2
The trailer rumbled up the drive just past five o’clock, and Megan hurried the rest of the way down to the barn to meet it. Jake was already waiting, hands shoved into the pockets of his well-worn jeans. Her gaze dipped to the way the denim hugged his lean muscular legs and cupped his firm ass. Quickly, she yanked her eyes up to his face before he caught her staring, but his gaze was locked on the trailer crunching over the gravel lot in front of the barn. For a moment, she got caught up in the equally distracting sight of his handsome face, coated now with a day’s worth of stubble.
The truck’s engine shut off, and Megan turned her attention toward the people climbing out of the cab. Priya was in the passenger seat. Megan didn’t recognize the man who got out of the driver’s seat, but Priya had told her Sheriff Alvarez would be transporting the horses tonight.
“Hi guys,” Priya said as she walked around to the back of the trailer, long black hair blowing in the breeze. “Thanks so much for helping out with these horses. We would have really been in a bind if you hadn’t had room for them.”
“Happy to help,” Jake said.
The sheriff walked toward them, extending a hand to Megan. “Jesse Alvarez.”
“Megan Perl,” she said as she shook. “Nice to meet you.”
He nodded, a friendly smile on his face. “Always nice to meet a new face in town. I’ve heard a lot about you and your friends since you came to Rosemont Castle. The whole town’s buzzing about it.”
She smiled, ducking her head. No doubt he’d also heard about the accident. The whole town had been buzzing about that too. “Thanks.”
Jesse and Jake exchanged greetings, and then they opened the trailer, revealing the two horses inside—or their rear ends anyway. They were tethered facing away from the door with a partition between them. One horse was a tan color with a black tail, and the other had a white coat speckled with darker spots. Both of them shifted anxiously inside the trailer.
“They’ve already received veterinary care and completed a two-week quarantine,” Priya told them. “They’ve had their Coggins and been dewormed. Someone from the humane society will be in touch tomorrow to schedule follow-up care for them.”
Jesse stepped up and backed the black and brown horse off the trailer. “This is Dusty Star. Buckskin mare, approximately ten years old. Should be in good shape once she gets some weight on her.”
Megan’s gaze drifted to the way the horse’s ribs protruded beneath her scruffy coat. Jake stepped forward to touch Dusty Star, running a hand down her neck in an affectionate way that seemed to help put the horse at ease. He and Jesse took her into the barn and settled her into a stall before returning for the second horse.
“They call this one Bug,” Jesse said as he led the speckled horse off the trailer. “She’s just a filly, about three years old. Quarter horse, but obviously part Appaloosa with her coloring. She was attacked by a pack of feral dogs and left to heal without medical attention.”
Megan resisted the urge to flinch when she saw the wounds on the horse’s face and neck, stained purple by whatever the humane society’s vet had treated her with. The color stood out in sharp contrast against her white coat, giving her a slightly cartoonish look.
“She’ll have some battle scars once she heals, won’t you, Bug?” Jesse said, patting the horse’s shoulder. Bug flicked her ears, dancing nervously to the side as they neared the barn.
Scars. Megan’s chest felt like one of the horses was standing on it. The left side of her face ached the way it had in those first days after the accident, when the pain had kept her from thinking farther into the future than an end to the ceaseless throbbing.
As Jake and Priya followed Jesse and Bug into the barn, Megan turned and walked off into the gathering dusk, letting the shadows swallow her whole.
* * *
Jake released a deep sigh.It had taken over an hour to get the horses settled and all the paperwork signed for the foster arrangement with the humane society. Now, it was almost seven, and his stomach was impatiently reminding him he’d missed lunch in the chaos of the day. The sheriff’s truck crunched down the lane away from the barn, tail lights gleaming in the dark.
Megan lingered in the doorway, eyes fixed somewhere in the distance. She’d been unusually quiet since the horses arrived, and she’d messed with her hair so that it covered the scar on her face. That made his gut churn with something other than hunger, something that made him want to brush her hair back and kiss every gorgeous inch of her skin until she saw herself the way he did, which was absolutely perfect.
“Long day,” he said instead, mostly to break the silence that had fallen between them.
She turned toward him. “You must be exhausted. You just moved in a few hours ago, and here I am, pushing foster horses at you.”
“The timing isn’t great, but I’m glad we were able to help out.” He looked in at Bug, contentedly munching hay in her stall. “Plus, I think Twister’s glad for the company tonight.”
Megan walked over to stand beside him, and they watched the horse in silence for a minute. “I’ll never understand how someone could keep horses like this. How do you look at them and not feed them?”
“Humans are capable of unfathomable acts of cruelty,” he said.
“We’re the worst, aren’t we?” She sounded almost surprised, hands resting lightly on the bars at the front of Bug’s stall.
“I’d argue we’re both the best and the worst of the animal kingdom.”
“Hard to be both,” she said.
“And yet, we manage it.”
