spraying the buckets then motioned toward the big building. “But it could use some sprucing up. A group of horse lovers took it on when I started renovating a couple of years ago. They made the grooming buckets for each horse, organized the shelves and cabinets in the tack room and they donated galvanized trash cans for feed—to keep the other critters out. And I have a leaf blower to get rid of dust and cobwebs.” Shaking her hands to dry them, she said, “Of course, I stay so busy I don’t have time to tidy things up every day so it tends to get messy. I missed checking the tack room yesterday, but my volunteers gave me an update on the horses. I keep the tack room locked since I have medicine for the animals in there.”
“I’m impressed. I’ll check everything out and see if anything needs tweaking. That is, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind and I’m sorry if I got testy before,” she retorted, pulling out a set of keys. “I’m learning to accept help whether I like it or not.” Motioning to him, she walked around the side of the old barn. “If you’ll put up the equipment, I’ll unlock the tack room door.”
Anderson watched her take off, then he gathered the clean buckets and put them back on the wagon and followed her.
Jennifer’s high-pitched shout caused him to let go of the wagon and hurry into the big barn. He found her at the door of the tack room, her hands covering her mouth.
The room had been ransacked. Cabinet doors were swung open to reveal ointments, medications and various insect repellants, all knocked over or rearranged. The floor was covered with blankets and saddle pads, bridles and halters. And all the books and papers that had probably been on the desk were tossed aside.
“Somebody’s already tried to spruce things up in here,” he said, taking in the scattered equipment and strewn papers. “Or does it always look like this?”
“It wasn’t like this yesterday before closing or my volunteers would have reported it,” she said, turning to him with her hands on her hips. “Did you do this, Anderson? Is that why you kept asking me about where I get my funding? You still think I might be involved with these criminals? Were you in here looking for evidence or something?”
Anderson would never understand the female logic or how a woman could ask so many questions at one time and expect a man to remember each one. Putting his hands on his hips, he said, “First, I asked about your funding because I was impressed with how you handle all of this and I wanted to help. And as far as trashing your place—now why would I do that and leave it like this? That would be pretty dumb on my part, wouldn’t it?”
Jennifer frowned at him, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess it would.” Letting out a huff of breath, she shook her head, then leaned back against the door. “I’m sorry. I’m just not used to being under scrutiny all the time. I keep jumping to the wrong conclusions about all of this and…about you.”
Anderson heard the sincerity in her words and re minded himself he was a Christian after all. He couldn’t lash out at her even if she did tend to read him the wrong way. “Understood.”
She gave him an apologetic glance. “So I wonder who decided to reshuffle my already disorganized stuff.”
Anderson studied the mess for a minute then said, “Someone who’s looking for more than evidence against your operation, Jennifer. I think we’ve been hit again by one of the drug runners. Cutting the fence and now this. They’ve seen your work crew back there near their drop site and they’re not happy about it.”
“But why mess up the tack room?”
“They were probably trying to scare you, or maybe they think you have something of theirs. Something they left behind.” He glanced around again. “Or, this could just be a deterrent, a way of keeping you occupied. Which means I need to get back out to the site as soon as possible.”
She looked frightened for the first time since he’d arrived here. “And that makes me a target, right?”
He nodded. “You became a target the minute you bought that land and started building that pen. But this just upped the ante.”
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