Lexi shoved a peach around on her plate, trying to decide whether to lie or be honest.
“I want the truth, Lex,” Maggie said, as if reading her mind.
“I need…something. Some kind of change. I feel like one shoe just dropped, and the other is still suspended in midair and about to fall at any minute.” She slowly shook her head. “And I don’t think it’s got anything to do with Mammaw’s passing. I was leaning toward anxiety-overload before she died.”
“Any more dreams about her?” Maggie filled her plate with peach cobbler, frowning at the lack of crust left in the container. “You fished out the best bits.”
“Of course I did,” Lexi said with no shame. “I always do. You know that.”
Maggie rolled her eyes and settled back into her chair. “Any more dreams?”
Lexi shrugged. “Just the same one over and over. Mammaw and me standing in a shadowy room, and her telling me, “Stop stalling and just do it.”
“Just do what?”
“Good question.”
“And you keep getting the death card in your tarot readings?”
Lexi went to her desk, cut the cards, shuffled them, then drew one and showed it to Maggie: the death card.
“That is freakin’ eerie.”
“What’s freakin’ eerie is I know I need achange. I just don’t know how big or what to change.” Lexi tucked the card back into the deck and placed them in a drawer.
With her fork in her mouth, Maggie took on a thoughtful yet frowning expression. Then she pointed the fork at Lexi. “You need a sabbatical.”
“From what?”
Maggie rolled her eyes again. “From here. This place. Your practice. Kentucky. We both know if you take a break and stay here, you’ll just get sucked right back into things. Lexington won’t leave you alone, and the Horsey Set won’t either. You have a way with animals that no one else around here has.”
“And just how could I leave for any amount of time?”
“No one is indispensable, Lexi. You know that. Mammaw felt the same as you about taking time off, and yet this part of your world hasn’t collapsed since she passed. I know a very large part of your personal world came crashing down around your heart when she left you, but the business side of things maintained the status quo until you worked through your grief enough to take the reins. She and your grandfather set this place up to run like a well-oiled piece of machinery.” Maggie slowly nodded. “You could leave here for a while and get your head and heart together. I can cover the vet side of things, and everyone else, your board of directors included, can handle the business end of Vinemagic Horse Farms. It’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know. I just wouldn’t feel right about leaving.” The idea was tempting and definitely tugged at her heart, but her stubborn sense of duty and accountability kept rearing its ugly head and bashing the temptation back down. There was so much tohandleduring this time of year. “It just wouldn’t be right.”
“What wouldn’t be right about it? Everyone needs some downtime. Take a break before life breaks you.”
Lexi continued fiddling with the slippery peach that was trying to slide off her paper plate. “Where would I go?”
“Wherever you want to go—just not here or close enough toherefor anyone from this area to get in touch with you.”
“But they might need to in case there was an emergency.”
Maggie huffed with an exasperated groan as she rose to dump her leftovers into the covered trash can outside the open office door in the barn’s primary thoroughfare. “I can be the point of contact and decide what is or is not an emergency. You know I won’t let anyone bother you unless it’s warranted—like one of the barns burning down or something.”
“Don’t even say that.” Lexi shuddered. A barn fire with all the horses inside? That was the stuff of nightmares.
“Go to Scotland and search for unicorns. You always dreamed of doing that.”
“When I was five.” Lexi gathered up the rest of the trash and disposed of it in the garbage bin. “Unfortunately, that dream was dashed when reality told me unicorns weren’t real.”
“Scotland thinks they’re real. Isn’t the unicorn their national animal?” Maggie propped her feet on the corner of the chair beside her. “And weren’t you having another recurring dream about unicorns and dark forests that was narrated by some deep, sexy voice?”
A shiver raced across Lexi. She was still having that dream, too. She just hadn’t told Maggie. “How do you remember all this stuff I tell you?”
“You’re my friend. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me.” Maggie made a show of yawning and rubbing her eyes. “Wow. You were right about the dangers of a big lunch. If we don’t do something interesting, I’m going to be snoring soon.” With a wicked gleam in her eye, she hopped out of her seat and hurried over to Lexi’s desk and started typing on her keyboard. “I know. Let’s check out some travel agencies. See if we can find you a good Airbnb overseas or something.”
