Lonestar Sanctuary by Colleen Coble

sores on the mare's
withers were crusty, and the harsh glare from the bare bulb overhead
showed every bone through her rough coat. Rick scooped some sweet feed into a bucket and offered it to the mare. She nosed the bucket
and began to eat.

    "Do they always make it?" Allie asked. The guy had some good
qualities, even if she hated to admit it.
    "Not all." His gaze met hers. "We try our best, just like we do with
the kids."
    "How'd you end up here, Rick?" Allie wanted to know, but she
wasn't sure he'd talk about it. He seemed different tonight. More
wary, and she wasn't sure why.
    He leaned on the rail and watched the mare eat. "Like most of the
others. I'd been in trouble shoplifting, a stolen-car spree, fights at
school. A teacher who took an interest in me heard about Elijah's
ranch and talked Child Protective Services into sending me and a few
other kids here. I wanted nothing to do with Elijah, but I couldn't
resist a horse that he'd rescued two months before." He smiled.
"Whiskers was his name, and he was five. His owner had raised him to
buck in the rodeo, but he beat Whiskers to get him to do it."
    Allie winced. "The rodeo where I worked was always careful not
to mistreat the animals. No rodeo boss would stand for that."
    He nodded. "The chute boss saw lacerations on Whiskers and disqualified him. The owner was going to sell him to the pet-food factory, but Elijah got wind of it and bought him instead. But Whiskers
wouldn't let anyone near him. The day I arrived, he looked in my
eyes, and I looked in his, and we each saw a soul mate. He wouldn't
let me ride him that day, but by the time my time here was over, I was
riding him all over the ranch. I came back every summer until I
joined the army."
    "And then when you got out?"
    He nodded. "Elijah wrote me all ten years I was in, then offered me a job when I told him I was resigning. He needed help, and I
needed a sanctuary."

    Sanctuary. The word made a warm sensation well up inside Allie.
That's what she and Betsy needed -a safe haven where they could
grow and put down roots. Elijah seemed all about helping other kids.
Why had he never sought out Allie's mom? He'd been content to take
his granddaughter and let his own daughter disappear into the underbelly of the city.
    She'd come here expecting some kind of ogre and discovered a
man who cared about kids. The dichotomy between what he professed
and how he'd acted with his own child left her shaking her head and
wondering who was the real Elijah.
    Maybe when he found out who she really was, he'd throw her out
the way he'd tossed her mother onto the street.

     

8
    THE OFFICE HAD THE APPEAL OF A BEAUTIFUL SNAKE. LOVELY COLORS AND
form, but inspiring the same dread in Allie as coming face-to-face
with a rattlesnake. She looked forward to her time in the big, comfortable room with the tin ceiling until she looked down at the way
the black marks jittered their way across the ledger page.
    The last two days had been placid, and she began to relax until
she realized the work she had to do. Leaving Betsy napping on her
bed, she entered the office prepared to do battle but was already mentally waving a white flag.
    She dropped into the cracked leather chair and squinted at the
new stack of receipts in the tray. These files wouldn't be easy to whip into shape. The sun was too bright in here. She closed the blinds, but
her eyes weren't ready to deal with this yet.

    She pulled open the lap drawer and glanced through it. Paper
clips, rubber bands, a couple of erasers and mechanical pencils, a pack
of gum, and a few keys. Nothing really interesting.
    Allie tried the drawer on her right and found it full of file folders.
The soft gold of the manila folders made it easier to read the tabs.
Glancing through them, she found them labeled with different categories of bills like electricity, food, and maintenance. The next drawer
held blank envelopes and postage stamps. The top drawer on her left