fast on the main trail, we can grab a truck and trailer rental, load the horses, and get ahead of them before riding again. Nothing in the rules says we can’t.”

Beyond avoiding injury to ourselves and our horses, there were few rules for the ride. As long as we made a good effort to avoid breaking the law, we’d be golden. With Eddie along, the Texans would be on the ball.

With a little luck, Eddie would know how to drop his co-workers off our trail long enough for us to detour towards Austin.

“It’s a sound strategy. Look up the viable rental places along the way unless you happen to know somebody with a truck and trailer we can borrow.”

“I might.”

I made a thoughtful sound, sent the reporter a text, and asked how he felt about toying with the Texan RPS during a scenario. A moment later, an affirmative came back along with a request for anything we might need. Aware the reporters had a stable for their horses so they could go along on royal rides if issued an invitation, I asked if he would mind feeding some false information to the RPS to help us win a few wagers.

“We’ll have to look into that tomorrow. Any idea what time we’ll be cut loose?”

“I think they want to send us to the starting spot no later than seven. We’ll have a schedule based on the weather. We’re fragile, Terry.”

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s not stress the horses. If they want to give us extra time to strategize mid-day, I’m game for that. I’m also game for lunches along the way.”

“You can ride a horse through any drive thru in Texas,” she informed me. “Our flight is how we get to eat all the food we don’t normally get to enjoy.”

Considering we’d be burning through calories on the ride, we wouldn’t come to much harm from enjoying fast food the entirety of the trip. “Eddie is going to either love us or hate us.”

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