corrals. The smile on her lips felt strained, as if she hadn’t used those muscles for a while, but she felt genuinely happy for the first time in weeks—maybe months. There were a few new foals in the pens, spring babies who’d just passed the gangly, wobbly stage and were gallivanting about while their mommas watched indulgently. An older mare stood in the shade next to the barn, one leg cocked, eyes closed as she simply enjoyed the sunshiny day. Sarah felt herself relax too, picking up on the mare’s calm. That feeling of peace hadn’t been there for a long time. Once in a while her conversation with Kelsey crept into the back of her mind, but she shook it off and kept working.
She’d spent the morning feeding horses and turning them out, following Trevor’s directions as to what horse went where. Then she’d spent an hour mucking stalls, forking the leavings into a rusty old trailer that she’d hauled out to the manure pile with an ancient, wheezing tractor. She’d forked it all back out again until beads of sweat rolled down her back, prickling the skin between her shoulder blades, and she was pretty sure she’d streaked her face with grime from wiping off the sweat. Her hair hung lank and damp over her forehead. She hadn’t felt this good in years.
She’d forgotten how therapeutic hard work could be. You didn’t have to think or strategize when you cleaned stalls; you could just shut down your mind and shovel.
What if this was her job? What if she went to a place like this every day, instead of an office? She felt like herself here, not like an imposter. Maybe Lane was right, and she needed to find her old self again.
But she couldn’t do it here, with the man who bought Flash. Could she?
Maybe Kelsey had a point. Maybe she should stop blaming “the buyer” for all that had happened to her family. Now that she’d put a face on the shadowy figure who’d haunted her all these years, he seemed a whole lot less demonic.
But if she stopped blaming him, she’d have to blame herself. Because it wasn’t Roy’s mistake that had cost her family everything. It was her vanity that had cost Roy his life, and her failure that had lost Flash.
She grabbed a halter from a nail on the wall and threaded her way through the corrals, following the path pounded in the dirt. Horses lifted their heads as she passed, watching her briefly, then returning to their grazing. When she reached the corner of the barn, she looked at the round pen and smiled.
Cinnamon Chrome. He was two years old, barely started. And he was waiting for her.
As she approached, the horse jerked his head up and snorted, seeming to react to something inside the pen. Maybe a leaf had flipped up in the breeze, or a shadow shifted and spooked him. He’d seemed like a calm boy yesterday, but something was definitely setting him off. As she watched, he broke into a trot and moved past the gate out of sight. She watched him circle past it two more times before she got close enough to see what was happening.
The horse was loping in a circle around the pen, and at the center of the circle was Trevor. He spun his chair nimbly with one hand so he could keep the horse running. As Sarah stepped up to the gate, he gave her a grin.
“Lane said you worked this guy a little yesterday. He seemed to have some doubts you’d keep it going, so I figured I’d come out and make sure he didn’t forget what he learned.” He edged the chair to the right and Flash broke into a lope. “Seems like he’s doing good. Must be somethin’ to see after what happened with Flash, huh?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Hearing Trevor mention Flash again felt like being punched in the gut. She started to back out of the gate, but he turned the chair to face her.
“You can pretend it didn’t happen if you want.” His tone was casual and conversational. Did he not know what he was doing to her? Even the horse had paused, one front foot in the air, stunned by the tension in the air.
“I probably wouldn’t talk much about my issues either if I didn’t have to,” Trevor continued. Obviously, he knew—but he wasn’t going to stop. “Sometimes I think it’s lucky for