“Is Peggy okay?” Nash asked, shifting Lily further up his big body. “Being left at the house alone?”
“She’s fine. I called her to tell her you were on your way home. I’ll go home and get her later today; she wants to cook for you all. Her famous meatloaf.”
“Sounds good to me.” He rubbed his hand up and down Lily’s back. “I’m going to get Lila to bed, you sorted for somewhere to sleep?”
“They’re in the guest room,” Lily said, lifting her head from his shoulder. “There’s towels in there too, Mom.”
“Don’t worry honey,” Ella replied. “We can take care of ourselves. You all get up to bed and we’ll wait for Wilder.”
“He’s not back yet?” I somehow expected him to be asleep upstairs, but I should have known he’d be waiting for us if he was home.
“Where is he?” Nash moved to put Lily down, but she wasn’t going to let him go and clung on tighter.
“He’s fine,” Calvin informed us, holding up a hand. “He came back here about a half hour ago, but Mikey was a little concerned about Songbird and Gypsy being in amongst all the other horses, so he had a quick slug of coffee and went back out there.”
Instantly my blood ran cold. Gypsy was the first of my breeding program and I didn’t want to lose another horse I cared about.
“I need to get down there and see?—”
“Gunner, buddy, it’s fine.” Cal placed his hand on my chest. “She was just getting nervous about her foal around the other horses. Mikey said she was starting to stamp so wanted Wilder’s agreement to move her.”
“Where are they moving her to?”
“The winter barn is empty,” Nash suggested.
“That’s what Wilder said. He went down there to fence an area off for them while Mikey and Benny got them from the paddock.”
My shoulders slumped and my legs began to tremble as the weight of more sorrow lost its focus.
“I think you need to rest,” Cassidy said, tugging on my hand.
Exhaling, I nodded because she was right, I needed to at least try.
Once the door of my room clicked shut, Cassidy and I both let our steadfast resolve disappear. We simultaneously sighed and collapsed onto the bed; our fingers still entwined. Our bodies were exhausted and our emotions wrung out. The bedside light caught the dark smudges beneath Cassidy’s eyes, etched deeper than I’d ever seen them. Her hair, usually so soft and shining, was dull with ash and smoke. There was a streak of soot still marking her jawline despite the hours we’d spent at the hospital and the tears that she’d evidently shed. She’d been through hell for me tonight, standing strong when I needed her, and only now did I see the toll it had taken. Yet there was no complaint, no martyrdom in her exhaustion, just the quiet determination that had become as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.
“I’m sorry I was a dick to you at the hospital.” As my eyes searched her face, my fingers traced the outline of her brows and then down the center of her cute, upturned nose. “You didn’t deserve it.”
“No, I didn’t, but I understand why you said what you said. You’re grieving, you’ve lost an important part of your life and in the most horrific circumstances.”
My throat was dry and constricted as the ball of mixed emotions lodged itself there. “She didn’t get to live her best life.” My bottom lip trembled as I thought about the beautiful mare lying with a tarpaulin over her in the charred debris of the stables. Memories pierced through of me riding her across our land, letting her have her head as she raced us to the edge of the horizon. Of me rubbing ointment into her legs when she started to get arthritis, of buying her the best apples and the biggest carrots and even sugar cubes for a treat. She’d been my constant since I was eight years old.
“She did live her best life, baby,” Cassidy replied, her tone soothing as her eyelids fluttered with sleep. “You made sure of that.”
“I feel like I failed her. I should have saved her.”
Instantly Cassidy’s eyes flashed open. “No, you couldn’t. You would have been killed, too. Nash said it was too late before you even got in there.”
Thinking back, my brother was right, she was already trapped by the time I tried to open her stable door. The wall was already alight, the beam was already set to fall.
“I always stabled her at that end because it got less wind if the doors were open. There was less noise for her and that’s what got her killed. She was all I had left of my mom. Now they’re both just…ashes and ghosts in my memories.”
When Cassidy’s fingers swiped at my cheeks, I realized that it was tears she was wiping away. Tears of pain, grief and exhaustion.
“It was a terrible accident. You can’t have known. All you can do is remember that she knew she was loved, always.”
“A couple of days after Mom died,” I started, trying to keep my voice steady. “I went out to the paddock at dawn. Just me and Ariel.” My fingers twisted in Cassidy’s hair as I took a deep breath. “I’d talk to her—not Ariel, Mom—tell her about my day, about Nash being a closed-up ass, about Wild trying to make stupid jokes one minute and then being too quiet the next.” I swallowed, fixing my eyes on Cassidy’s whisky-colored pools, thinking how expressive they were. “I never cried, though. Figured someone had to stay strong, even if I didn’t feel it. Pretty stupid really. Being strong isn’t about breaking, it’s about how you put yourself back together.” My breath was whisked from my lungs, as Cassidy held my face in her hands. Soft and gentle. “And now Ariel’s gone, that’s what I have to do. Think about the good she brought to my life and move on as best I can.”
Cassidy was right, that beautiful horse had known love, every single day since she was four years old and Mom had brought her to the ranch. Whenever she saw me, she would nicker and flick her tail around, it even looked like she was smiling at me at times. We loved each other. She was my support animal of sorts.
