She lifts a shoulder and leans against the counter. “Overcrowding.”
I nod and give the back of her neck a little squeeze as I walk by and head up to my room.
The slight smell of peaches hangs in the air of my bedroom, and I know it’s from the clothes I wore to her roomlast night, I quickly pick them up and toss them in the hamper and cover it.
Fucking hell.
When I get to the dinner table, everyone has just started passing around the food and dad gives me a dirty look for being late. “Sorry, I needed to wash the day off me.” In more ways than one.
“Did everything go okay this morning?” Marley asks as the passes the bowl of Swiss peas to Kinley with one hand and takes the dish of baked potatoes in the other. She’s digging.
Keeping my eyes on my plate as I grab a roll, I say, “As well as could be expected.”
“Did you get the copies?” Dad asks.
Fuuuck!I was so pissed I forgot the copies. I walked out of there in a haze of red and nothing else mattered besides getting away from the source of the pain in my chest.
Just as I am about to tell him we’ll talk later, a distressed whinny is heard from Marley’s stable. For us to hear it inside means something is wrong. I turn in my seat to look at the same time Marley sits up and looks around us to see out the window.
Nothing looks out of place. The floodlights are on, but Marley quickly sets her napkin next to her plate and stands. “I’m going to go check on them. I’ll be right back.”
“Do you need help?” Jax asks before she gets to the door. He’s in mid-stand and putting his napkin on the table.
In her hurry to get outside, Marley doesn’t stop. She calls over her shoulder, “No, I’ll be right back.”
Dad is eyeing me, and I slightly shake my head once to tell him ‘not now’, but his brows knit together in frustration.
“Dad, Aunt Marley let me sit outside Star’s stall today and she let me name her.” Lainey Rai says, her eyes are sparkling, and it makes my heart happy. “The white spot on herforehead looks like a star, so that’s what we’re calling her.”
Even though I’m Dad again, I’m just happy she’s happy. “That’s great, Pumpkin. Did she spook at all while you were sitting there?”
She shakes her head. “Nope, she stood in the corner watching me, but she wasn’t upset.”
Suddenly Kinley stands, and her chair falls over backward. “Oh my god, Marley!” She points over my shoulder out the window.
Before any of us even get out of our chairs, Jax is running out the door with Mason hot on his heels. A quick look over my shoulder and I see smoke curling around the floodlights on her stable. Chairs are scraping all around me, and I sprint out the door to catch up with Mason and Jax.
Fuck! Fuck!Fuck! This can’t be happening.
As I jump off the porch and run to the stable, I see Jax and Mason go into the structure, so I go around the side and grab the hose from the outdoor spigot and start unrolling it as I walk.
There are, I think, three horses in her stables right now and they are all yelling. One of them is kicking inside her stall, and I hope they get her out before she hurts herself. All Marley’s horses are traumatized by something that has happened to them, so this will only send them into a panic.
As I come around the corner of the stable with the hose, I see Marley holding a towel over one of the mare’s eyes as Jax leads her to a paddock. She’s holding her arm over her nose and mouth and I worry about how much smoke she’s breathing.
“Daddy!” I hear Lainey Rai yell from behind me and I turn to face her, holding my hand out to stop her.
“Stay back, Pumpkin! Stay with Kinley!” As I say it, Kinley runs up behind her, fast breaths puffing in the air in front of her and her arms windmilling as she stops andthrows them around Lainey Rai’s shoulders to keep her in place, her blond hair surrounding Lainey Rai like a curtain.
Mason is coming out of the stable with another mare that is dancing in fear, a towel over her head and pulling her to the other paddock. “Mason!” I yell.
He turns to me, coughing at the same time and squinting his eyes. Another kick on the other side of the wall I’m standing next to and a loud whinny that sounds like a scream.
Fuck!
“How many?” I yell as I walk toward the door of the stable.
“Just the one.” He says and turns to lead the horse away from the stable.
