Chapter 2

Mik checked the air on the trailer tires after gassing up the truck and then checked on her horse, Cherokee. With luck, she’d reach the Rocky River Ranch in a couple of hours. Her stomach knotted at the thought of it. Had she screwed up letting herself be talked into selling the farm and taking this job? Maybe she should have just hung onto the farm and tried to find another way.

And let your family down? The annoying voice of her conscience caused her dark eyebrows to drawn into a tight frown. Family obligation could be a real bitch.

Mik climbed into the truck and started the engine. There were times when she was quite certain that life would be easier if she had been an only child. Well, to be exact the only adopted child.

She had been adopted by the Morgans—Henry and Beth, a couple who had been told they could not conceive. To their surprise, the week after they brought Mik home, they found out they were pregnant and six months later, Beth gave birth to a daughter, Alexandra. A year after that Theodora was born. Mik had never felt like she was different from her sisters because she was adopted. She felt loved. And they’d all had an idyllic childhood on the farm in Virginia. Idyllic until Henry and Beth were killed in a car accident. Mikayla, or Mik, was the oldest of the girls and at age nineteen had inherited guardianship of the younger two. Alex who was seventeen and Teddy who was sixteen.

Even overwhelmed with grief, Mik was up to the task of running the farm. That was her love. She dropped out of college and dove into the responsibility. But riding roughshod over her sisters was a task she was ill prepared for and one she came to resent. By the time her sisters graduated high school and entered college, Mik was ready for her freedom.

She found it in the form of Dave Lawrence, a rodeo cowboy with a quick smile and a love of drinking. He spent his life on the road, traveling from one rodeo to the next and that suited her just fine. One drunken night in Nevada, she married him. And that’s when everything turned to shit.

Less than six months after saying “I do,” she was sitting in a jail in Albuquerque, New Mexico, pressing charges against her husband for battery. She walked out of the jail that morning and straight into an Army enlistment office.

She leased out the farm to a nice couple with a family and six weeks later, she was in boot camp, determined to be a good soldier. Things didn’t quite work out that way. The military thought she was suited for a desk job. She disagreed. But she didn’t give the orders, so she did what she was told and counted down the days. When her two years were up, she high tailed it out of military and returned home to Virginia.

The family she’d leased the farm to stayed on and worked for her. After legally dropping her married name, she threw herself back into the one thing she knew, raising and training horses. She used the benefits the military afforded and enrolled in school and got a degree in Animal Husbandry, then joined the rodeo circuit and within two years was the world champion in barrel racing. She used her winnings to buy a stallion and three mares and dreamed of breeding and training champion barrel racing horses.

Then the bottom fell out. The economy went to shit, her sister Alex lost her job and had to move back home to the farm and Teddy’s marriage went bust when she found out her husband had gambled them out of a home and into bankruptcy.

Once again, Mik found herself in the position of having to take care of her sisters. She had to let all her help go and sold some of the stock. It had been touch and go for a while, but finally, a break came. Alex was offered a chance to buy into a prestigious CPA firm in Charlotte, North Carolina as a partner. Teddy wanted to start a business, a new age shop, and clothing store. She’d scouted around and found a storefront in Monroe, the county seat of Union County, North Carolina, just south of Charlotte. All either of them needed to start on their dreams was funding.

Mik wanted both of them to have the chance to pursue their dreams and there was only one way she could make it happen. Sell the farm and the horses. It nearly broke her heart but there was no other way to raise the money. The first person to come see it was a nice fellow about her age who wanted it for his mother to use as a retreat of sorts. Apparently, she’d not fared well since the death of her husband.

Rob didn’t seem to be the kind of man who would be comfortable on a farm, but he offered her more than what she was asking. There wasn’t anything he wanted changed and said he was looking forward to spending weekends there. Mik got the feeling that he wasn’t being entirely honest about spending time there. He was way too much of a city fellow.

Not that it mattered. She couldn’t let it matter. The sale of the farm would enable her sisters to make a fresh start. It would force Mik to give up her dreams and find a job. That was more difficult than she anticipated. In the six months it took to get everything finalized only one opportunity arose and it was from the Rocky River Ranch in Union County, North Carolina.

Despite the disappointment of having to give up her dream, Mik was grateful. Her sisters would get the chance they wanted to build lives they dreamed of, and she’d landed a job that paid pretty damn well. All things considered, she should count herself lucky.

So why was she as nervous as a cat on ice? And why did she have this sense of impending doom? Well, maybe doom was too strong a word, but there was something niggling at her. What her step-parents had affectionately labeled her “spider” sense was tingling an alert.

Mik had learned by the time she was ten to pay attention when the tingle started. She’d just never had one last this long or be this strong. Which brought her back to her original question: was she making a huge mistake?

What difference does it make when you have no other options? Her alter ego had a point and maybe she was making too much of it. Maybe it was nothing more than a sense of disappointment at having to let go of a dream and settle for working for someone else. If that was the case, her ego just needed to take a big ol’ dose of shut the fuck up and leave her to do what she had to do to support herself.

Besides this wasn’t just about her. Sure, there was a price, but look at the benefit. Teddy and Alex had the chance to pursue their dreams. That had to count. And who knew. Maybe one day Mik would have her chance.

But not today. Today a job waited for her at the Rocky River Ranch.