Moonlit

by Jadie Jones

  Contents

  Prologue

  1 Wildwood

  2 Be careful what you wish for

  3 Lucas

  4 The worst that could happen

  5 Lucky

  6 No one to call my own

  7 Two of a kind

  8 Visitors

  9 Marked

  10 Pinch me

  11 Surprise

  12 Horse crazy

  13 Kentucky

  14 Nothing can be the same after this

  15 Blueblood

  16 Playing with fire

  17 Here goes nothing

  18 A path to where I first began

  19 Scars

  20 Run

  21 To the death

  22 The worst kind of choice

  23 Chains and crowns

  24 An offer

  25 Burned

  26 Ashes to ashes

  27 The calm before the storm

  28 Red in the morning

  29 Love and lies

  30 Surrounded

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  WiDō Publishing

  Salt Lake City, Utah

  www.widopublishing.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Jadie Jones

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Steven Novak

  Book Design by Marny K. Parkin

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013932905

  Print ISBN: 978-1-937178-33-8

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my husband

  the reason this book came to fruition,

  and the reason I believe in soul mates

  Prologue

  The first anniversary of my father’s death was even harder on my mother. Back then, I thought she was haunted most by what she didn’t know. I refused to blame her when she raged above me on our staircase that night, drunk and sad and angry. When she made me promise I’d never ride again. When she hurled a half-full bottle of vodka at my face and it exploded on the wooden stairs at my feet. I hadn’t tried to get out of the way. She had just missed.

  I wanted to tell her that knowledge was no solace, that what you know can burn inside you until there’s nothing left but guilt and ash. I also wanted to protect her from losing the only piece of him she had left. So I didn’t say a word.

  1 Wildwood

  Virginia’s trees look like they’re burning. Most of them blaze crimson or gold, but some still have a chokehold on their green. I wish they’d give it up already. Leaves are more beautiful when they’re dying.

  I’ve watched these trees turn through the windshield of my father’s truck ten times. They are the only thing that seems to change around here. Unless you count the driveway. I swear there’s a new crack in it each morning. This crumbling asphalt is the final stretch to Wildwood Farm—a place I’d consider home. A place I’d consider hell.

  We moved here when I was eight. My father landed a job running Wildwood, a competitive horse farm in the Shenandoah Valley. That first morning we ate breakfast on top of an overturned cardboard box and he promised he’d show me how to put on a saddle. By the end of the day, I was tacking other people’s horses for two dollars apiece. Travis Hightower was the kind of man that always kept his word.

  “Tanzy, you’re going be in heaven here,” my dad said. If I close my eyes I can remember exactly the way his unshaven face looked when he said it. His sideways glance over his shoulder. The blue-gray plaid of his worn shirt. I’d never seen him so excited before.

  I squeeze the cracked leather under my hands to distract myself from the sudden prick of tears. There’s no place for that this morning. The truck’s old steering wheel still has a groove at the top where he always rested his calloused hand. Sometimes it hurts to notice that spot. Other times it hurts worse not to.

  Aromas of cedar and earth drift through the failing heater as I pull into the parking lot. Dana McDaniel’s gloved hand raises over her shoulder in greeting as she spots my arrival. Her red quilted jacket doubles the size of her lean frame. A customary hoof-pick sticks out of her worn back pocket, and a utility knife that you can’t see is tucked into the waist of her jeans. She runs Wildwood now. Days are better when she’s here. She knows horses. Really knows them. Like I know them. Like Dad knew them. The thought makes my insides warm and then clench as thawing grief trickles a drop at a time into my veins. It’s just another day, Tanzy. Get on with it.

  Wildwood Farm is a symphony of motion. Boots and hooves march down the concrete aisle. A working horse tattoos a path on the dirt floor of the indoor arena, his steady trot like a heartbeat. Most of the time I fit here, I’m a note in this melody. But some days the song is too loud. Other days I don’t hear it at all. Especially since—well, especially since . . .

  “Happy birthday,” Dana greets as I step inside her office door.

  My mind bats her words away. It might be November 1st, but we both know there’s no room for celebration anymore. She hands me coffee in a plastic cup. It hurts. I hold it tighter.

  Only after a hard swallow can I speak. “First frost.”

  “There’s a front coming through,” she says, following my lead to a subject I can handle.

  I guard my mouth with the cup and train my eyes straight ahead. She steals a couple of sideways glances at my face as we walk the rest of the way down the aisle in silence and pass through the open doorway at the other end of the barn. Wildwood’s rolling pasture stretches out in front of us, still gray in the morning sun as the light reflects off the coating of frost.

  “How’s your mom?” Dana asks.

  “She’s fine.”

  We lean against the black rails, which are faded in places. Dad would be out here with a brush and a can of paint as soon as he was done with the morning chores. I don’t say anything to Dana. She’s doing the best she can.

  I watch her over the rim of my cup. Dana’s elfin features and bare skin make her appear ten years younger than other thirty-somethings I know. The red tints in her maple hair gleam in the bright sun. I envy its straightness. My fingers immediately tangle in my own shoulder-length chaos of brown hair that has once again escaped the ball cap I shove it under each morning.

  “Hopewell could use a tune-up ride later on if you’re free. He needs to be in top shape before we send him to Florida for the winter show season,” she says.

  My father purchased Hopewell six years ago as a gangly three year old and named him for my mother, Hope. Dad always knew talent when he saw it. Hopewell is nearly impossible to beat.

  That’s because he never showed against Moonlit. The sudden swell of pride is short lived because I can’t think of Moonlit, my old show horse, without thinking about the day I walked to her stall and found it completely stripped down. My mother had sold Moonlit to a stranger for one dollar before the smell of her vodka had left my boots.

  For weeks I didn’t ride at all, determined to keep the promise I’d made my mother as I cleaned up the mess on the stairs. Then one night, a note left on my windshield read: “Tee— Hopewell needs a ride before you go. —Dana.”

  As soon as the barn was empty, I slid on to Hopewell’s bare back and found the somewhere else I’d been searching for. So I ride at night now, under the cloak of darkness once everyone else leaves. Dana stays s
ometimes though. “You’re wasting your talent,” she’s said more than once. I never answer.

  “Hi y’all!” Kate Morris’s chipper voice is a needle-stick to the comfortable quiet.

  “Hey, Kate,” Dana returns.

  I offer a hollow smile. It’s not that I don’t like Kate. She’s okay. But every time I’m around her my hands instinctively shove themselves into the pockets of my jeans so they don’t instead leap to her blue eyes and claw them out.

  “Your life can change any day,” she says to me at least once a week. She likes to hand out sayings like they’re free candy, but that one hits too close to home. My father said that once, too. I watched him die an hour later.

  A high-pitched shriek emanates from the woods across the pasture. The eerie tones bleed together into a single, razor sharp sound. Almost like a whistle. It pulls at the deepest corner of my heart like metal to a magnet. I lean harder into the chill of the wooden fence.

  “What is that?” Kate’s voice is a whisper and her fingers guard her throat.

  The cry fills the pasture and then fades into the gray morning. I ache to hear it again.

  “Coyotes, maybe. It’s about that time of year,” Dana says, her face taut.

  That didn’t sound like any coyote I’ve ever heard. But Dana’s been doing this a lot longer than me. She knows what she’s talking about.

  “Let’s all be on the lookout. If you use the outdoor arena for lessons, walk with the students the whole way. Just to be safe. I need to make some calls.” Dana turns on her heels for the barn.

  I wouldn’t want to be in her boots. Coyotes spell trouble for any farm, especially ones with potential food sitting in locked boxes like an all-night buffet. They hadn’t been a problem here in years. Three years. It’s just a coincidence. I push the thought down as quickly as it surfaced.

  “Well, remember to seize the day,” Kate chirps.

  “Yeah. You too,” I respond, somehow managing not to snarl. But I can’t help glaring at her back as she hurries to catch up with Dana.

  Once they disappear through the barn door my eyes move back to the pasture. The sun has begun to burn the frost off the grass in places, and the dark spots look like holes you could step into and never have to come back out of. Without a second thought, I pour out the rest of my coffee. The hot liquid sizzles in protest as it smashes against the frigid ground. But the hole it leaves is not big enough for me. Three years ago today.

  The quiet solitude feels like it might swallow me whole. The skin on the back of my neck prickles with a familiar alarm; dread leaves a sour taste in my mouth. There’s nothing in those woods. Before I can prove myself wrong, I retreat to the safety of the crowded barn.

  “Tanzy! Phone for you,” Dana calls from down the barn aisle.

  “Who is it?” I ask as I approach her.

  She shrugs. “He didn’t say. Just that it was important.”

  He? What he would be calling me? The last man that called for me was a police officer who’d found my mother babbling incoherently by a water fountain in town a few months back. I hope she didn’t try to drive somewhere again. I thought I hid her keys pretty well this time.

  “You got a boyfriend you need to tell me about?” Dana teases before she hands me the phone.

  “Right. When have I ever had time for one of those?” She gives me a playful swat before moving back to the center of the riding ring. “This is Tanzy,” I say into the receiver. No one answers, but I can tell that someone is still on the other end. “Hello?”

  “Be careful today,” a man’s voice whispers. The gravelly sound makes my ears hot and stirs at something under my ribs.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Who is this?”

  “Just please be careful. It’s an important day,” he repeats. His deep voice is thick with urgency. “I need you to be careful. I need you . . .”

  “Who is this?” Is this some kind of joke? The restraint it takes to keep myself from yelling makes my words come out like a growl. Immediately, the line goes dead. I glare at the beeping receiver and then hang it up.

  “Who was it, Tanzy?” Dana calls from the arena.

  “Wrong number. Is Molly coming for her nine o’clock lesson?” I ask, changing the subject before she can tell that I’m lying.

  “I just saw her mom pull up,” Dana answers as she watches a student trot by.

  “All right. I’ll go get Winchester ready.”

  “Sounds good. Kate’s first lesson cancelled so she’s setting up a new jump course in the outdoor arena. I don’t think there are any changes to your schedule today. I’ll come find you between lessons if something comes up.”

  I nod a response and head for Winchester’s stall, grateful for the time to clear my head. The caller’s voice circles my brain like a shark. Every word echoes in my memory, the urgency in his voice even more clear than his short message: Be careful today. It’s an important day.

  Who else would remember the anniversary of Dad’s death? And then the last thing the caller said: I need you. Needed me for what? Something about the word “need” in his voice sends a shiver down my spine and leaves me with a feeling I don’t recognize at all.

  The questions follow me into Winchester’s stall. The big horse noses my pockets for mints as I knock off the grime with a stiff bristle brush and pick out his hooves. Our routine makes it easier to forget whoever was on the other end of the phone, and the prickly warmth finally leaves my skin. I quickly slide the saddle in place, fasten the bridle, and lead him out of his stall.

  “Hi, Tanzy. Hi, Winchester,” Molly Beck’s mother greets us as we amble into the waiting area.

  I always worry that her pastel sweater set or pearl earrings won’t make it through a Saturday morning at the barn, but each week she leaves as prim and spotless as she came. Over time I’ve learned that she’s much warmer than she looks. The way she watches Molly ride almost makes me believe in mother-daughter relationships again.

  “Hi guys!” I call to them.

  Molly grins, and skips toward me and her favorite horse. Mrs. Beck always outfits her daughter in perfect equestrian attire, down to her polished tall boots. And today is no exception. Her tan riding pants are crisp and clean, and her white fitted jacket is finished off with a pink, hand-sewn monogram. The only uncooperative feature is Molly’s curly red hair, which pulls free from its tight braid in countless places.

  “Do you want to lead Winchester to the outdoor arena?” I ask.

  Her entire face lights up as she breaks into a big smile. “Can I?”

  “Helmet first.”

  Molly dutifully slides it in place and snaps the buckle.

  “All right, he’s all yours,” I say.

  Winchester stands perfectly still as Molly sorts the reins in her hands and adjusts herself next to him.

  “Have fun, sweetie. I need to go pay Dana for this month. I’ll be down in just a few minutes,” Mrs. Beck says.

  “Okay, Mom.” Molly gives her a little wave and then clucks to Winchester.

  I start ahead of them down the barn aisle and steal a glance over my shoulder. The thousand pound horse dutifully follows his six-year-old charge. That horse is worth his weight in gold. We head for the lesson ring, nestled in the heart of the open pasture. I unlock the weathered metal gate. Molly and Winchester amble ahead of me and into the field.

  “All is quiet,” I whisper to myself, scanning the tree line for any signs of movement.

  A low growl stops me in my tracks. I screen the width of the field, but the pasture is empty. Get a grip. It’s just in your head. But the dizzying fear won’t leave me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched from the woods. I steal a reluctant glance at the first row of trees and my blood goes cold. A shadowed figure slides from behind a tall oak tree and steps into the light. Its frenzied form blurs as the empty black mass quivers like an angry sky before a lightning strike.

  Just keep walking. My hands tremble. I shove them in my pockets. It’s not real. I
t will go away. Just like last time.

  But it doesn’t disappear, and try as I might I can’t look away as it slinks closer. The living darkness solidifies and takes shape. I can’t breathe. My pulse pounds in my ears. A face emerges in sporadic flashes from the pulsating void. Its eyes glow brilliant white against the shuddering black.

  Go away. Go away. Go away.

  “Ms. Tanzy?” A faraway voice calls my name. “Ms. Tanzy!”

  The second cry breaks through my daze. Molly. Everything moves in slow motion as I turn to face her. Winchester stands stone still. His brown eyes roll in their sockets. Molly glares down at his planted hooves. Winchester shifts his weight into his back legs.

  “Molly, let go!” I yell. My feet feel magnetically connected to the ground as I take a heavy step forward. “Let him go!”

  Both of her hands spring open. Winchester rears the instant he senses her release. His huge body rises over her small frame. All I can think to do is scream her name. I motion her to me with flailing arms.

  Winchester reaches the crest of his climb and strikes at the air. His eyes never leave the oak tree. I focus all of my senses on Molly, who is a blur of pumping hands and stumbling feet as she closes the short distance between us.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding as she flings her arms around my waist and buries her face in my jacket. Winchester lands, his hooves stabbing the ground still fresh with the imprint of Molly’s boots. He spins and gallops back toward the closed gate, which is the lone barrier between him and the safety of the barn.

  My stomach drops into my boots. “No!” The crack of my voice hangs in the air as he gathers and launches himself skyward.

  2 Be careful what you wish for

  From the moment Winchester takes off I know he won’t clear the top rail. The clang of his tucked knees against the rusty bar brings bile to the back of my tongue. His back legs catch in a sickening thud. I can’t bear to watch, but I can’t turn away.