Book 7: His Seventh Stop (Ivory Peaks Romance)

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Keith Whettstein squinted into the whiteness in front of him, his anxiety shooting off the charts, even for him. He’d lived for the first decade of his life in Montana, which saw more sub-zero temperatures than almost anywhere else in the United States, and currently held the record for the coldest day in history.

Then his daddy had moved the family to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, and he’d lived through two more decades of long, cold, dark winters.

This one seemed to be starting early, and he still had one more delivery to get through before he could be done for the next several days. For his sister’s wedding. For the Christmas holidays.

“In two hundred feet, turn right,” his GPS told him, and Keith glanced at the screen on his phone before he tried to find the road again. His windshield wipers worked at double speed to clear the snow landing on the glass, and by some miracle he spotted the turn-off he needed to take.

No one had been out to clear this dirt road, obviously, and Keith wondered if he should even turn down it. Thankfully, he wasn’t driving his small truck, but one of the big super duty vehicles owned by Blackhorse Bay.

He loved his job at the boarding stable and riding facility, but as the agricultural manager, he didn’t have a ton to do in the winter. Therefore, he helped take care of the horses, and this year’s semi-annual sale had resulted in over two dozen equines going to new homes for the holidays.

This was his seventh and final stop of the season, and then all the horses would be home—and he could go home too. He currently lived in a cabin that was twice as big as the one he’d shared with his sister on the Hammond Family Farm. He did live with three other men, but they all had their own bedroom and shared three bathrooms. The kitchen had just been updated, and they enjoyed a six-seat dining room table. 

He liked all of the men he lived with, and he’d immediately clicked with the man who lived right across the hall from him—Derrick Hollowell. They’d gone out on blind dates together, showed each other the dating app swipes they made, and played board games and cards on the weekends.

In all, Keith had settled into his new life pretty easily in the past six months. He’d been out with three new women, and while none of them had been an instant love connection, he’d enjoyed himself and already achieved one of his goals: meeting new people.

He’d felt stale at the farm where he’d grown up. He hadn’t been meeting anyone new; certainly no one he could date and fall in love with. He hadn’t minded his single status until he’d seen Britt with her boyfriend, Lars. They shared so much, and Keith didn’t have that closeness with anyone.

He made the turn onto the snowy road, the horse trailer behind him bumping though he drove at the speed of a snail. “How long do I drive down this?” he asked himself. “And will I be able to get out?”

Darkness wasn’t for another hour, but with the storm, it felt like nighttime already. As a company rule, his pin had been shared with his boss, the owner of the ranch, and the foreman at Blackhorse Bay, who happened to be one of his roommates. So even if he got stuck out here, they’d know where he was.

He’d filled up the truck before he’d left the facility, so he could probably hunker down in his vehicle for the night. Desperation clogged his lungs, because he didn’t want to do that. “Lord,” he whispered. “Help me get out of here tonight.” 

His sister’s wedding was in three days, and Keith would absolutely not miss it. He’d strap snowshoes to his feet and hike off this hobby farm to get to Britt’s wedding. They were getting married in the big red barn on the Hammond Family Farm, and she’d been over to his cabin multiple times in the past few months of her engagement to show him every detail of the event.

The wind gusted across the road in front of him, but Keith continued on. No matter what, he had to get this horse out of the trailer, and he’d have to turn her loose if he got stuck. “There’s a farm up here,” he told himself. “No matter what, no one is spending the night in a truck or trailer.”

He’d deliver the horse to the farm, and then he’d beg to spend the night here if he had to. He glanced at the clipboard on the passenger seat, which showed him the receipt for the beautiful gray horse in the trailer behind him. “Lindsay Lewis,” he muttered. “I hope you’re home, Lindsay Lewis.”

He kept on, inching slowly down the snow-covered road, but he felt like he wasn’t getting any closer to anything. Just more forest. More snow. More wind. Keith only knew he was still on the road, because he didn’t run into any trees. Poles had been put up on the borders of the lane too, probably because they got a lot of snow and needed to know where to plow.

Another glance at the clipboard told him this farm had a name, and it was Twilight Fields. He sort of smiled at it, because it felt whimsical. It also felt like something a woman would name a few acres of alfalfa and a handful of horses. He couldn’t make too harsh of a judgment, because he didn’t even have those things. 

He had a twenty-five-hundred square-foot cabin he shared with three other men. They did have a twenty-by-twenty-foot garden behind their house, and when he wasn’t out in the fields taking soil samples, working on the watering ratios, or dealing with pests, he worked with dozens of horses. 

It’s a good life, he thought, and he wondered if that was his voice reassuring himself or God, telling him to be grateful for the blessings he had. Either way, Keith apparently needed the reminder. 

Several minutes later, Keith exhaled heavily, trying to get his frustration to go with the air. It didn’t, because he still wasn’t to this silly hobby farm. His headlights only served to show him just how much snow was falling, and his hopes of getting home tonight plummeted the same way the flakes did.

Finally, the twinkle of a light met his eye, and he drew in a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. Some civilization existed out here, even if it was only one house. As his truck continued to pad through the snow, more lights came to life on the house until the whole thing was illuminated in the snow. 

He went past it but had to stop at a fork in the road. He couldn’t really see left or right, and he didn’t know which way to take this horse. He twisted to look back toward the house, and it took a moment for his brain to process that a person stood right at his side window.

Keith yelped and dove away from the obvious serial killer, and to his horror, they opened his door. He had visions of himself being pulled from his truck and dragged into an arctic barn, never to be heard from again. 

His first instinct was to kick out, go down swinging. His heart pounded as the chilly air swept into his heated cab, and his leg twitched. “What’s—what?” 

The person standing there couldn’t be more than five feet tall, and they said nothing. They’d wrapped themselves in a hat and scarf that covered everything but their eyes, and Keith turned, keeping his legs toward them in case he needed to kick out.

“I have your horse,” he said, his brain misfiring at the name he’d seen on the clipboard. Some of the equines had been Christmas presents for kids, and he really had no idea what this gray was for. He hoped he wasn’t ruining a surprise, but at the same time, he didn’t want to meet his demise here either.

You watch too many crime dramas, he chastised himself, but the person standing there still hadn’t spoken.

“I need to know where the barn or stable is,” he said. “Is that where you want the horse?” As he studied the person’s eyes, he got the feeling that he wasn’t talking to an adult. Suddenly, he remembered the name on the receipt had been female. “Is your momma here?”

“She said to go to the barn,” the person said, and Keith would bet good money it was a girl. Maybe a teenager. 

“Right or left?” he asked.

She pointed to his left, and Keith nodded. “Okay, thanks.” He reached for the door. “I’m just gonna…close…this.” He did, and the girl backed up into the swirling snow. Keith wasn’t sure about leaving her there and driving away, but he really had no choice.

He went left, his thigh and the door panel completely wet now from the melted snow. He passed a couple of outbuildings until he reached the obvious barn, and in normal light, it would probably be a handsome red with white trim. Classic hobby farm barn material, and Keith almost wanted to scoff.

After pulling the trailer as close to the door as he could get it in these conditions, he dropped from the truck and flipped up the hood on his jacket. He pulled the gloves from his pockets and shoved his fingers into them before he dared to touch the metal horse trailer. 

“All right, Shadow,” he said to the horse. “We’re here. Your new home.” He grinned at the gray that had been tethered in the first stall at the very front of the trailer. She’d had to wait as, one-by-one, six of her horsey friends had been dropped off at their new farms or ranches.

He got her out without an issue, part of him wanting to stay in the trailer, because he wasn’t getting wet inside. The moment he stepped out of the back of the trailer, his foot slipped on the runner he’d laid out—and which had been getting snowed on.

He yelled for the second time that evening as he lost his footing. He fell backward on the hard, ribbed metal, pain smarting up into his hips and back as he landed hard. “Hockey sticks,” he said as a form of swearing, and he looked up into the sky, seeing the snow as it fell in a whole new way.

The flakes landed coldly on his face, and he couldn’t get a full breath. He couldn’t move for some reason, and then he heard the snuffling of a horse. The clang of hooves against metal. A nicker.

A woman said, “Shadow, no!” 

Keith managed to twist and look up toward the voice, but then the icy surface beneath him vibrated and moved as the horse stampeded over it. He curled into himself in an instinctive move—just like wanting to kick out at the person who’d opened his door—but he still got a hoof to the leg. 

He yelled out again, unable to stop himself. A prayer started in his gut that he’d survive the next few seconds, because that was all it usually took to get a spooked horse to calm the heck down. 

Something heavy pounded him into the ramp, which broke, and he and the horse fell the foot to the snow-covered ground. Keith groaned as Shadow scrambled to her four feet, alleviating the pressure from his body.

“No, no, no,” the woman said, and she skidded on her knees in front of Keith, actually spraying him with more powdery snow. “Are you okay? Talk to me.”

She didn’t wear a scarf and hat covering her whole face. In fact, she didn’t have a hat or a hood on at all, and her gorgeous red hair spilled over the collar of her coat. She ripped her gloves off and held them to Keith’s face. 

“You’re awake. You’re okay. Tell me your name.”

“Keith,” he managed to say, but he still couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

Everything started to turn white, despite the woman saying, “Stay with me. You’re okay. She only landed partially on you.” 

He saw her look away, and when she looked back, pure panic covered her face. “She’s gone, and I don’t know where she went.” 

Keith wanted to get up and help this beautiful woman find her horse, but when he moved his leg even a tiny bit, a streak of pain sliced through his torso. He groaned and rolled onto his back, letting the bright spots of hurt prick him all over.

“It’s Lindsay Lewis out at Twilight Fields,” the woman said. “I’ve got a guy here who got trampled by a horse, and he’s not moving.”

Not moving, Keith thought as he let his eyes drift closed. He felt the chill start to settle into his muscles and bones, and he had the strangest thought—where are my car keys?—before he let everything go black.