Ride a Painted Pony (Superromance) Read Free

That woman with the rabbit had a chisel in her hand sharp enough to slice marble.”
    Kendall tipped his chair back on two legs and balanced it against the wall behind him. He chuckled.
    Taylor felt that damn tingle again. Kendall’s voice was deep and smooth. The wavy black hair just going gray at the temples, and the unusually large complement of even white teeth, added to his Big Bad Wolf impression. She concentrated on his nose—broken more than once from the looks of it. Dark, dangerous. The better to eat you with. This was the kind of man Mel usually tried to protect her from.
    “Three-quarters of the people who sign up at Rounders have never touched a power tool or a chisel,” he said. “Half of them are women over fifty. I’ve got a lady who flies in from Arizona one weekend a month to work on her jumper. She’s seventy-seven and weighs maybe eighty pounds. Before she started her horse, her idea of a power tool was the emery board her manicurist used. If I could teach her , I can teach you. You look pretty tough.”
    “Not against a power saw.”
    “Maybe we can find some other cover for you.”
    “It’s the perfect excuse to hang around and talk to everyone. Mel says no matter how bizarre the situation is, somebody always knows what’s really going on. It’s just a matter of asking the right person the right question. I’d just like to wind up the assignment with the same number of fingers I start with. I’d like to take it slow.”
    He frowned at her. “How are you at taking it fast?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You have exactly ten days to find out who stole my animals.”
    She gaped at him. “What if it takes longer?”
    Nick shrugged. “Then I have to cough up thirty-five thousand big ones to Pete Marley, the guy who bought the fake. I don’t have it.”
    “But you didn’t sell him a fake.”
    Nick leaned forward. “Listen, I live or die by my reputation. There are a lot of crooks in the carousel business; it’s a tight little community. Right now everybody trusts me. I do what I say I’ll do, when I say I’ll do it. Period. If Marley doesn’t get his money back within ten days, he’s going public with the fraud. I can’t afford that.”
    “But that’s unfair. Mel says Marley’d never have known the horse was a fake if you hadn’t pointed it out to him.”
    “Marley’s mad as hell about being taken. He was ready to fly to Mississippi and kill Eberhardt himself, but by then the man was dead, and so was the only lead we had. Either I find out who stole the animal so that Marley can get the money from him, or I pay it myself. I was lucky to get a two-week grace period.” He sounded grim.
    No wonder. “Won’t your liability insurance cover it?”
    Nick shook his head. “The hippocampus and the other animals I carved were never part of the Rounders inventory. They’re mine and not insured. The only way insurance would pay off is if I can prove that one of my partners is the thief. Rounders has partnership insurance against theft.” He sighed and sat back. Taylor had to strain to hear his next words. “That’s not possible.”
    “Why not?”
    “My partners wouldn’t steal from Rounders.”
    “Then who would?”
    “That’s the hell of it. It’s got to be one of the carvers. Nobody else would know about the animals. I can’t believe any of them would steal from me. They’re my friends, my family.”
    “They’re your students. They pay you to teach them to carve. Not the same thing.”
    “Why do I get the feeling you’re not enthusiastic about what we do here?”
    Taylor sighed. The man was a client. She didn’t want to offend him. Still, he’d asked. “I admit I’m biased. Seems like an awful lot of money to spend on toys.”
    “Some people consider them art.”
    “Some people think collages made out of rotting lettuce leaves and bent safety pins are art.”
    Kendall rubbed the back of his neck and raised an eyebrow. He opened his desk drawer, pulled out a