Page 69 of Deadly Evidence
“Wow!” she called out, delight bubbling through her. “This is, like, incredible!”
Lacey pulled to a halt in the center of the corral and watched her. “Lower your hand. Keep it down by the saddle horn. Give him some more slack.”
Mia had done this to show Dante that she could. Now, she wondered why she’d ever hesitated. “I can’t believe it! I’m galloping!”
“Loping,” Lacey called out. “It’sloping. If we go fast, we just call it a dead run in these parts. Now, sit deeper in your saddle.Squeeze a little with your thighs and just gently pull on the reins—just a touch.”
Frosty slid into a neat, perfect stop.
Mia leaned over and hugged his neck. “I love this, Lacey! I wish I could bring him back to New York in my suitcase!”
She straightened, suddenly feeling a little sad, and saw that Lacey’s face echoed her own emotions. “It’s been fun, hasn’t it? Once we got to know each other a little?”
Lacey nodded. “Out here, it’s too far to have friends over much.” She brightened. “Hey—I want to show you my favorite place.”
She jogged her horse Loco over to the gate, leaned over to unlatch it, and swung it open by sidestepping her horse to one side.
Mia glanced back at the house. “Your mom said we should stay here. Maybe we should do what she says.”
“Nah...everyone else is way out, moving cattle down into the south pasture. She probably just wanted us to keep an eye on Jonah. But Vicente is cooking again, so he’s in the house.”
“Maybe we should go back.”
“Come on,” Lacey wheedled, “this place is sooo cool. No one knows about it but me. Why waste a great Saturday morning just sitting around?”
“Well...”
“Just think—you’ll really have a chance to ride out in the open. It’ll be such fun! And we’re only going a mile or two. They won’t even know we left!”
There’d been something else in Anna’s voice this morning besides the usual concern for Jonah. A warning that Mia had heard loud and clear.
But Lacey was already heading over to the gate leading off into the vast, desolate expanse of sagebrush and grass thatstretched to the horizon. And surely it would be better to go with her than to let her go alone.
With a last glance at the house, Mia urged Frosty into a gentle lope and followed her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Young lady, you aregrounded.” Anna held out an arm and pointed toward the kitchen door. “You go to your room and stay there until supper. While you’re in there, you can do your homework and think about what I said this morning before I left.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Shooting a furtive glance at Mia, Lacey trudged away, looking like someone headed for the gallows.
Anna’s frown didn’t waver as her gaze settled on Mia. “I don’t want to seem rude to a guest, and I know you aren’t responsible for Lacey, but I think you might have heard me tell you both to stay here.”
Mia bowed her head, embarrassed. Dante and Brady were both over by the coffeepot, their backs turned, but from the dull flush on Dante’s neck, she knew he was hearing every word.
“I didn’t want to go—I can’t even ride that well. But Lacey took off, and I figured it was better to go with her than to let her go alone.”
“How long were you two gone?”
Mia thought back to the ride through a long, twisting ravine and low-lying hills to Lacey’s “secret place”—a little cave set high in a craggy rock wall. “An hour, maybe. It started getting pretty hot out there, so we turned around and came home.”
Anna studied her. “What all did you see?”
“A lot of rocks and sagebrush, mostly. I think I’m going to have major blisters from riding so long.”
“Any livestock—or anything else?”
“I kept thinking I was going to see a rattler behind every rock, but no—nothing.”
