Dead Heat (Alpha and Omega #4)

Coming March 3, 2015

It's become customary to provide a sample chapter or two of an upcoming book to whet reader's appetites. Some authors provide quite large samples, some are more stingy. Our usual plan is to release two snippits, a couple of weeks apart, roughly two months before the publication date. One month prior to publication, I'll pull both snippits down, and release the first chapter (thirty pages, more or less) of the book.

So, here's a scene where Charles takes Anna to buy a horse.

They entered the stabling area. It smelled of cedar shavings and horses, with a faint tang of urine and leather. On the inside of the three of them, when Anna turned the corner she was next to the first stall.

A copper-colored horse thrust his head toward her, and she found herself nose to nose with him.

Not just any horse, either, but a fairy-tale horse. Every hair in his mane and forelock lay as though someone had separated them from each other and put them exactly where they would look best. The narrow strip that ran from between his eyes down to between his nostrils looked as though someone had powdered it with baby powder to get it white-white, except for a small triangle of pink on the end of his nose. His chestnut coat was flame-brilliant, and, when she reached out to touch his cheek, the skin under her fingers was soft and sleek.

“Careful,” cautioned Kage. “He's only a two-year-old and a stallion, which means he's lippy. He's not mean, just looking for handouts. But he will bite if you aren't watching.”

“Like you, boss,” someone shouted from a nearby stall.

“And I fire people who get above themselves, too,” Kage called back with a grin.

“Yeah, I'm worried, boss,” said the same guy. He was hidden some where in the row of stalls. “If you fire me, you'll have to muck out twenty stalls before you can go to bed. I've got job se-cur-i-ty.”

“You go on thinking that way, Morales,” said someone else. “If you want more security you can clean my stalls, too.”

Anna petted the colt's velvet cheek and sought out the spot just behind his ear to scratch. It was the right spot because he pressed his neck into her hand hard enough to bang it against the side of the stall opening, then twisted his neck to make her fingers hit exactly where he wanted them. His eyes closed and his lips waggled in ecstasy.

“Why aren't horses more afraid of us?” Anna asked. “I mean, if I were a grizzly bear he wouldn't be asking me to rub his neck, right?” Charles's stance had relaxed the moment they'd entered the stables; she didn't think he knew it. Her man loved horses the way he loved music.

He smiled, but it was Kage who answered. “Horses are adaptable. I mean, I go out to some poor, half-grown colt smelling like the steak sandwich I ate for lunch. I throw a piece of dead cow on his back and tell him it won't hurt him. Pretty amazing that they'll let us get any where near them.”

He reached out and rubbed the other side of the horse's face. “If you were in wolf form and all snarly and ready to attack, I suppose they'd freak, all right. This one might just try to trample you' he's not got a lot of fear in him. Hosteen says they just think you smell like a funny kind of dog, and they know about dogs.” He paused. Looked at Charles. “So what do you think?”

“Pretty horse,” he said dryly. “Tippy ears.”

Kage choked back a laugh. “Dad said you'd do that.” He looked at Anna. “Gives a compliment that you know is an insult. Right now the Saudi billionaires are bolstering the Arabian market. They don't care about bodies or legs, but they pay a lot for a pretty head.”

“Not just the Saudis,” grunted Charles. “The judges are rewarding longer and longer necks, taller and taller horses. If you reward the extremes, that's where the breed heads.”

“Long necks” — he nodded at the chestnut — “usually mean long backs. A lot of taller horses just have longer cannon bones, which weakens their legs. The Arabs I rode herding cattle with your father in the fifties and sixties would do a full day's work for twenty years, seven days a week, and retire sound.” He snorted. “The drive now is for pretty lawn ornaments. The Arabian horses were originally bred as weapons of war, and now they are artwork. Those old Bedouins are rolling in their graves.”

“Nothing wrong with artwork,” growled Kage, really offended now. Charles was doing it deliberately, Anna thought. Goading Kage into what? She narrowed her eyes at her husband, who looked back at her blandly.

Kage reached over and snagged a halter from where it hung on the wall next to the stall door. “Yes, he's got a pretty head and neck, and that makes him valuable. Like those little tippy ears you're so annoyed with. But you can have your cake and eat it just fine.”

Anna backed out of the way as Kage slid the stall door open and brought the two-year-old stallion out to stand in the broad aisle under the lights. She was watching the man, not the horse, though. He'd been wounded, she thought, from what had happened to his wife today. Stoic, but wounded. The anger burned all that away.

And her husband said he wasn't good with people.

“You tell me that those old-time, round-barreled, cow-hocked Arabs had anything over this horse,” Kage growled as he somehow cued the colt to freeze in place and stretch his neck out and up. The irritation he'd demonstrated dropped away as he looked at the colt, too. Anna thought he couldn't hold anger and the way he felt about the horse at the same time.

Passionately, Kage said, “This one would take you over the desert sands, sleep in your tent, and stand guard over your body. You look at him and you tell me his back is too long or his legs are weak.”

The horse looked spectacular to Anna, but she was no judge. The young stallion's copper coat gleamed even in the artificial light. Large, dark eyes looked at them with arrogance, a healthy dose of vanity . . . and humor, she thought.

His body looked balanced to her and he had a nice slope to his shoulder that was echoed in his hip. His mane was pale and thick and emphasized the arch of his neck, and his tail would have reached the ground if it hadn't been braided and wound up in a bag.

“What's with his tail?” asked Anna. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“No,” Kage said with a wary look at Charles.

“Because even in a stall, a horse will rub and wear down his tail to a useful length instead of letting it grow long enough to trail behind him like a bridal veil,” Charles told her, but his real attention wasn't on his words but on the horse. “Judges like a tail dragging the ground in the show ring.”

He paced around the horse slowly, stopping to pick up a foot. The longer he looked, the more smug Kage was. When her mate finished his examination, what Charles said wasn't a judgment, but a question. “You're taking him in the ring at the big show?”

“That's our intention,” Kage said. “We didn't show him last year because he was still going through the yearling fuglies. His butt was four inches higher than his withers. This year . . . he's got a good chance. He certainly won't look outclassed in his age group.”

“I don't know about Arabian horse judging,” said Charles, raising a hand in surrender. “But I do know horses. This one is seriously good'assuming he has a brain between those tippy little ears.” He smiled at Kage. “Tragic if he ends up a lawn ornament or a piece of artwork brought out to make a rich man's guests ooh and ahh.” He gave Kage a long look. “You've successfully defended him and your breeding program. Feel better?”

Kage gave him a sharp look, hesitated, and then said, “You picked an argument with me so I'd feel better?”

“Yes,” Charles said.