Alex paused outside the shop, staring up at the creaking wooden sign declaring the building to be the Trailhead Saddlery. She shivered slightly, the breeze picking up around her, seeping through her jacket; though the chill could just as easily have been that she was set ill at ease by the events of the past several days and the proximity to a Doyle – a known threat.

An arm wrapped around her waist as Emily joined her, nuzzling her neck and dropping a kiss to the place where her neck met her shoulder. "We don't have to do this," Emily murmured against her skin, "We can just turn around and go home..." (She didn't really expect Alex to agree to that, but she needed to keep reminding her, if only so that she'd know she'd done everything she could to preemptively put an end to what she strongly suspected wouldn't be a happy ending.)

"No," Alex said resolutely. "We can't." And with that, she took a deep breath to fortify her nerves and pushed open the door, a little bell above it tinkling to announce her entrance.

It wasn't her first time in a tack shop and when she inhaled deeply the scent of leather, it sent her right back to years and years spent horseback. She'd never felt quite as at home as she did atop the saddle, galloping across an open field, wind whipping her braid and making her eyes water, the drumming of hoofbeats matching that of her heart. Sometimes, she missed it...but that was another story entirely.

The shop was dark, the little light let in by the windows barely permeating to the back of the shop. The tack hanging from every scant inch of space on the walls made it feel cloistered and cluttered. Their footsteps echoed around the shop with each click of boots on wood, the sound bringing the lone worker out from the back of the shop, cleaning his hands on a rag. He eyed them up and down, taking stock of the strangers who'd somehow wandered into his shop, and seemingly weighing whether or not they could be trusted. (Ultimately, he seemed to land on no, but that was fine because they didn't trust him either.)

Alex caught his gaze from across the room and offered a polite smile. She didn't necessarily want to play nice, but she knew that sometimes it was a necessary evil to get what you wanted in life... "Beautiful saddles," she remarked, running her fingers over an ornate bridle hanging from one of the rafters. "Wouldn't you say, Emily?" she added, glancing over her shoulders at her wife where she stood near the door, willing to let Alex charm the proprietor into giving them information where she would have used threats and brute force.

"Fella in Miles City makes 'em. The real fancy ones," the man replied, though he seemed wary of revealing too much through his words and therefore saying as little as possible.

"Very impressive," Alex said, which was true. She knew good saddles when she saw them. She approached closer, though keeping far enough away that she could make a quick exit should the situation call for it. Afterall, she'd seen what kind of men the Doyle clan produced and she was justly wary. "But we're not shopping for saddles today. Or bridles and bits." A beat. Her smile widened, but her eyes remained cold as ice. "Would you be a Doyle?"

He raised a brow at the odd question, cocking his head slightly. "No, ma'am," he said, suspicious, "I'm a cousin to."

"Well, then... We're related too," Alex said, overly bright smile still in place as if they were simply making friendly chit-chat, when in reality they were walking a conversational knife's edge. "Killian Doyle's married to our daughter-in-law. Former daughter-in-law. Which makes him step-daddy to our grandson." She paused, cleared her throat. "My wife and I found ourselves in this part of the States, so I said, 'Let's look in on Maggie and Killian while we're here.' So, here we are..." She gestured widely, gave a dry laugh.

Again, he was silent as he parsed her words, apparently weighing whether there was any truth to them. "I don't know no Killian. Or Maggie," he said at length.

Feeling him retreating, suspicions quite obviously rising, Alex quickly latched onto the first lie she could think of that would keep the conversation going and, possibly, draw a little more information from the man who may be their last and only connection to finding Finley. "Well, I understood it was why they relocated here. Killian was going to hire on at his uncle's saddlery." She glanced over her shoulder at Emily for support, pleading with her eyes for her to play along, to give any sign at all that she was going to support her in her charade.

"You sure you don't want Gladstone?" the man asked, though it appeared to be more accidental slip than any sort of intentional reveal of information.

"Gladstone?" Emily repeated, latching onto the first usable piece of information the conversation had produced.

"North Dakota," he explained with a gesture over his shoulder with his thumb, "Just the other side of the line. They got a Doyle or two."

Hope sufficiently bolstered once more, Alex tried to bite down on her smile. "Well, maybe we should give there a try," she said to Emily. Then, turning back to the man, she added, "Though, I don't know why Maggie and Killian were talking up Forsythe like they did..." She shrugged as if it were just one of life's funny foibles.

Brows drawing together, once again suspicious, the man studied Alex, then Emily, then Alex once more. "What were your names again?"

Emily took several steps closer to Alex, sensing things may have been heading South... "Any idea who we might ask to find Killian? If we went to Gladstone?" she asked.

"You let it be known you're looking for a Doyle...they'll find you."