by Nika Dixon
At the mention of hospital reports, Marshall’s chest tightened. He knew it was very much a possibility, but listing to Sam and Danny discuss all the ways to track a trail of abuse made him want to throw up.
He clung to the only real fact he did know—that she wasn’t lost, she was running from someone, and that someone was a man. A flesh-and-blood man who had no problem terrorizing a defenseless woman.
Marshall sent up silent challenge to the mystery man to take on someone his own size.
Bring it on, asshole.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
With Tink leading the way, Emma accompanied Lucy to the end of the lane.
Lucy let her knapsack slide off her shoulder to fall onto the gravel at her feet. She climbed up to sit on the top rail of the white wooden fence. “Mondays suck. I wish I didn’t have to go to school.”
Emma almost offered to switch places with her. Being homeschooled since the age of fifteen had ensured she missed pretty much everything past the ninth grade. Alan had seen to it she was educated by the highest-certified tutors, and a couple of them were even kind of nice, but she’d often daydreamed of having other students around.
She clambered up the fence to sit next to Lucy. It took her a moment to find her balance, but with a firm grip on the post beside her, she managed not to topple backward into the grassy field at her back. “You don’t like school?”
“Well…I like my friends. And recess. I just hate the work part.”
Tink squatted into a crouch, wriggled her back end, then pounced into the grass, popping up and swatting at a meandering bee.
“I don’t think I’d like to be a city girl like you,” Lucy said, grinning at Tink’s antics. “Uncle Marsh says the city is horrible and crowded, and we’d have to keep Tink inside or she’d get run over. And I wouldn’t be able to keep Daisy.”
“No, you definitely wouldn’t be able to keep Daisy.”
“Do you have a pet?”
“I wish.” She would have loved to have had a cat. Or a dog. Heck, even a goldfish. But while drawings of animals were tolerated, Alan would never allow one to step foot inside the penthouse. Instead, she had to satisfy herself with visits from the pigeons on the lofty perch of the windowsill. Even though he’d shooed them away every time he caught them there, the birds still came back to visit.
They were the only part of the city she could truly say she missed.
The rest?
Not even the tiniest bit.
Tink gave up chasing the bee and hopped up onto the fencepost. With a swish of her tail, she perched delicately on the flat surface.
Emma scratched the top of the cat’s head, the image forming exactly as it was to draw as soon as she got back inside. “You’ll make a perfect picture, Tink.”
“Oh yes!” Lucy exclaimed. “I can hang it up on the wall next to Daisy and the giraffes and the pond.”
“If you keep hanging everything I draw, you won’t have any room for anything else.”
“You’re still going to teach me, right?”
Even though she didn’t have the faintest idea how to give someone art lessons, Emma agreed. It was yet another first to add to the list of things she was experiencing in her newfound life. “I’ll show you as much as I can before I have to go.”
“You can stay as long as you want, you know. I know Dad doesn’t mind, and neither does Grandpa. And I’m sure Uncle Marsh doesn’t care, although I haven’t asked him yet.”
“You asked your dad?” Emma’s cheeks burned. She was still unable to look Danny in the eye after her embarrassing error the other night, even though he’d been nothing but pleasant to her.
“He asked me if you could stay for a couple more days. I told him you can stay forever. I said I’m going to win this month’s art contest because you are going to show me how to make everything so pretty. Abigail Griffin always gets her pictures put up on the wall in the hallway, but you’re going to teach me how to draw so next month I can get my picture on the wall. Right? Just like you promised?”
“Abigail Griffin won’t know what hit her.”
Lucy’s cheer startled the cat, who hopped down to the ground with an angry tail swish.
“Sorry, Tink.” Lucy giggled. She pointed to something off to the left. “Hey, look, there’s Devil! I hope Dad doesn’t see him. He doesn’t like when he comes down this close to the house. Weird. He was here yesterday, too.”
Past the corner of the house, a black horse crossed over a hill in the field, slowly meandering in their direction. It was the same horse she’d put in her sketch. She sensed the animal was important to the farm, but there was also a heavy layer of sadness surrounding him.
“Why doesn’t your dad like him?”
“Devil’s wild. He’s not tame like Daisy. He used to be, but not anymore. Grandpa says we keep him to breed with the mares, otherwise he’s useless ’cause no one can ride him.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Grandpa says so. But I think they’re just being mean. If they were nice to him and fed him apples like I feed Daisy, I bet they could ride him. Daisy loves apples. I cut them up into pieces and she’ll eat them right out of my hand. One time she even tried to take the apple out of my lunch bag and I had to go to school with horse drool all over my binder.”
“Ew!”
“I know!” Lucy scrunched up her nose. “I couldn’t really be mad at her. It is her favorite snack. I bet Devil would like apples, too. He used to belong to Mr. Cutty, ’cept he called him Pistachio and said he was like, the best horse ever.”
“Pistachio? Isn’t that an ice cream?”
“Yeah. I guess. Mr. Cutty used to ride him all over, but then he died and Mrs. Cutty couldn’t take care of him and kept calling him a devil horse because he wouldn’t let anyone else ride him. She sold her land to Grandpa, but she made sure he kept Devil. Grandpa lets him run around but says he’s really mean. Well, he’s never mean to me, but I’m not supposed to go near him. I think he’s just sad. I’d be sad if I lost Tink or Daisy.”
The longer Emma gazed at the black horse, the more she sensed a deep loneliness within the poor creature.
Lucy hopped off the railing and grabbed her knapsack as the school bus lumbered up the road in front of the house. “I won’t see you after school because I have a sleepover with Peaches, but I’ll see you tomorrow and you can teach me about drawing, okay?”
Emma wanted to ask what a sleepover with peaches meant, but the bus ground to a stop, blasting a cacophony of screaming, chattering children.
Charlie stuck his head out one of the windows, grinning and waving frantically. “Hi, Emma!”
She waved back. “Hi, Charlie!”
After the bus lumbered away again, she climbed down from her perch on the fence, her attention turning back to the black horse. He was still a good distance away, with several fences between the two of them.
She couldn’t escape the gloomy ache in her heart for the poor creature. He’d lost the only person who’d ever cared for him, and here he was, living with strange people who only tolerated him for what he could provide.
It hit too close to home.
It only took her a few minutes to run to the house for a sliced-up apple. She ducked beneath the slats in the fence and walked toward the approaching horse.
Gracious, he was so much bigger up close!
The horse charged forward, and she let out a squeal of shock, but instead of running her over, he slid to a stop in the dirt a few feet in front of her, snorting and carrying on.
“Don’t you play all gruff with me, mister.” She pointed her finger at him. “You and I both know you’re not as tough as you look.”
His tail swished left and right, slapping against his sides with a smack.
Trusting the sadness she sensed over the snorting bluster, she inched closer. “I brought you a present, Pistachio.”
His ears turned to the side then snapped forward again, making her smile. “That’s your name, isn’t it?
Pistachio. Just like the ice cream.”
She thought she heard her own name being called from a distance, but before she could turn to look, the horse slammed his hoof into the ground, stomping like an obstinate child. She started to laugh, overwhelmed by an image of the giant beast rolling around on the ground throwing a temper tantrum. She was going to have to draw that one for Lucy, too.
“I suppose I can’t really blame you. First person to come visit you since you’ve been here, and someone’s trying to butt in.”
The horse’s ears flattened then popped back up again.
Ignoring her own name being called a second time, she continued to talk to the horse. “I brought you some apples. Lucy said Daisy likes apples. Maybe you do, too?”
Placing a single slice in her right hand, she stretched out her arm. “Want one?”
The horse snorted and took a step back.
“You sure you don’t want to try?” She stretched her arm out as far as it would go. “It’s a very nice apple. I promise.”
He stuck his nose forward, and she nearly cheered with the victory.
“Goddamn it, Emma! Get the hell out of there!”
The depth of anger in the voice behind her shot down her spine like a shocking blast of ice water. In an instant, she was transported away from the majestic horse who was now snacking on the apple slice in her hand, back to the penthouse and her cursed life. With her racing heart ringing in her ears, she turned to receive her punishment.
She faced the man who’d promised her she would be safe and saw the rifle he had pointed right at the horse.
It was happening again!
She’d done something wrong, and someone else was going to pay the price.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Steadying his arm on the top slat of the fence, Marshall followed the movement of Devil’s head with the barrel of the rifle. Seeing Emma lined up against the stallion required every bit of his concentration not to let his hands shake in time with the stampeding beat of his heart.
He’d been in the barn with his father when Kent ran up, wheezing and gasping about Emma and Devil. Thankfully, there’d been a moment of clarity amid his heart-stopping panic, and he’d remembered to grab his gun before running full speed up the hill toward the side of the house.
Destroying any animal was a choice not to be taken lightly. But Devil was mean and wild and had already put two ranch hands in the hospital. There was zero chance the crazy horse was going to be given the opportunity to hurt Emma, too.
When she finally acknowledged his repeated attempts to get her attention, he prepared himself to take the shot.
The second her gaze connected with his, every ounce of color drained from her face.
Fear of the stallion he could understand, but the look of cold terror in her eyes had nothing to do with the horse. This time, the blue ribbon was his to claim.
His anger caught fire.
Hell and damnation!
The damn woman was under the impression he was aiming at her!
The stallion butted her hand with his nose. Whatever she’d been holding fell to the ground. In his haste to get at what was now in the grass, Devil dropped his head, bumping her to the side. She caught herself using a clump of his mane and cowered closer to the beast, who wasn’t paying her any mind whatsoever.
Hank and Kent ran up to the fence.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Hank declared. “Apples. She was feeding him apples.”
“What?” Kent exclaimed with a wheeze. “I’m havin’ a heart attack over apples?”
Marshall refused to look at the ground to confirm what his father was saying. He didn’t care if she was giving Devil a manicure—she had no business going anywhere near him in the first place. Didn’t she have a lick of sense in her pretty little head?
Hank reached for the rifle and pushed down so it was aimed at the dirt. “Easy, boy. He’s not going to hurt her.”
“I might, though,” Kent muttered. “I think I pulled something.”
“You need more exercise,” Hank replied.
Kent spit into the grass. “What I need is a damn drink.”
Hank gestured at Marshall. “Go on, boy. Get her out of there before Devil walks off with her.”
Keeping a wary eye on the horse, Marshall ducked through the slats on the fence, taking his time to approach the odd pair. Oblivious to how close he’d just come to retiring for good, Devil snacked away on the grass, tugging Emma along with him like a two-legged burr.
For every foot Marshall moved closer, Devil would reposition them farther away. It was a delicate dance. Marshall didn’t trust the horse one bit, but he’d be damned if Devil seemed the least bit bothered at having a human attached to his side.
Emma wasn’t as oblivious to the situation. No matter which direction they moved, she turned her upper body as needed to keep her frightened gaze on Marshall’s approach, despite the fact his weapon was safely pointed away from them.
Devil nuzzled against her stomach. She opened her left hand, exposing a crushed cluster of apple slices. Hanging over her like a giant gargoyle, he flapped his lips across her palm, sucking up the chunks of fruit. Then he dropped his head to the ground by her feet to search the grass for the leftovers.
Marshall would never have believed it if he weren’t seeing it with his own eyes. It was like Devil was two different animals—one who bucked off riders like a demon beast, and one who contentedly munched on treats like a trained pony.
He’d nearly reached them when she suddenly released the horse’s mane and scooted backward.
“Please, don’t kill him.”
Her whispered plea tore into his heart.
Before Marshall could even think to answer, she stuttered a tearful apology mixed with a disjointed explanation about Lucy and ice cream, then dashed past him. He called out to her, but she ignored him. Ducking through the slats of the fence, she made a beeline for the house.
For a barefoot city girl, the woman sure could run.
Chapter Thirty
Fifteen minutes after barricading herself in her bedroom, Emma started to question her expectation of hearing irate footsteps on the stairs. Sitting stiffly on the side of the bed, she picked at the stitching in the quilted blanket. Marshall had been so angry, he’d seemed encompassed by a rage deep enough to kill. It was a look she’d come to know quite intimately. He’d been ready to pull the trigger. To shoot the beautiful horse. And all because of her.
Only he hadn’t.
Why?
Alan wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have made her watch while he killed Pistachio, then coldly informed her it was all her fault.
She’d done her best to get in the way—to stay as close to the horse as possible and use herself as a shield. Alan would never hurt her physically—he couldn’t risk any damage to her hands or eyes—but mentally, his cruelty had no bounds.
Any punishment dished out in her name was twice as painful, and equally deadly.
But Marshall hadn’t done anything after his initial command for her leave Devil alone. He didn’t shoot the horse in front of her, and she hadn’t heard any gunshots since she’d been in the house.
So, where was he?
She was too afraid to go look out the window in Lucy’s room to see for herself. She didn’t want to know the truth.
She picked at the hem of her yellow sundress. She’d changed and packed up her art supplies the moment she got back to the room. Her canvas bag was on the floor at her feet, packed with the only things she could call her own—the art pad and pencils. The only other item she’d placed inside was the hoodie. She would return it to Lucy, along with the borrowed money from the mall trip, as soon as she was able.
A soft knock at the door sent her leaping to her feet. She held her breath, waiting for it to burst open, but it remained firmly closed.
“Emma? It’s Hank.”
There wasn’t a lock. If he wanted in, he could have come in, which meant apparently the decision w
as hers to make.
She pressed her shaking hand over her speeding heart, went over, and opened the door.
Hank was alone in the hallway, a coffee mug in each hand. He held one out to her. “You left this downstairs. I warmed it up for you.”
She gaped at him, lost in confusion. After what she’d just done, his response was to bring her coffee? Gripping the cup tightly so her trembling hands wouldn’t spill it, she looked down at the floor, waiting for the words that would tell her he wanted her to go.
Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them away. It was what she wanted, anyway, wasn’t it? To be on her way to the coast? To keep moving closer to getting her dream? So, why did she suddenly want nothing more than to be allowed to stay?
Hank cleared his throat. “Well, now, I have to ask. You weren’t thinking Marshall was aiming that rifle at you, were you?”
She started to shrug, then shook her head. At first, maybe. Then she’d connected the gun to the horse. Pistachio—Devil—had been the unwitting partner in her crime, and his blood would be on her hands, as if she’d pulled the trigger herself. Even if she still had no idea what she’d actually done wrong.
“Now, don’t you be thinking any of this is your fault. You have a free heart, Emma. Makes us slow country folk forget you’re not one of us.”
She slowly lifted her head, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up in a slight smile. “Let’s just say not all city folk can see what this land has to offer, but you… Well, you see things even these old eyes can’t. It’s a rare gift you have. I should have warned you about that crazy old horse, but it never occurred to me you’d be off trying to feed the damn thing apples.”
“He didn’t seem crazy, just…lonely.”
“Well, that might rightly be, but that horse sent two of my best riders to the hospital. Devil is twelve hundred pounds of ornery, and I have to say you damn near gave this old man a heart attack seeing you squaring off with him.” He rubbed his chest and grimaced. “He might look like one of those tame, carriage-pulling city horses, but you have to believe me when I say we were damn worried he was going to really hurt you, Emma.”