“I’ll hold you to that. And just plain hold you.” He took a sip. “I can hardly remember what crappy coffee tastes like anymore.”

“I was never an expert on it.” She paused, looking around the bedroom. “I wish the dogs were here.”

“Me, too, but I can do without them bugging me for this and that.”

“You like it!”

He shrugged, then outlined their day. “So the plan is that we’re seeing Julie and family tomorrow, and today we’re going to visit Emma’s stable, right?”

“Right. We’ll take it easy this morning, do some sightseeing and go to Emma’s after lunch.”

And that was how their leisurely morning went. Shallie acted as tour guide, choosing the sites she thought Carly in particular would enjoy. They started with a Seattle underground tour, which Shallie had always found fascinating, then they had to visit Pike Place Market. And that was followed by a trip up the Space Needle, where they had lunch while gazing out at the city. “We’re seeing Seattle from top to bottom,” Cord joked. “Or rather, from bottom to top.”

Following that, Shallie drove them to Horses Help in nearby Bellevue. Emma rented the property and the stable; she had one full-time assistant, Avery Bridger, whom Shallie knew well, and a part-timer, a young man named Drew Samuels, who was studying physiotherapy. Both were present that afternoon but only Avery was there to greet them. She explained that Emma and Drew were in the paddock behind the stable, working with two experienced horses and a couple of kids, one of whom, a girl of nine, had cerebral palsy. The other, a boy in his teens, had been seriously hurt in a car accident and was recovering his ability to walk.

The group, including Avery, stood by the fence and watched. Carly’s eyes were huge. Cord was paying careful attention, and when the session was over, when the horses had been returned to their stalls and the kids picked up by their parents, they all gathered in the stable. Napoleon the cat joined them, or rather, joined Charley the horse. Both Shallie and Carly got photos of the twosome nuzzling each other.

They greeted all the horses and asked questions. Carly ran back to the car to get her notebook, turned to a fresh page and began writing down Emma’s responses.

Cord talked to Emma about doing something jointly, as a visiting expert, at Hollister Horses. Shallie added her encouragement. “I’ve been trying to get her to visit,” she told Cord.

“You’re welcome anytime,” he said. “We’ll discuss it later. But right now, I see you have another client coming in.”

A middle-aged woman using a walker moved toward them.

After welcoming her, Shallie and company said their goodbyes and left. They’d invited Emma and her staff over for a homemade dinner, so they needed to stop at the local grocery before returning to the apartment.