“They’re going to know,” I said, guessing at his thoughts.
He shook his head. “I don’t care if they know. It’s just that this is the first time I’ve bought these. I’m kind of nervous.”
“Of what?”
He gave me a shy little smile. “Honestly? Of tripping over my feet, laughing, blushing so much that I don’t look like I have skin, just red hair.”
I didn’t tell him he was already that bright red. “I can buy them if you want.” I held out my hand, expecting him to put the little package of three condoms in my palm. But he just took my hand and tugged me along behind him to the nearest open register. Of course we knew the woman working there, but we knew everyone, and she smiled at us as he paid for both the milk and the condoms.
“You really didn’t have to do that,” I said as we were leaving the store, my hand still held tightly in his as I stuck the condoms into the front pocket of my jeans. We wouldn’t be using them right away, I knew that, but they’d be there waiting when we were ready for that day.
He shrugged, and we went back into the woods instead of going along the road to get home. “It’s so weird, and I’m sure it’ll make no sense, but I kind of feel better about the idea of having sex since we have those. I mean, it’s not like not having them would have made it any different. I think. But they’re the thing that makes the most sense to me right now.”
I shook my head, instantly ready to disagree with him. “We’re the thing that makes the most sense. You and me.”
He put the milk down in the grass and cupped my face between his hands. I covered his wrists with my fingers and closed my eyes, trusting him completely. He kissed my mouth first, then the tip of my nose, and finally my forehead before he pulled me close, and we fit together just as perfectly as we always did with my head on his shoulder and his arms around me.
“I like this,” I said.
“Me too.”
I kissed his shoulder.
“Promise me it’ll be okay if I’m weird when we actually start doing stuff?”
I thought back to my first time and how scared I’d been. And then I nodded, because it would have always been okay with Robbie. “Yep.” I wondered if I should have told him about how Max was, and how we were, and what all happened, but I didn’t want him to feel bad, or have to be reminded, again, that he wouldn’t be my first. But I was really weird back then, and had to be basically led through it. It was embarrassing, but it did get better.
Secretly I kind of wished he was going to be my first. I mean, I’d really liked Max. I’d been pretty sure that I’d been in love with him. But what I’d had with Max wasn’t anything like what I had with Robbie. And neither of them knew it, but in that first week that I’d known Robbie before his life had blown up, I’d cared more about him than I ever had about Max. And I wish I’d held off having sex with Max so I could go through all the nervousness I had with him, but this time do it instead with Robbie.
Chapter Nine
Robbie
WE WERE almost back to Uncle Caleb’s house when my phone started ringing. “Hello?” I answered, fumbling with the phone a little. “Could you boys come home now? I need your help with something.”
“Everything okay?” I asked Uncle Caleb. Sam turned his head to look at me, and I nodded to him when he gave my hand a squeeze.
He laughed. “Yeah. Everything’s fine. Just need you two to get home right away. I need some help with a new rescue.”
The idea of having a new horse at the barn left me smiling. “We’ll be right there.”
“Great.”
I hung up, and turned to grin at Sam. “We’re getting a new rescue at the barn.”
He was grinning too, and we took off running toward the barn a second later. “I hope she’s gorgeous,” I said as we slowed our pace to a normal walk right before we came into the barn. We didn’t want to spook the horses by running in.
“I hope he can jump. I’ve always wanted to try jumping. Just the low stuff, though,” Sam said. I had jumped before and had been sent to the hospital during training once because of it. There was no way I’d be jumping another horse ever again, but I knew I’d help him out if he wanted to try it.
We found everyone, including my brothers, Trent, and Sam’s parents all standing in front of a stall door when we came up. But I didn’t see a horse in there until I looked over the wooden door, and then I couldn’t help smiling at the little chestnut paint colt.
“Now that you two are here,” Uncle Caleb nodded to us. “We can do the introductions. This colt has been named Hawk by the rescue. I’m fostering him, since his mom rejected him, and he needs to be bottle-fed every few hours.”
Of course we all instantly wanted to volunteer, and Sam’s mom just laughed at all of us as she took the gallon of milk and headed back to the house. “You four kids work it out. Just none of you better wake me up when you go down there.” She was looking right at Sam, and I was glad she didn’t know that most nights he spent cuddled around me.
Uncle Caleb held up his arms in some kind of an attempt to get us all to quiet down, while we were still trying to be the first ones to feed him. “Can I get two seconds?” he finally said when we were no quieter than before he’d lifted his arms. That helped a little, and even though we were still bouncing around, at least we weren’t crazy anymore as we waited for his decision.
“Everyone will take turns. Starting youngest to oldest,” Trent decided for everyone. Uncle Caleb nodded like they’d talked about it before, and at least it was a plan that we could all agree on.
Since Hawk needed to be fed so often, we each got at least one turn. Sam was second to oldest, which meant he got a night feeding that first night. I didn’t want him to be alone, though, so I snuck out, with a blanket tucked under my arm, as I climbed down the side of the house, using the same logs Sam used to climb up when he came to spend the night with me.
The only lights out there to mark my way were the little solar ones that lined the driveway and the path between the houses, but even if Uncle Caleb hadn’t put those in, I still wouldn’t have gotten lost. I probably could have made it from Uncle Caleb’s cabin to the barn blindfolded if I needed to.
I came in through the side door so that I didn’t wake the horses by using the big doors that squeaked sometimes, and walked as quietly as I could to the stall that had been set up for Hawk. I smiled when I got there at the sight of Sam standing beside the spotted colt, a bottle in one hand and the other resting on the side of Hawk’s neck.
“Hey,” I whispered, letting myself in.
Sam gave me a nod and moved back a little to give me more room. The foal went with him, eagerly drinking from the bottle in Sam’s hand. “You didn’t have to come down.”
Shrugging, I stretched out the blanket and sat down on it. “I know. But I wanted to spend time with you.”
“And you wanted to see the new foal,” Sam teased.
I blushed but I didn’t try to deny it. He knew my love of horses too well for that, and I was glad he got excited about them just like I did. Back in Kentucky plenty of people I showed with liked horses too, but they didn’t sit there and smell freshly polished leather like I did with Sam. And they didn’t look at me with a smile either when I snuck a sugar cube for myself after giving Witchcraft one.
He finished nursing the new foal and came to sit down next to me on the blanket. It was the biggest one I had, and I was glad I’d brought it with me as I wrapped it first over our feet and then around our shoulders.
“He’s beautiful,” Sam said as we both sat there watching the colt as he lay down and started to drop his head a little as if he was tired.
I nodded and found his hand under the blankets. “Yeah, he is. I can’t wait until we can start really training him. We can get a halter around him and work on that stuff now, but I want to see him under saddle.” That would be at least three years from now, and Uncle Caleb hadn’t said how long he’d be fostering the colt, but I hoped Hawk would be
around for a while.
“Have you ever trained a horse?”
Shaking my head, I tried not to think of Dan and all the horses I’d watched him train over the years. Back then—back before mom died and I’d learned that Dan wasn’t my real dad, back when the world had been fairly normal for me—I’d wanted to be just like him. That definitely wasn’t the case now. “I was promised that I’d get to start training once I hit eighteen. Maybe I’ll try to go to a clinic or something next summer. See if I can convince Uncle Caleb to let me go. Would you want to come?”
He was smiling even before I’d finished talking. “Oh yeah. I’d love that.” Sam leaned toward me, and we kissed. My heart still sped up a bit when he kissed me. Sometimes I wondered if his ever did. I was afraid to ask.
We lay down together and pulled the blanket tightly around us. It wasn’t really cold, and if it was, we would have wrapped the colt in the blanket first, but the blanket did keep the shavings that lined the stall out of our hair. I was behind him this time, whereas normally he was there when we were in my bed. We used our arms for pillows, and I laid my arm over his stomach. I’m sure everyone would have something to say, if they ever caught us like this, but they would have the wrong impression of us. Part of me really didn’t give a damn what they would think, or say, though. I really cared about Sam, and I knew he felt that way about me too. If they thought we were having sex now, or that we were still waiting for a while, it wasn’t a big deal to me. I wasn’t ashamed of liking Sam, or of wanting to have sex someday. I was just scared of it.
He was asleep in my arms long before I closed my eyes an hour later. It didn’t give me much time to sleep before Daniel came down, but I’d dealt with less sleep than that before, and I hadn’t really been able to stop thinking either.
I’d somehow missed my alarm, because the noise that woke me up was Daniel coming into the stall to feed Hawk just before dawn. I blinked up at him, and then we were stuck staring at each other for a few long seconds. “Hi,” I finally said, sitting up, and, in the process, waking Sam as well.
It took him a long time to nod, but he finally did as Sam and I sat there watching him give Hawk the bottle full of milk replacement formula. I missed the Daniel I’d grown up with, the one I used to compete against and idolize. He was always tougher than me, but he’d never been flat-out mean to me until Mom died.
“I don’t normally like paint horses,” he quietly said.
Sam frowned. “What’s not to like about them? They’re gorgeous with their patterns.”
Daniel shrugged and stroked his hand down Hawk’s back. He was a small colt, only about the size of a large dog, but I was pretty sure he’d be a tall horse judging by how long his legs were. “I like the clean look of a quarter horse. Like Cleric.”
Everyone knew how great Daniel thought his palomino gelding was. And he was right. Cleric was awesome with his nearly white mane and deep golden coat. The judges loved him when we showed, and I knew that if Witchcraft and I were in the same class as Daniel and Cleric, and therefore competing against them, we likely wouldn’t win. Cleric was just too perfect to beat.
That’s why I’d been doing a lot more trail classes, and getting better at going over obstacles, while he’d stayed in the western pleasure classes. His point was to look great and go through a walk, trot, and lope perfectly. When I showed, I still had to look good, but I did so while going through gates and over bridges. I liked both classes, and if Daniel wasn’t showing in one of the western pleasure classes I usually tried to get a space in it. I just loved showing, though, and would have done a lot of different classes. Except for jumping. One bad accident that had left me unable to ride for weeks had killed any desire I once had to go over jumps with Witchcraft. Some people did fine, and never once got hurt. I wouldn’t risk her, or myself, like that.
Getting hurt while riding was a reality, and I’d had broken bones, gotten stitches, and had lots of bruises. But jumping was just so much scarier than that. People got seriously hurt when something bad happened while going over jumps, and I’d heard about plenty of horses that didn’t recover from accidents at all. It wasn’t something I was willing to do with Witchcraft, and I was glad the horse I’d been riding, the day I’d fallen over the jump when he’d stopped short, hadn’t been hurt at all.
“We should go,” Sam said, getting up. He didn’t like Daniel much either, but he wasn’t as worried about him as I was. There was something seriously wrong with Daniel, something I couldn’t figure out. I wish he’d given therapy a chance. Maybe it could have helped him. Ben was at least sort of talking to some people. I knew he talked to Uncle Caleb at least.
Nodding, I got to my feet too. “Do you need anything?” I asked Daniel as I gathered up the blanket, which was covered in shavings, and Sam started to move past him.
He looked up at me, just for a second, before refocusing his attention on Hawk as he noisily sucked milk from the bottle in Daniel’s left hand. “From you? Nope.”
I rolled my eyes and followed Sam out of the stall. But before I left I had to say something to Daniel. “You don’t have to be an ass all the damn time. None of this was my fault. Not Mom’s affair, not her dying, not Dan hitting me, not him going to jail. You want to be mad at someone? Be mad at him. But stop being mean to me all the time. I’m sick of it.”
I wasn’t sure where my nerve came from—maybe lack of sleep, or maybe I’d finally lost any shred of self-preservation where Daniel was concerned. “I miss how we used to be,” I quietly told him. I didn’t understand why he was being like he was to me. I’d tried to move past how he’d seemed like Dan’s puppet for those few months after Mom had died and before Dan had been put in jail. And it wasn’t like I was ever really afraid of him, even though he was about four inches taller than me and was more muscular than me by a lot. I believed he’d never punch me, not like Dan had. Daniel wasn’t like that.
But he was still scary, like he was angry all the time, and I didn’t know how to bring him back from that. It shouldn’t have been on me to do that at all, but Ben wasn’t going to, and Trent didn’t want anything to do with him. And Uncle Caleb seemed so lost with all of us around sometimes, like he didn’t know what to do with any of us. We were a family, but we were still trying to figure out what kind of a family we really were.
Daniel looked at me and let go of Hawk, the empty bottle in his hand. “I’m not mad at you.”
That was a bit of a shock, since I thought he was pretty much always mad at me, and usually on the verge of flat-out hating me. “Then what’s your problem?”
Sam came up and took my hand. I was glad he was there. Not because I needed a witness or something, or because I was afraid Daniel was going to do something to me, but because if Daniel said something that hurt me, which he sometimes did, I knew I’d want Sam there with me as soon as I could get him. Sam looked as if he’d go after Daniel and punch him the first time he said anything mean to me. It had happened before, and I’d barely been able to get Sam off him.
Daniel shook his head. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
“Then try to figure it out,” I demanded.
He just stared at me for a long moment. “Why do you even care?”
That answer was easy. “Because I want my brother back. We were never best friends, but can’t we talk sometimes without being angry at each other?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
I didn’t understand why he’d shut me down so quickly, or why he seemed to be in such a hurry to get away from Sam and me as he pushed past us and out of the barn. But once again I was left just staring and wondering what the hell was going on with him.
“I don’t know why you keep trying,” Sam said, giving my hand a squeeze.
I was starting to wonder that myself.
Chapter Ten
Sam
I WAS worried about Robbie, especially when it came to Daniel. I didn’t understand how his brother could be like that to him, but I’d never really liked Dani
el to begin with. I didn’t like how he was to Robbie, or how he seemed so angry all the time. He was just mean. But Robbie kept wanting to try to fix him or something. Personally, I didn’t think it was worth it, and I hoped Daniel left as soon as could. He was eighteen now. He didn’t have to live there with the rest of them, so close to Robbie where I had to worry about him hurting my boyfriend. I thought I was mean to think that, and I never would have said that to Robbie or anyone else. But I was pretty sure if Daniel was out of his life, then Robbie would be happier again.
He hung the blanket on the back deck to get the shavings off. We’d tried washing one a few weeks ago, but Mom had been so angry when she’d found all those shavings in the washing machine, so we definitely couldn’t do that again. It was almost six, so I had to start feeding, watering, and cleaning up after the horses. I hadn’t had much sleep, though, and I didn’t want to leave Robbie alone when he was looking so sad.
“Keep me company while I take care of the horses?” I asked, hoping he’d say yes.
“Nap after?”
Smiling, I nodded. “For sure.” That got a little smile out of him, and even though it took us a while to get the horses taken care of, since we were both so slow and tired, by eight we were in my house, both of us stretched out on the couch and barely awake. We would have probably been asleep if Mom hadn’t dropped a big textbook next to our heads, startling us both awake.
“Wha…?” I yawned. Robbie glared around until he saw Mom; then his expression changed nearly instantly. No one glared at my mom and got away without having to do more homework.
“I take it you two are ready for class?”
It wasn’t really a question, and we both groaned as we sat up. We’d fallen asleep instead of eating breakfast, or showering. Somehow that didn’t really seem to matter to my mom, as she handed us each a textbook. “Two pages on what you learned from chapter three by ten o’clock,” she said.
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