Page 96 of Promised to the Cowboy

“Evie.”

I’m already standing. “What happened?”

“It’s Chance.”

My heart thumps. “What about her?”

“She went down near the lower paddock. Looks like she caught a hind leg in the wire.” His breathing is uneven, as though he came all the way from the barn at a run. “She got loose before I reached her, but she won’t get up.”

My blood turns cold. “How long?”

“Five minutes. Maybe less.”

I glance toward the upstairs window. Gabriel is asleep less than thirty yards away. For one second, I consider waking him.

Then Falcon says, “There’s blood on her leg.”

That decides it. I nod. “Okay.”

“I’ll get the truck,” he says, already turning toward the barn.

I go to the kitchen door. “Maggie?”

She appears almost immediately, wiping her hands on a towel.

“Chance is down by the lower paddock,” I tell her. “I’m going with Falcon to check on her.”

Maggie’s face tightens. “Want me to wake Gabriel?”

“No. Let him sleep. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

The utility truck rounds the side of the barn and pulls up beside the porch, engine running.

Falcon leans across and pushes open the passenger door. “Come on.”

I climb in, and he pulls away before I have the door fully shut.

“Where exactly?” I ask.

“Lower pasture. East side.”

“That isn’t where she was last night.”

“I know.”

“How did she get out?”

He keeps his eyes on the track ahead. “Gate was open when I found it.”

Something in his voice catches at me.

Falcon is always calm around horses. Even when the bay gelding panicked in the barn, even when Chance refused the new stall, he described what he saw with precision.

This is different.

“Was the gate latch broken?” I ask.

“No.”