Healing Over Time

Chapter Three

Two weeks after Lee's death.

Alex got out of the truck after finishing her shift. It was early afternoon on the ranch and she glanced over to the barn where there seemed to be a lot of activity. There were large trailers along the edge and a few too many horses in the corrals for it just be the wranglers.

"You wanna come buy a horse?" John asked her from behind.

"What?" Alex looked over her shoulder.

"Come with me," John kept walking passed her.

Alex sighed. What she wanted was a shower and her bed, but she begrudgingly followed John down. She stayed behind him as he leaned up against the fence, next to Rip. Alex placed her hands in her jacket pockets as her eyes danced from horse to horse.

When Alex was born, her mother's father gave her the name Dark Horse, due to her hair and the fact she was brought into this world surrounded by conflict and chaos. Even though the would deny it, Alex also knew the name was given because she liked to run away from things. 

Until she was about six, Alex was always around horses on the reservation. But when she left the reservation with her mother, her father was coming out of his first stint in prison, and the horses disappeared.

When she became friends with the Duttons, she rode again. But once she left for school, the horses disappeared. When she got together with Lee, the horses came back. It was a cycle with her since she was born, but she'd always loved them.

John must have had a good day at the bank because he was buying them left and right. Alex watched the trainers show off their skills as John and Rip mumbled things back and forth. The head guy, Travis, was telling John about one horse costing around five million when Alex noticed movement off to her right.

Monica and Tate stood off to the side, both of them looking a little shocked in their eyes. Alex locked eyes with Monica who looked even more surprised to see her standing there. Alex then looked at Tate, the little boy enamored with the horses in front of them.

But where was Kayce?

"John?" Alex said gently, making John look over his shoulder to her.

Alex nodded for him to turn around and when he did, he saw Monica and Tate.

**

Kayce had been arrested by the Tribal police. There was a ballistics record on file that put his gun at a crime scene. That was all Alex really heard Monica tell John before she walked back to the main lodge. She wasn't surprised, trouble always followed Kayce.

Once up at the main lodge, Alex took a shower and put on some jeans and a long-sleeved shirt before making her way downstairs. John was in the living room when Alex walked in and saw him hanging up his phone. John's eyes looked over at Alex.

"They're holding him for questioning," John said as if Alex asked him. "Jamie's on his way there to get him out."

"Did he do it?" Alex asked, crossing his arms.

"It's Kayce," John sighed.

"That doesn't really answer my question," Alex stared back at him.

"What do you think?" John asked.

Alex thought for a moment.

"I'm a bad person to ask that of. I always think the best of him," Alex then turned around but before she could leave John started talking again.

"Will you tell Monica that Jamie is there?" John asked as he was typing on his phone. "I need to make a few more calls...we don't know how long it'll take."