Broken Vow (Brutal Birthright #5) - Sophie Lark Page 0,58

addresses. But anything I scanned in myself I can still open, read, and edit.

So there should be plenty for me to do. Plenty to hold my attention.

Instead, I’m back at the kitchen window, watching Raylan gallop around and around that pen with infinite patience.

He doesn’t seem to be trying to calm the horse. Actually, it looks like he’s urging it to run faster. I guess that tires it out sooner.

I don’t know why I feel so agitated, watching him.

I’m impressed by his patience, and by his skill in riding the horse bareback, balancing flawlessly, barely even shifting when the horse abruptly startles or turns, trying to throw him off.

And yet . . . I feel a sort of anxiousness, too. Almost an antipathy toward Raylan. I look at that beautiful, wild horse, and I almost want it to fling him off, so it can kick its way out of the pen and go thundering off across the field again.

That’s an immature impulse, I know.

It’s just a horse. It was bred and raised for work.

But there’s a stubbornness in me, a contentiousness, that wants to see that horse rebel. I hate to see it broken.

I force myself to sit down at the kitchen table again, to return to the endless rows of data in my purchase agreement spreadsheet. There’s a couple of numbers that aren’t adding up in the deposit column, and I’m trying to figure out which figures are causing the discrepancy.

I’ve always been good at spotting patterns, especially in numbers. I wouldn’t like to admit this out loud, but I have a burning passion for Excel spreadsheets. I love the formulas, the neat tables of data, the way that the cells can be manipulated to provide answers to all sorts of questions.

Finally, I spot the issue that’s disrupting my perfect structure.

There are two properties with almost the same name—one is listed as Benloch Commercial Lot 29, and the other as Benloch Commercial Lt 29. At first I think it’s just a typo, but then I see there really is a purchase agreement for both, and two separate wire transfers for the payments.

It’s odd. We had to purchase almost a hundred properties for the South Shore Development. Still, I’m surprised that two had such similar names. Especially with a numerical signifier at the end. I’ll have to get the original documents from the office to see if this is accurate.

I send a quick email to Lucy, asking her to scan the documents and send them to me.

With that done, I find myself wandering back to the window again to check on Raylan’s progress.

The horse has finally slowed down its gallop. It’s trotting around the pen now, clearly exhausted. It still holds its head high, though. And I see that Raylan is only gripping the rope loosely, letting the horse think that it has control of its own motion.

It doesn’t, though. It’s trapped in that pen. And it couldn’t throw Raylan off no matter how hard it tried. It’s broken, whether it knows it or not.

I shift, pressing my hand into the small of my back. I’m going to be sore tomorrow when I wake up. All that riding around today will catch up with me.

Bo comes into the kitchen. She’s wearing an oversized man’s shirt—probably a hand-me-down from Raylan or Grady. Her black hair is in a loose plait. I can’t help noticing how beautiful she is. She has Raylan’s striking, wolfish features, but in feminine form. Her eyes are narrow and slightly tilted up at the outer corners, her lips fuller.

“That laptop work for you?” she asks.

“It did. Thank you.”

She acknowledges the thanks with a nod. “You going to the dance tonight?” she says.

She has an abrupt way of speaking, without any of Raylan’s laid-back charm. She seems impatient, like the rest of the world is moving too slowly for her.

I understand that. I often feel like people are thinking and speaking at half-speed. It’s a constant struggle to maintain the appearance of patience.

“I don’t know,” I say. “This is the first I’m hearing about it.”

“You can borrow clothes,” Bo tells me. “I know you don’t have any. Raylan said your whole apartment burned up.”

There’s a hint of sympathy in her tone. Not much, but enough to prove that Bo isn’t totally unfeeling. She’s certainly been generous with her clothes and toiletries. I get the impression she doesn’t give a shit about “stuff,” but I still appreciate it. It’s hard for me to accept kindness. I wouldn’t be able