With this segment of Chapter Twelve of Repairing the Legacy, we continue the serialization of Repairing the Legacy. This is a rough draft work in progress and may not reflect the final form. Time period: set after the ending of The Martiniere Legacy main trilogy. I’m breaking longer chapters into sections for readability. This is the second part of Chapter Twelve. There will be four parts to this chapter.

New to the series? Chapter order:

Chapter One, Section One

Return of the Prodigal Son (2 parts)

Conversations and a Dinner (2 parts)

Dancing into Change (2 parts)

Sisterly Compromises (3 parts)

Conspiracies at the Rodeo (3 parts)

Passing the Baton (4 parts)

Research Complications (3 parts)

Chasing After Shadows (3 parts)

Fifth Anniversary Present (3 parts)

Mariah (5 parts)

Shadows, Redux (3 parts)

PART OF….

COMING SOON!!!

March, 2068

GABE

1:45. No Ruby at the barn.

Should he ride out?

No. Fifteen minutes late was within reason. Even though a hard, driving rain had set in.

Gabe paced the alleyway, peering out the barn door every circuit.

Nothing but a downpour.

#

2:00. Still no Ruby.

No message saying she was delayed.

The rain had eased off.

Gabe tried her comm, just in case.

Nothing. Fear tightened his gut. He tried again.

Still nothing.

Damn it, she had to be within comm range by now.

He stomped up to the house.

“Mike!” he hollered from the kitchen. “I need help!”

He should call on security for help rather than Mike. But if Ruby was just dawdling on her way back from the Chandler place, or had stopped to check on fence or something while still in the dead zone, she’d be pissed at him for overreacting if he called security. If he and Mike rode to meet her, however, they could plead cabin fever and wanting to get out as an excuse, now that the sun was shining.

If everything was all right, that was.

“What’s up?” Mike hobbled into the kitchen, his Heeler Smudge right behind him.

“Ruby’s half an hour late getting back from the Chandlers,” Gabe said. “No response to her comm. And she’s riding Boomer. I can manage to get up on Star. Can you handle a crawler?”

Mike’s face tightened and he nodded. “No problem, Gabe. Meet you at the barn.”

Gabe spun and limped back to the barn. Luckily, Star was stalled instead of in the field with his mares or in a pen. That made things easier for Gabe to groom and tack the big stud. A quick swipe with the brush over back and belly, then Gabe heaved the saddle onto Star’s back. Before Gabe bridled Star, he leaned his head against the stallion’s forehead.

“She’s late, big fella,” he said softly. “I’m worried. Help me find her.”

Then he straightened up. The stud nuzzled Gabe before he pulled the bridle on over the halter. He tied the lead rope to his saddle horn.

The faint rumble of a crawler announced Mike’s arrival. “Still nothing?” he asked, walking into the barn.

“Nothing. Let me try again.”

No response.

“I’ll try,” Mike said. “Just in case your comm’s out of commission.”

Should have thought of that myself.

Mike snapped up Ruby’s contact. They stood there, waiting until Ruby’s recorded message responded.

“All right, then,” Gabe said grimly. “Let’s go.”

He didn’t want to take the time to haul the mounting block out of the indoor arena. Fortunately, Star was comfortable standing next to the crawler while Gabe clambered up on it, Mike steadying him, so that it was an easy step up and over onto Star’s back.

Mike started the crawler, and Gabe guided Star behind it until they came to the first gate—this one could be opened from horseback. Mike sped through and ran ahead while Gabe shut the gate. Star easily caught up with the crawler. Nothing new; they’d followed the crawler many times before. Gabe rose in his stirrups to look ahead, hoping to see Ruby and the blood bay colt ambling toward them.

Nothing. And that overwhelming, paralyzing sensation of something’s wrong throbbed through Gabe, worse than ever.

Second gate. No Boomer pacing with an empty saddle—which would be likely if he’d managed to dump Ruby. The colt would head for home.

Mike whistled to Smudge after they drove through the gate. The Heeler hopped out, ranging by the crawler, venturing on short forays away from the crawler track as he sniffed out scent trails, then returning.

But no reaction out of the ordinary, no alert that suggested he smelled Boomer and Ruby.

Gabe rode Star alongside Mike. No more gates for a while, and if Boomer wasn’t running loose here—

“I’m gonna gallop ahead, to the next gate,” he yelled to Mike.

Mike nodded, his jaw set grimly.

“Help me find her,” Gabe murmured to Star. “Both of them.” He clucked and rested his calf against Star’s side to cue him, leaning forward and extending his left hand to ask for more speed.

Star picked up his easy gallop. In other situations, Gabe would be enjoying a run along the level crawler trail that paralleled the Double R hayfields. Star was fun to gallop. But he kept looking, and watching Star’s ears. The stallion should spot Boomer and Ruby before he did. He was well aware of the younger stud’s presence on the ranch.

They rounded a corner, just at the start of where Star had gotten nervous last week, and Star’s head shot up. He skidded to a stop, looking off toward the creek, then neighed imperiously.

Gabe squinted. Was that the blood bay colt standing near the bushes?

Yes, his head down.

What the hell—? He shifted his weight and urged Star toward Boomer. Star bellowed another neigh as they approached the colt. Boomer raised his head but not very high. Something restrained him—

Fuck, fuck, fuck, Ruby’s off, this has to be bad—

Gabe halted Star. He couldn’t see Ruby. Boomer shifted his feet nervously, eyes fearful and open wide enough to show white sclera, nostrils flaring red with anxious roller snorts. Star rumbled deep in his chest and Boomer—oh God, he’s caught up in wire. Remnants of an old fence along the creek, had to be. But how did he end up in it?

Gabe dismounted and untied Star’s lead rope from the saddle horn. He looked around for a tree stout enough to tie the stallion, and away from any wire, ignoring the stiffness and pain in his legs and hips as he secured Star and wrapped his reins around the saddle horn.

Smudge loped up to him as he hobbled over to Boomer.

“Back to Mike!” Gabe ordered. Last thing they needed was for Smudge to startle the colt into hurting himself further—and maybe step on Ruby. Even though there was no sign of her.

He approached Boomer carefully, choking back his fear so that he didn’t project it onto the colt. At the same time, he looked for something, anything that indicated where Ruby was.

“Steady, boy, steady,” Gabe murmured as he eased toward Boomer.

Oh God.

Wire tangled around Boomer’s legs, and he was bleeding. Bridle gone—maybe Ruby had pulled it off in her fall. Soaked from belly down—so the colt had plunged through the creek. Halter on, lead rope still tied to the saddle horn but snagged on some branches. Deep cut on his haunches, claw marks—aw fuck.

Damn good colt. Boomer could have ripped himself up a lot worse, and he had apparently dragged the wire, but he stood still as Gabe freed him—no wire cutters handy, damn it. And Boomer had dumped Ruby—where? And what had happened?

Gabe considered possibilities as he worked. The track crossed a bridge about a quarter mile further along and doubled back along the hayfield on the other side of this creek, running underneath rimrocks before it climbed up and turned toward Chandler’s.

Late, hard winter, mountain lion or bear hungry and desperate enough to risk attacking a horse and rider. Ambush. Boomer spooked, Ruby—where?

Did the predator get her?

Mike stopped the crawler near Star, approaching Gabe and Boomer cautiously.

“You armed?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah,” Mike said.

“Keep an eye on the horses and Smudge.” Gabe led Boomer away from the wire. Ruby’s saddle rifle was still scabbarded. He pulled it out. “Mountain lion, I think. Maybe bear. Call security.”

Mike took Boomer, murmuring to the colt to soothe him. Gabe climbed over the wires, reading Boomer’s tracks, heart pounding scarily.

God, Ruby, where are you?

“Ruby?” he called. He wanted to bellow but damn it, that would scare Boomer. They didn’t need to have Mike hurt as well.

Nothing.

“Ruby!” Louder.

A groan. Gabe thrashed through the willows toward where he heard it. Motion as he broke free from the brush. Ruby lay on her side, half on the bank of the high-running creek, but in the water up to her waist, wire tangled around her as well. She clung to a slender willow branch.

Oh God. Gabe scrambled to her, putting the rifle down.

“Rubes, it’s me, I’m here,” he gasped.

She raised her head slightly, blinking at him. “Gabe?”

“Don’t move.” Oh God, he had to get her safely out of the water before she lost her grip. Did he have to untangle the wire first? Or could he just pull her out and then unwrap her?

“My leg,” she whispered. “Hurts. Bad. Cold.”

“Don’t move.” At least she could feel her leg, but were there spinal injuries? Hard to tell. His stomach turned as he saw white against her jeans, under the water. Bad broken bone.

“Tried to pull out of creek. Tired. So tired.”

“I’m gonna get you out, but we’ve gotta be careful. Give me a moment.”

Risky, damn it, but Ruby was turning hypothermic, blue around her lips and nostrils. Hypothermia and shock.

What about that damned wire?

As he investigated, it became clear he would have to loosen it to get her out of the creek in the first place. The strands wrapped tight around Ruby and trailed into the creek. Gabe plunged into the cold flow, up to his waist, muttering curses that he hadn’t thought to stick a wire cutter into his belt. The wire strands connected to a post on the bottom of the creek. He yanked at it, fighting the chill and the damned stubborn wire and he had to get Ruby out of this damned mess.

The post came loose and Gabe staggered back, falling on the bank. He heaved the post next to Ruby. The process ripped two strands loose, easing the bind on her. He yanked the third free. Now he might be able to get her untangled—how the hell had both she and Boomer gotten into the wire? It looked like the wire had been cut once, so at least he wasn’t fighting with an entire line of fencing, but why hadn’t it been removed?

No time for that.

Get Ruby out of the creek. Now.

Gabe muttered a prayer to the God he no longer believed in. She could move her head and neck, so…he stripped off his heavy duster coat and used it to rig a sling under her arms, then slowly pulled her free of the creek, doing his level best to keep her spine straight.

Ruby screamed as he tugged her onto the bank; wordless, heart-rending shrieks of the sort that Gabe hadn’t heard from her since Brandon’s birth. She gasped for breath once he had her out of the creek.

At least she’s still feeling it.

That suggested no spinal injury.

Gabe undid his coat from under her arms, doing his best to wrap it around her torso. He stared at her broken leg. Thigh bone. Dare he do more? She was bleeding so much—he started unbuttoning his shirt to make a tourniquet, ignoring the warning pains in his chest.

Voices. Help.

“She’s down here!” he called. “Broken leg. Maybe spinal injuries. Hypothermia. Get MedicFlight in here now!”

Security thrashed through the willows, then scrambled around him, lugging a backboard. They finished untangling Ruby from the remnants of the wire and rolled her onto the backboard carefully, tossing Gabe’s coat back to him as they wrapped her in an emergency blanket. Gabe grabbed Ruby’s saddle rifle on his way back up the bank. He knelt next to the backboard as they waited for the helicopter, holding her hand.

She was so damn cold.

The ranch manager, Charlie Thompson, rested a hand on his back. “Horses are taken care of, Gabe.”

“Good. Get a vet for Boomer, and call Fish and Wildlife to send someone out here to track down that fucking mountain lion. Bear. Or whatever it was that set Boomer off.”

God, his chest hurt. But probably just angina. Help for Ruby was more important right now.

“I saw those claw marks. We have it under control.”

He nodded, his focus on Ruby, ignoring the pain rising in his chest. God. If he hadn’t been so anxious about her—

The whomp-whomp-whomp of the MedicFlight helicopter was the sweetest sound he’d heard in ages. Gabe argued when they wouldn’t let him ride with Ruby.

He prevailed, but only because the pain in his chest got so bad that he doubled over and started gasping for breath.

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And we have a cover for the series and the eventual book! Welcome to everyone who signed up as part of the Great Substack Story Challenge!