Mounting Danger

  Synopsis

  Sergeant Rachel Bryce’s determination to uphold the rules at any cost has made her a pariah on the Tacoma police force. When she is put in charge of the new mounted division, dissension in the ranks seems to guarantee the program’s failure. Rachel asks an old college acquaintance to help her train the horses and their riders before they make their public debut amid the fireworks and crowds on the Fourth of July.

  Callan Lanford doesn’t play by the rules. She invents her own. The scion of a polo-playing dynasty, Cal has been riding since before she could walk, and she scores both on and off the field with equal ease. But she isn’t prepared for the emotional ride she takes as Rachel forces her to confront her achievement-oriented family’s rejection. Cal’s attraction to Rachel grows, but both their future together and the future of the mounted unit are uncertain, plagued by “accidents” and threats.

  As Rachel and Cal battle a corrupt politician’s greed in the face of mounting danger, can their love prevail?

  Mounting Danger

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  Mounting Danger

  © 2013 By Karis Walsh. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-993-0

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: October 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Ruth Sternglantz

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Sheri (GraphicArtist2020@hotmail.com)

  By the Author

  Harmony

  Worth the Risk

  Sea Glass Inn

  Improvisation

  Mounting Danger

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a book set in Tacoma was, for me, a literary return to my hometown. I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the people who were instrumental in making me a lifelong reader and bibliophile. What a gift they gave me.

  Thank you to my parents, for filling our house with books, and to my sister, Staci, because I cherish the memory of her reading to me by candlelight during a thunderstorm. And to the wonderful teachers who went beyond their curricula to give me extra encouragement and challenges: Mr. Thurston, Mr. Delorme, Mr. Nino, and Mr. Martin. And to Richard Sears—you are missed.

  Many thanks to the people who are currently helping me transform my love of writing and words into novels. Radclyffe, Cindy, Stacia, Connie. Sheri, for her awesome covers, and the proofreaders for their important and exacting work. And, of course, thank you to Ruth Sternglantz. She is not only my editor, but also a teacher and a friend.

  Dedication

  For Cindy

  Before you, I only wrote about love and romance.

  Now, with you, I live them every day.

  Thank you.

  Chapter One

  Blue lights flashed in eerie silence. No sirens, no sound. Sergeant Rachel Bryce got in her patrol car and slammed the door behind her, needing some noise, some proof she wasn’t as invisible and incorporeal as a ghost. Rows of police vehicles—identical except for their small identifying numbers—lined the parking lot of Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium. Small groups of officers—identical except for their faces, their body types, their name badges—formed clusters in between the rows of cars. They were a community, a family. Bound as strongly by unseen ties as by their similar uniforms. But not Rachel. She was alone.

  She kept her features composed and calm, but her hands gripped the bottom of the steering wheel as she fought off her insistent and growing headache. She had already been to far too many funerals in her seven years with the Tacoma Police Department. Only a few years earlier, after she had signed up to take the sergeant’s test, she and her colleagues in the TPD had joined with the other departments in Washington as they mourned the loss of seven officers over the course of a few months. Unlucky number seven. Shot and killed, like Alex Mayer. But then, she had been part of the solemn community. Comforting. Comforted. Standing together against the dangers they faced every day.

  Anger and loneliness battled for her attention. She flipped off her radio, silencing its incessant updates on the funeral procession and route. She was somewhere in the middle of over one hundred cars, all wedged in the lot and about to drive slowly to the same destination. She was unlikely to make a wrong turn along the way. Too bad the same surety didn’t apply to her career. Just one call, one choice had changed everything. She had made the right decision on that fateful call, even though no one else agreed with her. But being right didn’t make up for being ostracized. Her decision had resulted in the arrest of a fellow officer. The law had been on her side, but the entire department had supported the more popular and senior officer. And an invisible, impenetrable wall had gone up between her and everyone she had considered family before that day.

  The other officers started dispersing, heading to their cars, so Rachel turned her radio on again. At least it was another voice. Everyone else might turn away when she walked by, but the impersonal voice of the dispatcher still spoke to her. And would, as long as she put on this uniform.

  A uniform she had been so proud to wear. She had spent plenty of time on the wrong side of a police car’s safety glass. In trouble, in juvie, in yet another foster home, until a stroke of luck landed her in the home of a couple who cared enough to fight against her and with her until they pulled her out of a downward spiral and set her on the right course. A course that led her directly to the driver’s seat of a patrol car. So much better than being trussed up in the back. She had gotten through college, through the police academy, through her rookie year by following the rules. Staying on the straight and narrow. But somehow, in some crazy way, doing what was right hadn’t worked this time. Instead of giving her the security of a work family—any family—it had separated her once again.

  Rachel inched forward as her row finally started to move through the maze of cones that brought order to the parking lot and under the arch formed by two fire trucks with an American flag fluttering under their extended ladders. Following the hearse and Alex’s body. Volunteers from neighboring departments sat in each intersection, blocking traffic for the procession. Crowds of citizens lined the city streets, waving and holding signs in support. Rachel pried one hand loose from her steering wheel and waved back. To them, she must look like any other officer, but she knew better. She stopped waving and ran her fingers over her TPD badge, feeling the ridge of heavy black tape where it crossed the cold metal. She cracked her window for some fresh air, but instead of a sweet May breeze, she only let the smell of exhaust into her car. Still, she couldn’t bear to shut the window again. The excruciatingly slow progress of the line of cars, the uncontrolled crowds pressing close as she crawled by, and the utter lack of escape routes aggravated the claustrophobia she had struggled with since childhood. She hadn’t felt it this strongly for years, and she barely resisted the urge to pull out of the solid line of cars. Drive over the curb, over the sidewalk, over some pedestrians. Whatever it took to break free and be able to breathe again.

  Safety wasn’t in closed spaces. People hanging over the sides of bridg
es holding banners could easily drop something on her car. The ones lining the side of the road could shoot at her, grab her. Most cops learned to know where the exits were to keep from getting cornered and avoid walking into traps. Rachel hadn’t needed those lessons from the academy or from her training officers. She had picked them up before she turned five. Don’t go into a room if there isn’t another way out. Don’t turn your back on anyone. Ever. Don’t trust the people who look so friendly as they wave and smile.

  Inhale. Hold the breath. Exhale. Hold the emptiness. Rachel tried every breathing exercise she could remember. She was overreacting, being paranoid, but the panic she had felt in every funeral procession made the fifteen-minute drive to the Tacoma Dome seem like it lasted for hours. Before, she had been in the car with friends, with people she trusted to watch her back, to protect and support her. This time, the loneliness and isolation made her feel too vulnerable.

  Finally, a motorcycle cop waved her toward the parking places reserved for Tacoma’s officers. Rachel dragged a shaky hand over her forehead, wiping away a light sheen of sweat. No more crowds, and the congestion of cars eased as they separated and drove down different rows. Rachel backed into a spot and turned off her ignition. She had barely managed the drive here and she didn’t know how she’d be able to handle the hot and crowded memorial service. She looked over at the Dome, its dirty blue-and-white patterned top a testament to the industrial area surrounding it. The smudged and grimy surface, defying the city’s attempts to keep it clean, was courtesy of the Tideflats area, with its refineries and paper mills. Tacoma might not be the prettiest city Rachel had ever seen, but it had become her home—working-class and unpretentious, with the community spirit of a small town. She belonged here. So why was she being shut out?

  Rachel finally got out of her car and walked past a group of officers. One had been in her academy class. One had been on her squad before she was promoted to sergeant in February. All of them she knew by name. She kept her head high, her face expressionless, as she passed them without a word. Not that they noticed. She wanted to stop and yell, wave her arms until they had to acknowledge her. Ask why they had sided against her without bothering to hear her side of the story. Ask why it was fair for the other officer—just because he was well-liked and had been around longer than she had—to turn everyone against her when her only sin was to uphold the law. But she didn’t. Instead, she edged around the growing crowds and looked for a reasonably empty place to stand while she waited for the casket to be carried into the Dome.

  She heard the horses before she saw them. The clatter of steel shoes on concrete, a shrill neigh that was immediately echoed by two other equine voices. Tacoma’s new mounted unit. Led by Alex Mayer until a week ago. Rachel slipped behind the large white trailer, with the department’s logo emblazoned on its side, and got her first glimpse of the recently formed unit.

  She had forgotten they’d be here. Usually Seattle sent a few horses to escort a fallen officer to the memorial service, but of course Tacoma’s unit would perform the duty today. Rachel looked over the four horses with her foster dad’s voice in her head, pointing out their flaws and evaluating their conformation the way he had taught her to do. A handsome chestnut gelding, empty boots attached to the stirrups of his saddle, was obviously Alex’s mount. He danced around as Clark Jensen tried to hold him with one hand and a bay quarter horse type with the other. Billie Mitchell, another officer from Rachel’s academy class, was tightening the girth on her saddle while her flighty mare jigged in a tight circle. Lindstrom—Don…or Dan?—stood too far away from a pinto mare that was tied to the side of the trailer as he cleaned one of her hooves with a metal pick. He looked nervous around her, and with good reason apparently. Rachel didn’t notice any glaring defects in the horses’ conformation, but none of them seemed to be mentally ready for their public debut.

  Rachel kept to the shadows behind the trailer. She wanted to help Clark untangle himself from the reins as the two horses twisted around him. And ask Billie why her mare didn’t have Borium on her shoes to keep her from slipping on the pavement. And to tell Don, or Dan, that he seemed right to distrust the mare. The way her eye rolled back so Rachel could see its white rim, her switching tail, her pinned ears. Rachel had seen those signs in horses too many times before. And they were usually followed by a kick or a bite or a stomped-on foot.

  But it wasn’t her place to interfere. And the officers probably wouldn’t want her help even if offered. She leaned against the aluminum trailer and felt the small jolts as the pinto mare pulled back against her tie rope. Of course the riders would be nervous on their first official outing. And sad and shocked because they were acting as escort for their dead sergeant. But, even shielded from the worst of the crowds and traffic noise by the huge trailer, the unit looked totally unprepared to be in public.

  The aroma of hay and manure and sweating horses calmed Rachel and drove away the lingering scent of exhaust and claustrophobia. She took a deep breath and let the sounds and smells of the horses carry her away from the memorial and her lonely exile within the department, away from the disturbing prospect of a few hot hours in the Dome with hundreds of sweaty cops in wool dress uniforms. Back home to eastern Washington. Back to her foster family’s ranch in the town of Cheney, where she could ride for miles without—

  Rachel pushed off the trailer and moved toward Clark before she realized what she was doing. The bay gelding had pulled out of his grasp and wheeled away when Rachel reached out and grabbed his reins. He dragged her a few feet, but she held her ground and jerked him to a stop. Rachel stroked his neck, murmuring quietly until she felt the muscles beneath her hand relax a bit, and then she led him back to Clark.

  “Thanks…Bryce,” he said. He hesitated slightly before her name, as if merely saying it would give him cooties.

  Rachel ignored the slight. She should be getting used to the way people said her name, but it hurt every time. She slipped the reins over the bay’s head and handed them to Clark. “No problem,” she said. She turned to walk away.

  “Wait,” Clark said.

  Rachel stopped and faced him. His face was pale, and she could see red marks on his hand where the sweaty leather reins had burned him when the gelding pulled away.

  “Really, thank you. If you hadn’t caught him…”

  Rachel didn’t need him to finish the sentence. She knew too well what might have happened if the frightened horse had gotten loose among the crowds, on the city streets and so close to the freeway. “Just be careful out there,” she said.

  He nodded and followed the rest of the unit toward the street where the hearse and Alex’s family were waiting. Rachel stayed near the trailer, where she could watch but not be noticed. Close enough to help if another of the horses got out of control. Usually, the police would be mounted while another officer led the riderless horse, but Rachel was relieved to see the whole unit stay on the ground. They could barely control their horses as it was, and Rachel gasped out loud when Alex’s widow had to snatch her two young children out of the way of Lindstrom’s mare. The four horses jigged and swerved around the coffin as if they were more likely to knock it over than to protect it, and Abby Hargrove, the unit’s lieutenant, finally waved them off. Rachel was tempted to skip the service and stick around the trailer in case they needed help loading the horses, but Hargrove glared daggers at Rachel when she passed her.

  No need to stick around where she wasn’t wanted. Although she suspected she wouldn’t be any more welcome inside the Dome than she was outside of it, Rachel joined the throngs of people filing through the entrance doors. For a brief moment, between the parking lot and the seating area, she belonged. Surrounded by officers from other departments, she was an anonymous TPD sergeant, receiving commiserating smiles and even the occasional shoulder squeeze or brush on the arm from strangers who accepted her more than her own people did. But it didn’t last long.

  Rachel paused at the edge of the bleachers. Tiers of seats were fill
ed with people who had traveled to the memorial service. The distinctive red of Canadian Mounties, the navy and black of local uniforms. Rachel wanted to find a seat among them, but she’d be out of place yet again. Noticed because she wasn’t sitting in the chairs reserved for Tacoma’s officers, Alex’s family, and visiting dignitaries. She hesitated, as unsure as she had been on every first day in every new school she had attended while growing up. Always hoping to be part of a group, but always expecting rejection. And rarely being disappointed in her expectations.

  The feel of someone’s hand on the small of her back, sliding over her duty belt, made Rachel flinch. She automatically reached toward her gun, but warm breath against her neck made her stop.

  “Hey, Rach.”

  Warmth. The smell of her breath, the sound of her voice, the hand sliding over Rachel’s ass and hip would have been very welcome if Christy hadn’t been hiding behind her in the shadows of the bleachers. But the gestures were furtive, stolen. Not meant to be seen. Around the rest of the department, Christy was as cold as everyone else.

  “What’s up, Christy?” Rachel asked. She shifted her hips out of reach. She might be mad, furious because Christy had bailed on her when she needed her most, but her damned body still reacted to her ex-lover’s touch.

  “I miss you.”

  I miss you, too.

  “Can you come over tonight? I don’t want to be alone,” Christy said. She pressed against Rachel’s back, and Rachel could imagine the feel of her hard nipples, the smell of her sex, the wet touch of her tongue. “I need you.”