farrier asked.
“Fine,” she said. “I just need to go, um, up to the hayloft. I left something up there. You got everything you need?”
He nodded as the horse’s hooves hit the wood of the barn floor. “Sure,” he said. “Take your time.”
She climbed the rickety ladder to the loft like demons were nipping at her heels. She hadn’t left anything up there. She hadn’t even been up there yet—but she needed to be alone and the loft at her stepfather’s ranch had always been her thinking place. Hoisting herself up from the ladder, she made her way through a narrow space between stacks of hay and straw and finally sat down on a bale positioned near the hay door. Looking out, she could see the drive curving away, the crooked fence line strung beside it. The gigantic house was behind the barn, so from here it looked like any other ranch—a remote outpost on the plains, just one more of the many efforts to fence and tame the West. The grass was scrubby and scattered with sage and rocks, the trees sparse and tortured by the wind. Far beyond the fence posts, a rock outcropping reared up, bronzed by the sun against the darkening sky.
The familiar scent of hay, straw, and dust carried her back to the past. The day they’d packed up and left, relinquishing the house and empty barn to the bank, she’d gone up and sat in the hayloft. She hadn’t mourned that day. She hadn’t cried. She’d just been angry, cursing in her head over and over the man who’d bought Flash. She’d spent her whole life blaming everything that went wrong on that one man, as if he’d been a seed of trouble that grew roots and shoots that strangled every aspect of her life.
Her mother’s retreat from life and the way she’d crawled into a bottle and stayed there. Kelsey’s pregnancy and rushed marriage, her outsized determination to build a happy home. Sarah’s own push for safety and security, the years she’d spent at school struggling to master her new world—she’d blamed it all on the buyer. He was like a bogeyman, hiding in every corner, darkening every incident with his ominous shadow.
And he didn’t exist. Lane was no monster. He hadn’t stolen her horse; he’d saved him.
She plucked a piece of straw from the bale and stared down at it. Why hadn’t he told her about Flash’s problems?
She remembered the way he’d cut off the conversation about the horse, turned away, and left. She’d had the sense he was about to say something and then thought better of it—and now she knew he’d let the chance to defend himself pass. The man who always wanted to win had thrown the game rather than tell her that her troubles weren’t the fault of some outside force. There was no one left to hate but herself.
Lane seemed so rough on the outside, with his jokes and insults, his endless teasing—but somehow, in a very short time, he’d come to understand her like no one else. He’d seen all her flaws, her pride and stubbornness, her determination to hold onto the grudges that defined her past, present, and future, and he’d chosen to walk away and give her time, rather than ripping away the shield she’d carried all these years. He was willing to be the bad guy and bear the blame if it helped her heal from the pain of her past.
Resting her elbows on her knees, she lowered her head into her hands and let the tears fall.
Twenty minutes later, the farrier shouted out a good-bye. She answered in a cracked, quavering voice, then waved from the hay door as he climbed into his truck and drove away. She watched until the plume of dust kicked up from the truck faded away, and then she let herself cry some more.
Chapter 38
Lane dug his heels into the side of a black-speckled bull named Dalmatian and tensed to give the nod. Shifting his weight, he tightened the rope wrapped around his riding glove, then reached up and shoved his hat down hard. The arena was clear, the crowd hushed, the clowns and pickup men standing off to the side. If only he could clear his mind and quiet the thoughts whirling through his brain.
He stared down at the bull’s blunt horns, but all he could see was Sarah. That would be all right if he could see her naked, but the pictures that kept flashing through