by Amy Vastine
“When do we start?”
* * *
FAITH HAD SPENT the morning calling everyone she could think of to help her with the fund-raiser she’d decided she’d put together as a way of covering the expenses the NETA accreditation had created. Now she needed to find out from Sawyer how many volunteers he needed to help him fix the paddock fencing.
Her brother had left a half hour ago to run a mystery errand and wasn’t answering any of Faith’s texts. She was beginning to worry when she heard his truck pull up to the house.
As she stepped out onto the porch, it was the man getting out of the passenger side of Sawyer’s pickup who got all of her attention. Dean in his now-infamous red T-shirt walked to the back of the truck and got to work unloading the feed bags.
“What is he doing here?” Faith asked Sawyer as Dean headed to the barn with two bags of feed on his shoulders.
“He’s here to help,” he replied. Scout nudged his hand, eager for some attention. Faith hadn’t been the only one wondering where he’d been. “We’re going to go through the accessibility list, make sure everything is good to go. Then he’s going to help me knock out the east-side fence of the grazing paddock.”
“I guess a better question would be why is he doing all that for us?”
Sawyer shrugged. “He wants to. Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, right?”
Faith and Sawyer unloaded the rest of the feed bags and started carrying them to the barn. Dean came running out in a panic. Faith’s stomach dropped along with the bag of feed. He didn’t have to say anything for her to know what was happening.
“Something’s wrong with Duchess.”
“Call Rebecca!” Faith shouted to Sawyer as she ran past Dean and into the stables.
Duchess was on the ground. Her breathing was labored and her eyes rolled around in her head. Faith knelt down and sat behind Duchess’s head.
“It’s okay, sweet girl. We’re going to get you some help. Everything is going to be okay.” She stroked the horse’s head, her heart in her throat. She didn’t hear Dean enter the stall but he was suddenly there beside her.
They had moved Duchess into the foaling stall to give her more room and to reduce her anxiety. She had been unusually aggressive with the other horses earlier this morning when Sawyer had turned her out. For her safety, they had decided to keep her inside until they heard from Rebecca regarding the blood tests.
Duchess had lost so much weight over the last few weeks, Faith could count her ribs, which were rising and falling at an alarming rate. Duchess let out a cry Faith had only heard one other time, when they’d lost Winston’s mother a few years ago. The hair on her arms stood on end.
“Don’t give up, Duch. Come on, I need you to hang on until Rebecca gets here.” The tears streamed down Faith’s face as all the cracks in her heart that had begun to heal broke wide open.
Faith felt Dean’s hand on her back as she bent over to press her wet cheek against the dying horse. “Maybe it would be best to tell her it’s okay to go,” he said softly.
Closing her eyes, Faith searched inside herself for the courage to do what was right and not what would be easiest, not that any of this was easy. She ran her hand down Duchess’s once strong and steady back.
“I love you, Duch. You are a good girl. Such a good girl.” Faith’s voice broke, but she carried on. “I don’t want you to suffer. You can let go, sweet girl. Let go.”
Duchess’s rapid breathing began to slow. Faith kept stroking her neck and whispering her love for the beautiful and brave horse Duchess was. Faith lost all track of time. It felt like seconds but was probably much longer. Duchess began to take fewer and fewer breaths until she took her last.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WATCHING FAITH SAY goodbye to Duchess had been the second most gut-wrenching experience of Dean’s life. If he could have taken her pain away, he would have done it. Instead all he could do was offer comfort and his condolences.
Sawyer joined them in the stall after calling the vet, who couldn’t have arrived in time. With tears in his eyes, Sawyer pulled his sister off Duchess and into his arms where she let out the most heartbreaking wail. There had been so much loss in this family, Dean didn’t know how they managed it.
Feeling like an intruder on a private moment, Dean got up and left Sawyer and Faith to mourn. He brought the rest of the feed in and was the first one to greet the horse vet when she arrived. He waited on the Strattons’ front porch while they spoke to Rebecca.
“Thanks for your help,” Sawyer said when he finally emerged from the barn. “I’m sorry you had to be here for this.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad I could be of some help. How’s Faith?”
Sawyer shook his head. Not good, would be Dean’s guess. It took all of his self-control not to go back into the barn and take her in his arms and hold her until she stopped crying.
“Duchess was Dad’s first therapy horse,” Sawyer explained. “She was Faith’s baby. This one is going to sting for a long time.”
“What can I do to help?” Dean needed to feel useful or the sadness would become too overwhelming and he’d have to leave.
“I need to dig a hole,” Sawyer answered. “I also need to figure out how I’m going to move her body.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Dean assured him. Whatever he had to do, he’d do.
Faith and the vet came out of the barn together. The sight of her caused him to lose all control. Her pain was suddenly his. The only thing that would make him feel better was helping her and easing her burden.
Dean didn’t care if it was awkward or their relationship was messy; he took Faith into his arms. She began to sob and fresh tears wet his shirt. He didn’t let her go until she was finished.
It took the majority of the day to bury Duchess. Dean and Sawyer were sweating up a storm, but they had managed to borrow a neighbor’s backhoe to dig a hole big enough and cover her back up. When it was finished, Faith joined them for a final goodbye.
Harriet came over and unsurprisingly brought flowers with her. Her presence seemed to calm Faith more than anything else had all day. Sawyer led the four of them in a prayer and Faith was the last one to leave the gravesite.
The others were walking back to the house when a car pulled up. Sawyer didn’t recognize it, and neither did Harriet. A woman got out and spotted them in the distance. She waved and waited for them to get to her.
“Hi, I’m Molly Medina from NETA.” She extended a hand to Sawyer who shook it with confusion creasing his face. “I have had a crazy day and I know we had you guys scheduled for Saturday, but my college roommate is coming in from out of town and we were going to drive up to Nashville, so I was hoping we could do this today. I should have called, but I figured, what’s a couple days? No biggie, right?”
Dean and Sawyer exchanged a look. Which one of them would enlighten her about a crazy day? Sawyer took a swing at it. “Actually, today isn’t really going to work for us.”
Dean glanced back at Faith who wasn’t close enough to hear what this woman was doing there yet. The last thing Faith needed today was to have the farm put under a microscope.
“I just drove an hour to get here,” she said, digging around in her bag for her phone. Ms. Medina had tightly curled hair that sat on her head like a helmet. She wore dark lipstick and ran her tongue over her coffee-stained teeth. “I can be in and out in a couple hours. Otherwise, we’ll have to reschedule and I don’t know when I could do it. It could delay things months.” She scrolled through her phone’s calendar. “Maybe all summer. Wouldn’t you rather get it done?”
“You have to understand,” Sawyer began, but Faith interrupted him.
“I’ve got this, Sawyer,” she said, coming up beside her brother.
Dean wished he had led her into the house. Faith was
too much of a pushover. If she heard that the visit could be delayed months, she’d give in and let this woman collect her information today.
“Faith, we don’t have to,” Sawyer said.
“Won’t it be nice to have a stress-free weekend?” Ms. Medina chimed in.
“You’re from NETA?” Faith asked for clarification.
Ms. Medina nodded and her hair jiggled like a Jell-O mold on her head. “Molly Medina. You are?”
“I am very sorry you drove all the way here without giving us the courtesy of a phone call, but we will not be participating in the walk-through today. We lost a horse this afternoon. Your appointment is scheduled for Saturday. We’ll see you then or I’ll be sure to call NETA headquarters and let them know you couldn’t make our appointment and request they send another evaluator. Good day, Ms. Medina.”
Without waiting for a reply, Faith turned and walked toward the house with Harriet right behind her wearing the proudest grin. Dean and Sawyer made eye contact. It was clear that Sawyer was as shocked as Dean. Faith had found her backbone and it was stronger than steel.
“Have a great day,” Dean said, following the ladies into the house.
“Drive safe,” Sawyer added, jogging a couple steps to catch up to Dean and leaving Ms. Medina with her jaw on the ground.
* * *
FAITH SHOULD HAVE been freaking out. By dismissing the NETA evaluator, she could have created an enemy she didn’t want. But Faith didn’t let those things get her down. She was actually proud of herself for finally telling someone no.
“Did you hear yourself out there?” Harriet asked when they were safely inside the house. “That was pretty amazing.”
The boys were right behind them. Faith worried Sawyer might have been mad at her for choosing this moment to take a stand, but he had the same look on his face that Harriet did.
“Wow, where has this you been all my life?” he asked.
“Did she say anything after I walked away?” She said a silent prayer that the woman hadn’t threatened to fail Helping Hooves because of her behavior.
“She didn’t say a thing. You pretty much put her in her self-centered, inconsiderate place. I’m proud of you.” Sawyer gave her a hug.
“What if I just ruined everything by being rude?” The worry crept in.
“You didn’t. She was wrong to assume she could come here unannounced. And by her expression when you said you’d call NETA to reschedule, I think she’s not going to mess with us,” Sawyer reassured her.
Faith glanced at Dean for his reaction. “What do you think?”
He seemed stunned she was asking. “I think you handled yourself perfectly. You were assertive, not rude. It was awesome. Anyone trying to get you to do something you don’t want to do better watch out. The Faith who tells everyone yes might have been replaced with the Faith who isn’t afraid to say ‘no, and go jump in the lake.’”
She smiled for the first time all day. It felt good. Harriet offered to make some tea and headed to the kitchen to put on a pot. Tea sounded good. Faith’s throat felt a little raw from all the crying she’d done earlier.
Her chest ached. Poor Duchess. Faith couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like to walk into the barn later and not have Duchess there to say good-night to.
She couldn’t dwell on things that hadn’t happened yet. She needed to stay in the present if she was going to get through this. She encouraged Dean to come with her to have some tea. She promised cookies, as well.
“Thank you for your help today,” Faith said, taking out the small stash of cookies she had from last Friday and placing them on the table. “I don’t know what Sawyer and I would have done without you.”
“I didn’t do nearly as much as I wish I could have. I’m so sorry about Duchess.”
“She had a good life. I know that’s what I need to focus on. She wasn’t like Dad and Addison, taken too soon. She lived a long, happy life.”
“That’s a good way to look at it, sweetheart,” Harriet said as she pulled some mugs from the cupboard.
Faith had some tea then made calls to all the volunteers to let them know Duchess had passed. Lily was the hardest hit. Josie’s daughter had a way with the horses. She planned to go to school to become a large-animal vet. Faith promised to take her out to the grave the next time she volunteered.
Once she finished all her calls, she went outside to see if Sawyer needed help before she made them dinner. Even after everything that had happened today, Dean was still there, working on the paddock fencing. A light sheen of sweat covered his skin. The muscles in his arms flexed as he lifted one of the railings.
Faith’s focus since graduating high school had always been on Helping Hooves. She’d been so single-minded that there was no time for romance. She’d dated, but in truth, she was no different than Sawyer, putting everything else ahead of connecting with another person.
Watching Dean, she couldn’t help but be affected by the way his body moved. Her attraction unsettled her because the last person she needed to want a connection with was him. But when she thought about how it felt to be in his arms and to have him comfort her in her time of need, the desire for that connection only grew. It scared her because it felt as reckless as getting into Aaron Evans’s car.
“Everything okay?” he asked when he noticed her staring.
She folded her arms across her chest like a shield, as if that could guard her from his bulging biceps. “Just checking to see if you guys need anything. Sawyer could put me to work.”
Dean nodded toward the horse barn. “He’s in there cleaning up the stall. Why don’t you stay out here with me?”
“Can I help you?”
“No, just keep me company,” he said, giving her one of those grins that her shield was defenseless against.
“I’m stronger than I look.”
He stopped what he was doing and said, “You’re stronger than everyone I know.”
The compliment made her blush. It meant something that he didn’t think she was fragile because she’d broken down earlier. Being sad was part of the process, she had to remind herself.
“I haven’t been to a funeral since Addison’s,” he said, setting the railing down and moving closer to her. “I didn’t even think about it until Duchess’s was over.”
“I wish it had been my first since then.”
Six months had gone by in the blink of an eye. Faith still missed her dad every day and nothing had been harder than burying him. His funeral had been even more traumatic than Addison’s. He had been Faith’s rock through all the difficult times in her life. He was her constant, the one she could rely on not to leave her. The thought of facing all the challenges life was sure to bring without him was unbearable.
Dean leaned against the corner post of the paddock fence. “I should have come home when my mom told me about your dad. I could have at least paid my respects.”
“Another thing to add to the list of should-haves, huh?”
He took off his work gloves and wiped his forehead. “Seems so. Your dad always treated me well. He always made me feel welcome, which surprises me now that I know he knew about us.”
“Knew about us? Knew what about us? He didn’t—”
Dean nodded. “He called my parents about it. Told them he’d spied us making out.”
Faith covered her face with her hands. How mortifying. Thank goodness he’d never admitted to knowing anything when he was alive.
“Guess we weren’t as good at sneaking around as we thought,” he said.
“Not much got past my dad on his farm,” Faith said, dropping her hands. “I’m not as surprised as I am embarrassed that he saw us. I hope all he witnessed was innocent kissing.”
Sawyer slid open the doors on the side of the horse barn. He pushed out a wheelbarrow filled w
ith dirty straw. The ache in Faith’s chest flared back up. Knowing her dad was up in heaven with his arms around Duchess’s neck and that Sawyer was here for her was a bit of comfort.
Her brother didn’t realize what an asset he was to Helping Hooves. He was loved by all the kids who came there and he worked harder than any volunteer ever would. She didn’t tell him enough how much she appreciated him.
“Do you want me to help you two with the fence? Or should I make dinner?” she asked him as he walked by.
“Looks like you’re helping Dean take a break. Anything would be better than that.”
“My fault. I told her to hang out and keep me company while you did all the work,” Dean said, putting his gloves back on.
Sawyer was breathing heavily from the exertion. “That wasn’t part of our deal, Music Man.”
Faith glanced back and forth between Dean and Sawyer. “What deal?”
Sawyer set the wheelbarrow down and wore the same guilty expression as a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “There’s no deal. I was joking.”
More like lying, but now wasn’t the time to confront him. Curiosity got the best of her when Dean was quick to return to the fence railing, though. What deal would Sawyer have made with Dean? Why would it include Dean helping on the farm?
“What’s going on with you two?” She put her foot on the piece of wood Dean bent to pick up.
“Your brother seemed to know a bit about our relationship when he came to talk to me today. I got the feeling that, unlike your dad, he only recently learned we used to kiss in the hay stall.”
“We talked about it last night.” Faith didn’t want to talk about how they used to kiss. His answer only created more questions. “That doesn’t help me understand. Why are you here and why are you fixing our fence?”
“He asked me to help get things ready for that lady who showed up today.”
“In exchange for what?”
“You should talk to your brother, Faith. Can I fix the railing now so when Ms. Medina comes back, we’re ready?”