Touch Me In The Dark (The McKenna Legacy #3)

Kate Farrell could communicate with the wild horses on the mustang refuge, not in words, but in feelings. So after trampling her oldest friend and mentor, why were the mustangs silent?

Someone started the deadly stampede, and Kate suspected Chase Brody, who ran the refuge. They'd once shared passion both for horses and for each other. Now she doesn't even know if she can trust him.

***
The McKenna Legacy

To My Darling Grandchildren,

I leave you my love and more. Within thirty-three days of your thirty-third birthday-enough time to know what you are about-you will have in your grasp a legacy of which your dreams are made. Dreams are not always tangible things, but more often are born in the heart. Act selflessly in another’s behalf, and my legacy will be yours.

Your loving grandmother,
Moira McKenna

P.S. Use any other inheritance from me wisely and only for good, lest you destroy yourself or those you love.

***
Prologue

THE SKY HAD SWIFTLY CHANGED from a luminous pink to a deep copper by the time Oscar Weber arrived at the far back reaches of the refuge. The flat was dotted with a series of holding corrals, most of which hadn't been used in years. One currently confined several of his patients, however.
Alighting from his pickup, he fetched his bag and a bucket of bribery, sweetened grain mash being an effective way of tempting the wild horses to come to him so that he could check them out up close and personal. He hobbled into the occupied corral.
A strange, sad sound moaned through the sharp tortured buttes lining the flat. Gave some people the willies, he knew, but the soughing wind was music to his ears.
As was the excited nickering of the mustangs.
Recovering from a virus that had spread through the small band like wildfire, the seven mares quarantined from the rest of the herd crowded him, ready to let him inspect them in trade for the treat. Few humans could ever get so close. It took a special touch to tame the wildness in the heart of any beast, especially ones who'd already been betrayed by man.
After hitching the gate, Oscar dipped his arthritic hand into the bucket again and again, thrilled as always by the soft noses that pressed his flesh for the sweet. One of the mares bumped him aggressively.
"Hey, Sage, don't be a pig." He moved the bucket slightly so the greedy mare couldn't stick her head inside as she was trying to do. "Leave some for the others," he ordered in a gruff voice.
A grulla, her dark gray coat accentuated by an extraordinarily long, ragged black mane and tail, Sage was the dominant mare of the band. She was also his favorite of the entire herd. Though some would disagree, Oscar thought she was the most beautiful horse he'd ever vetted.
Craftily taking advantage of his affection for her, Sage pushed at his chest with her nose and lipped the buttons of his shirt. Dark eyes gleaming, she whickered softly. What a flirt! With a big sigh, Oscar caved in and gave her another handful before getting down to business.
At least the mares' temperatures seemed to be under control and their appetites had picked up. Unfortunately, a few of the little ladies still coughed sporadically, making him wonder about another round of antibiotics to suppress any secondary bacterial infection. He was still trying to figure out where that danged virus had come from, considering the isolation of the herd and all.
Only one in a series of peculiar incidents that had plagued the refuge over the past several weeks.
The agitated voices of other horses somewhere along the ravine to the south drew his attention for a moment, long enough for the truck to stop and the driver to alight.