The instant the lights came on, my hackles went up. I’d never realized just how much I’d come to hate this place. The whole facility, yes, from the massive barn to the huge cavernous house, but this room more than anywhere else. This room where the trophies gleamed and the ribbons hung. The trophies that were never big enough. The ribbons that were never blue enough, long enough, prestigious enough. This room that smelled like silver polish and made me think of the nauseating sourness of celebratory champagne on my tongue.
There’d been a time in my life when a tiny fourth-place ribbon on my wall could bring a smile to my face. Now, there were tricolor championship sashes, gleaming trophies and embroidered blankets, collars made of silk roses, and for the life of me, I couldn’t even remember which horse I’d been on when I’d won them. I couldn’t remember which were mine and which were Mariah’s. I didn’t care enough to try to remember either. I just didn’t give a shit. I’d stopped giving a shit a long time and probably three or four dozen trophies ago.
“Reminiscing?” The smile in Mariah’s voice made me extra glad I had my back to her so she couldn’t see me grimace.
“Something like that,” I said without turning around.
Her boots tapped dully on the hard floor as she walked into the room. “You okay?”
“Just thinking, I guess.” I let my gaze drift from ribbon to trophy to ribbon. “About all this.”
“Something wrong?”
Everything is wrong. Every fucking thing.
I went to one of the leather chairs in front of the television where Sam had always enjoyed showing potential clients DVDs of various victories. I sank into the chair, rested my elbows on my knees and let my head fall into my hands.
The other chair creaked softly. “Amy, what’s wrong?”
Without looking up, I whispered, “How did we turn into this?”
“Turn into what?”
Sitting up, I gestured at the room around us. “This.”
Mariah cocked her head, letting her dark bangs almost fall across her eyes. “You mean a successful, well-respected breeding and training operation?”
“Yeah.” My shoulders slumped as I looked at all the hallmarks of what a success our business had become. “Yeah. That.”
“I’m not following you,” she said. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were unhappy with the fact that we’re living the dream we had when we were kids.”
I met her eyes. “Is this really the dream we had?”
“What do you mean?” She furrowed her brow. “We both knew it would be a lot of work, long hours—”
“No, no, it’s not that.” I sighed. “It’s not the work. It’s…” How to put it into words?
After a moment, I pushed myself up and walked toward one of the ribbon- and photo-covered walls. I pulled down a plaque from a few years ago, one commemorating a regional show-jumping title I’d won. The bottom half had the title and the name of the competition engraved on a brass plate. The upper half was a photo of me on the back of a bay horse as we sailed over an oxer.
I turned the trophy so Mariah could see it. “Do you remember this?”
“Of course I do,” she said. “That was an amazing show. Why?”
I looked at it again, running my fingers over the photo. “The horse’s name was Benny. His left to right lead changes were a little rough, and he…” I turned to Mariah. “That’s literally all I can remember about him.”
“It was a long time ago,” Mariah said.
Tracing the edge of the brass plate with my thumb, I said, “Do you remember Blackjack?”
“Of course I do,” she said. “How could I forget him?”
I smiled at the memories. “You remember how he used to try to eat his lead rope if you didn’t keep an eye on him?”
Mariah laughed. “And how we had to put duct tape on all the cross ties because he kept trying to eat those too?”
In spite of myself, I laughed softly. “And how he wasn’t afraid of anything, but once in a while, he’d decide he was terrified of a camera flash?”
“Oh God, yes.” She groaned and rolled her eyes.
I laughed again, but my humor quickly evaporated.
Mariah rose. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“It’s been almost fifteen years since we lost Blackjack.” I held up the plaque in my hand. “This was three years ago, and all I can remember about Benny is that his lead changes were a little rough.”
She put her hand on my arm. “But Blackjack was our horse. Just like Sunny and Petty Cash.”
“I know.” I hung the plaque back on its nail. “I just… I feel so detached from what we’re doing. From all the horses.” Gesturing at the awards, I added, “We could’ve won all these on tractors or motorcycles for all the connection I had with the horses.”
She squeezed my arm. “So it became more of a business than a passion.”
“It became all business and no passion.” I stared at the plaque I’d just put back on the wall. “I miss the three-stall barn behind the three-bedroom house. You know, back when it was about the horses and not the trophies or the money or the glory.” I swallowed hard, trying to keep my emotions in check. “Back when competing was fun. This was never what I wanted.”
Mariah sighed heavily. “Yeah. I know what you mean. I could have sworn there was a time when we enjoyed it.”
“There was.” I swallowed hard. “And I’m sorry I left this all on you while I was gone.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I had it under control, and you had things to deal with I don’t even want to imagine.”
I chewed my lip. Then, barely whispering, asked, “You know why I left?”
She rested her hand between my shoulder blades. “Why?”
“It wasn’t just because I couldn’t deal with Sam’s death,” I said. “Looking back now, I probably would have taken off sooner or later even if he hadn’t died.”
“So why did you go?”
I met her eyes. “Because I needed to find my love of horses again.”
“And did you find it?” she asked.
“I found…so much more than that.”
“Then why are you so unhappy?”
My eyes welled up as I met hers. “Because I left it all there.”
Her lips parted. I lowered my gaze just as my vision blurred again, and she wrapped her arms around me.
She stroked my hair for a long moment. “This is about Dustin, isn’t it?”
“It… Yeah.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands. “It’s about him. The horses. Everything.”
“So what are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet.” I looked around the trophy room at all the awards and photos. “I don’t want to leave the whole place in your lap, but I’m not sure if I can keep doing this.”
“Maybe it’s time to close the book on this part of your life.”
“What about you?” I turned to her again. “We’re in this together.”
“We are,” she said with a nod. “But that doesn’t have to be forever. I don’t want you chained to it if it’s making you this miserable, and I’m not going to run it on my own if you decide you want out.” Her shoulders slumped a little, and for the first time, I realized how tired her brown eyes looked. “In fact, I’ve been giving some serious thought to doing something else myself.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “I still want to work with horses, but…” Her gaze drifted around the room, and I swore I could see exhaustion darkening the shadows on her face and the circles beneath her eyes. “I think you’re right. About the way we’ve done things with the business.” Turning to me again, she said, “And I’m burned out too.”
“Probably doesn’t help you’ve had to do it all recently.”
“No,” she said quietly. “But I think the writing’s been on the wall for a while. Maybe the last couple of months were what we both needed.” She put her arm around my s
houlders. “So, whatever you want to do, if you don’t want to keep this going, I won’t fight you on it.”
“I didn’t realize it was taking that much of a toll on you too,” I whispered.
“Neither did I.”
“What would you do?” I asked. “In my shoes?”
Mariah shook her head. “I don’t know, sweetie. I can’t really imagine being in your shoes, so I just don’t know. But you’ve spent your entire adult life adjusting your dream to fit someone else’s until you finally crashed and burned. Whatever decision you make, it should be what you want, not anyone else. Including me.”
I nodded but said nothing.
Mariah hugged me again. “I need to get home. Take it easy tonight, okay?”
“I will.”
I listened until her footsteps disappeared down the aisle, and then I dropped into one of the chairs again and looked around the trophy room. It amazed me, right then, how a solution could be so damned simple and yet so, so difficult to implement. I knew what I wanted to do—what I needed to do—but making it happen seemed about as daunting as trying to get on Blue in the round pen for the first time, and with just as much potential to leave me on my ass.
But what else could I do?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dustin
Saturdays were always busy. Most of the day, the gravel lot in front of the barn was better than half filled with a few cars and a lot of trucks. Boarders and clients came and went. A near-constant cloud of dust hung in the air in the covered arena. It was good for business, but today it wasn’t good for me.
Dad and I picked out stalls in between turning out horses and bringing them back in. He took over a few of my afternoon lessons, because there just wasn’t time for me to cover the farm work on top of my training commitments. The kids loved him anyway, so they never minded when “Grandpa John” worked with them in my place.
By seven thirty, the chores were finished, lessons were done, horses had been worked, and almost everyone had cleared out. A few boarders would probably show up later in the evening to ride when the arena was less crowded, but this was feeding time, so the barn was silent now except for the sounds of horses eating. In half an hour or so, I could take Blue and Star out for some light, uninterrupted work. For now, I just killed time in my house because it was more palatable than going up to Mom and Dad’s and hearing—again—how much I needed to just let Amy go.
I know. I know. I know!
But not tonight. I’d let her go on my own time, and that time was not now. All I could handle tonight was making myself something to eat and maybe persuading myself to get out and work the two horses before the late night feeding.
A diesel engine approached. I rolled my eyes. So much for some quiet, uninterrupted time with Blue and Star. And someone who didn’t realize immediately after feeding was not a good time to come and ride was usually someone who’d get underfoot or do something to startle one of the volatile horses. Hopefully not one of the idiots who didn’t see a problem with taking their horse away from his food, riding him into the ground and then putting him back in his stall. I was close enough to a breaking point without spending the night walking a colicking horse up and down the barn aisle.
As I rinsed dishes, I glanced out the kitchen window into the slowly fading daylight, and damn near dropped a plate.
I knew that blue truck anywhere.
Dusty. The front end covered in the remains of a sizeable chunk of Eastern Washington’s insect population. Diamond-plate running boards and no rust in the paint.
Heart pounding, I hurried outside.
Amy was halfway to the barn but stopped in her tracks and turned around. From across the parking area, we looked at each other. Didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stared at each other.
No baseball cap this time. No ponytail. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, and nothing shaded her dark eyes as she looked right back at me. I wanted to look her up and down, just to drink her in and recommit every inch of her to memory in case anything had faded since I last saw her, but I couldn’t break eye contact if I tried.
I finally convinced my feet to work, though, and as I started down the steps, Amy started toward me.
When she was close enough I could be sure she’d hear me, I said, “You came back.”
She nodded, slipping her hands into the pockets of her jeans.
“But I thought…” I moistened my lips. “I thought you needed to go home.”
“I did.” She set her shoulders back and held my gaze. “That’s why I’m here.”
I stared at her for a moment. “What about…your farm…”
“I had to come back.” She chewed her lip. “Because you’re here.”
Where relief should have been, a knot of taut frustration—anger, even—tightened below my ribs. I’ve just barely started getting over you. Don’t you dare reopen this wound. “Amy, we can’t do this. Why make it worse for ourselves?”
“You really think I drove all the way back here just to—”
“You can’t tell me everything you’ve been through is all behind you now,” I snapped. Voice softer now, I said, “I saw the way you broke down over Sam.”
Amy winced and looked away.
I went on, “Those aren’t feelings that go away overnight. It hurt enough watching you leave the last time. What happens when we’ve been doing this for months, or even a few years, and you decide you’re ready to move on from him?” I hesitated. “And me?”
She closed her eyes and released a long, slow breath. “It’s not all behind me yet, Dustin. I won’t pretend it is.” She paused, chewing her lower lip. “Look, I did feel something for him at one time, and his death hurt. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t. Yes, I miss the side of him that wasn’t a drunk and an asshole.” She moved a little closer to me and lowered her unsteady voice to barely a whisper. “But I haven’t felt anything like this in my life. For anyone.”
I made myself meet her eyes. “What do you feel?”
Amy shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t…I don’t even know. And it scares the hell out of me.” She closed some more of the distance between us. “But it doesn’t scare me the way being with Sam scared me. It’s more like…” She paused, furrowing her brow as if she wasn’t quite sure how to articulate her thoughts. “It’s more like when I got on Blue that first time. I knew it was entirely possible I’d fall, and I could get hurt, but there was this chance of staying on, and if I stayed on…” She paused again, swallowing hard. “There was a chance of falling and breaking my neck, but if I didn’t get on, I’d miss the ride of a lifetime.”
My heart beat faster. God, she had no idea what she was doing to me.
“And what about me falling and breaking my neck?” I asked. “If you’re looking for a thrill, I—”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m not here looking for a thrill.”
Jesus, Amy, you’re killing me…
“But what about Sam?” I asked. She winced, and I gently added, “You know as well as I do it’s going to take some time to grieve him.”
“Yes, it will.” She took a deep breath. “And I didn’t think I’d want to move on so quickly, but Dustin…you…”
I put up a hand. “I can’t be a rebound. Not like this. Not when you’re still grieving for your husband, even if the relationship with him wasn’t a good one. And I… can’t…” I shifted my gaze away from her. “Not if I might get more attached to you than you’re capable of getting to me.”
“Who says I’m not capable of getting attached?” she said. “Do you think I came out here on a whim?”
“You came out here on a whim the first time,” I said.
“Okay, yes,” she said. “When I first came here, yeah, it was on impulse. And maybe it wasn’t a wise decision, but I don’t regret it.” She took a half step closer to me. “The only thing I do regret is leaving here.”
It was just as well I couldn’t come up with the words to reply because I couldn’t find any
air anyway.
Amy looked me in the eye. “You asked me once if that first night together would have happened with any other man besides you, or if it was just us.”
I cleared my throat to get the air moving. “Right…”
“And that night,” she said, so softly I could barely hear her. “That night, yes, it probably could have happened with anyone.”
I flinched but didn’t speak.
“That night,” she said, avoiding my eyes, “maybe I would have latched on to any man who didn’t make me feel like the scum of the earth. I needed something, and…” She shook her head and waved a hand. “But I did not come this far today to stand here and tell you there’s nothing between us that wouldn’t have happened with anyone else. Dustin…” She looked me in the eye. “Dustin, I love you.”
My heart dropped. “Amy…”
“I never felt this way about him,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’ve never felt this way for anyone. And after years of not feeling anything, I can’t even begin to tell you how terrifying it is to feel this strongly at all, especially about someone who has every reason not to feel the same way.”
“I never said I didn’t feel the same way,” I whispered.
Amy swallowed hard. “Do you?”
I met her eyes. She was tense. Still, but tense. Like she wasn’t shaking yet, but she was close to it. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her look so terrified. I’d seen her broken, I’d seen her elated, I’d seen her hurt beyond words, but scared? Never.
“If you want me to go, I will.” She gestured at the truck parked beside mine. “I can leave, and you won’t have to see me again.” She took a deep, ragged breath. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“I want you to stay,” I said. “I fell hard for you, and I want you to stay.” I made myself look her in the eye. “But I can’t let you.”
Amy blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“Look,” I said. “I’m like goddamned flypaper for women who’ve been hurt. I won’t turn my back on someone who’s been hurt any more than I’d abandon a mistreated animal.” I swallowed the ache trying to rise in my throat. “And every time—every time, Amy—as soon as she’s…” I paused, my gaze drifting toward my parents’ house. “Like my mom had to remind me every time I took in a bird with a broken wing: as soon as the wing healed, the bird would fly away.”
All the King's Horses Page 26