Read Online Critical Reaction by Todd M. Johnson - Free Book Online

back into the house.
    “Everything okay?” she asked as Kieran walked back.
    “Just a little misunderstanding,” he reassured her with a light smile. He walked to the Corolla and retrieved a tan cowboy hat from the back seat that he set on her head. “Follow me,” he said, steering her toward the nearer outbuilding.
    “His name is Ted Pollock,” Kieran said as they walked. “This is his ranch. He lives here with his wife and granddaughter.” Before she could ask anything more, they reached a side door in the building, which Kieran opened and passed through. Emily followed into the dim interior.
    From somewhere overhead came the whir of an air conditioner. Then Emily heard the clack of hooves on concrete, just as she caught the unmistakable musk of a stable of horses.
    “I remembered you liked to ride,” he said, leading her down a row between dozens of stalls.
    Emily smiled in the darkness.
    In the dusty light at the end of the row, Kieran gestured toward the last two stalls. “Got a preference?”
    Her eyes were adjusting now. In the closest stall was a youthful chestnut mare with a thin summer coat and a long mane and tail. Emily glanced to the adjacent stall, which held a larger, thick-necked bay stallion.
    It’d been half a dozen years since she’d ridden, and the stallion looked intimidating. “I’ll take the mare,” she answered.
    They tacked the horses together, then walked them out the rear of the barn, where Kieran gave her a leg up into the saddle. Then he led on the stallion, guiding them along a worn path through the gap in the surrounding hills.
    They crossed the narrow stream Emily had heard earlier. On the other side was a large corral holding several horses. They rode on by, moving toward open country.
    The early afternoon heat atop the horses would have been unbearable except for a softening breeze. Emily was glad she hadn’t chosen the stallion: the mare was headstrong and powerful enough. Not a trail horse, she thought. This was no dude ranch—not if these horses were typical.
    Kieran motioned her to come alongside. “So tell me everything you’ve been doing since I saw you last.”
    “Becoming a lawyer,” she said crisply.
    “Sounds boring.”
    She smiled. “Never a dull moment.”
    “Following in your dad’s footsteps?”
    “My mom’s,” she answered immediately, then changed the subject. “How do you know about this place?”
    Kieran shrugged. “I met Ted and his wife last winter after theexplosion and they told me I could ride if I wanted to. I started coming here the last six months. It was a good escape—the exercise helps clear my lungs.”
    Emily gestured back toward the barn. “This is no trail ranch.”
    “No. Ted has some cattle. But he keeps horses and lets them out occasionally to experienced riders. He also catches wild mustangs that wander onto the Hanford Reservation. Hanford security picks them up on their motion detectors or patrols. They’ll call Ted, who rounds them up, keeps them in the corral you saw, then ships them east for sale to barns.”
    Kieran turned away and cleared his throat with a long hard cough. “But you’re avoiding my first question,” he said, recovering. “Tell me everything I’ve missed.”
    Now that they were there, Emily found it hard starting this conversation. At college, their walks on campus or in neighborhoods along Lake Washington, talking through the sinking weight of their stricken parents, had sustained her. Day after day, Kieran had always been there for her.
    But then he’d disappeared. It wasn’t just that he moved away when his father’s illness took a bad turn: that she could understand. But he never came back. His emails and phone calls quickly grew rare and flat and distant—then stopped altogether.
    Kieran noticed her silence. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
    “It’s been years,” she said flatly.
    “Yeah, I know. I should’ve called a long time ago.”
    A hawk appeared in the sky circling