long in the trailer. She’d whispered soothing words to him until he calmed, nudging her pockets for treats like his old self. Then she’d walked him to the barn and groomed him slowly and carefully in a slip of moonlight that slanted through the door. At first he’d spooked and sidestepped, but she’d stroked him until he stood quietly. Nothing but the tension rippling under his skin told her how the day’s tragedy had affected him.
“I’m scared too,” she’d told him. “But it’s going to be okay.”
She’d saddled him slowly, methodically, taking comfort in the familiar motions and hoping the horse did too. It seemed like it, because she could feel the knotted tension in his mind giving way as she slipped on a bridle with a sweet iron snaffle bit and led him outside. Then she’d slipped her foot in the stirrup and grabbed the saddle horn, just like she had a hundred, maybe a thousand, times before.
She’d visualized this ride all the way home from the hospital. She’d ride him up to the house, spin him right and left in the front yard, then holler to her mother to watch so she could prove he was safe as a child’s pony. Or maybe she’d ride him into the sunset like a movie cowboy, leaving her old life behind and taking him with her into some unknown future.
Somehow, some way, she’d save him from going to the sale barn.
But as she shifted her weight to the foot in the stirrup, Flash rolled his eyes back and whinnied, a hoarse scream tearing through the night. She’d clung to the reins, knowing that if she let him go he’d bolt off and run until a semi on the highway stopped him or a barbed wire fence cut his legs and tangled him to a stop.
He spun to face her and reared, and in that instant she could only think of Roy, broken in the dirt at the foot of the trailer ramp.
She’d been afraid of a horse for the first time in her life. She’d barely been able to hold him, but he’d finally bucked out and stood trembling, docile as a kitten. With shaking hands, she unsaddled him and led him back to the trailer.
He’d loaded without a fuss, just like he’d always done for her, and she’d thought again of how different things would be if she hadn’t been so selfish, if she hadn’t thought it was so important to primp and preen for some boy she barely knew. Roy was dead. It was her fault. And the next day somebody from the sale barn hitched the trailer to a growling diesel pickup and took Flash away for the last time.
Flash had sold for two thousand dollars—a tenth of his value. And no wonder: the last thing he’d done was kill a man. It didn’t help that the various stories Sarah had told Brian Humboldt about how hard he was to handle had made their way around the small world of horse traders.
Everything Roy had brought into their life was gone, swept away by his death and her foolishness. Everything he’d worked for was gone.
All because Sarah couldn’t work up the courage to ride a horse.
Chapter 8
Scanning the scattered lights from horse trailers and RVs decorating the rodeo grounds, Sarah let the hum of engines and the buzz of generators chase the memories out of her mind. Somehow, she needed to change the subject and get Lane talking about something other than horses.
“You know what would be good right now? A turkey leg. And maybe some ribs.” She wasn’t the least bit hungry, but it would provide a distraction.
“A woman who eats real food. I like that.” He stopped and touched her shoulder, and she felt the mood between them shift. She should have kept walking, pretended she didn’t notice, but something in his tone made her stop and turn toward him. He wrapped his hands around her biceps and ran them down to her arms, leaving a shimmering trail of sensation in his wake.
“I like you,” he murmured, taking her hands.
She stiffened, trying not to react to the scent of him, the warm awareness of his body inches from hers. “Come on, Lane, stop. You’re not my type and I’m not yours.”
He scanned her face, his eyes probing hers. “I’m not so sure of that. You’re pretty spunky once you get out of that straitlaced suit.”
She pulled her hands away, wondering just what he’d meant by that comment,