Page 59 of Smokescreen

Why had he said that? Jason had been—and still was—a great guy.

Had her dad been hiding something?

Bitterness rose inside her. Olive no longer knew what was real, and that thought bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

Somewhere in the distance, one of the horses snorted and shuffled in its stall.

Maybe the horse was ready to go for a ride. She wasn’t sure.

Olive continued walking down the row, talking to each horse as she did so.

But the one horse continued to snort and sound restless. Olive wished she knew more about these animals so she could figure out what was wrong.

She bypassed several horses and tried to find the animal that sounded so upset.

She paused when she saw movement inside one of the stalls.

It was Bella, she realized. The horse she’d ridden.

“Bella, baby. What’s got you so spooked?” Olive reached toward the creature to rub her face.

Bella snorted and drew her head back.

Why was she so upset? What did Bella know that Olive didn’t?

She rubbed Bella’s face again, trying to calm the horse.

When she did, a movement caught the corner of her eye.

The next minute, something hard hit her head.

Then everything around Olive went black.

“Olive . . . what happened? Are you okay?” Someone shook her and called out for help.

Olive moaned as she forced her eyes open. But the pounding in her head caused her to press them shut again.

Why did her head hurt so much?

Then she remembered what had happened.

She was trying to calm Bella when someone hit her over the head.

She must have blacked out.

More footsteps came running toward her.

“Olive?”

She recognized that deep voice right away. It was Reid.

When she finally forced her eyes open again, she saw Trick kneeling on one side of her and Reid on the other. Cooper and a couple of other workers had also gathered around.

“I’m okay.” Olive hated that they were all seeing her like this.

She rubbed her head and felt the knot there.

“What happened?” Reid narrowed his eyes as he studied her.