Ruth’s office looked like a creative person’s paradise to me. There were whiteboards, bookshelves filled with both books she’d written and different kinds of how-to guides, along with what seemed like old books about horses and a bunch of romance novels.
I went to look out of the window. If I’d sat in her nice chair behind her large desk, I could’ve just about seen anyone parking by the office building. Theo and Hudson stood with two other men near a sheriff’s department cruiser.
I turned away. I didn’t need to be part of that, after all. Hudson and Theo could take care of it fine. In fact, I felt like I didn’t want to be in charge at all, ever. The whole rescue thing…it was alot.
Sighing, I glanced at the neatly organized desk. There were two large monitors, a PC underneath the desk on a little shelf, and a laptop next to the keyboard and mouse. Aunt Ruth had had a decent setup here.
There was also a pile of brochures on the corner of the desk. I picked one up.
Twin Star Rescue. The round logo, a horse gazing up at two stars in the night sky, was embossed on the cover above a professional photo of horses on the pasture behind the orchard.
Without meaning to, I sat down in Ruth’s chair and opened the brochure.
“Hey, what’s that?” River placed a plate of incredible looking sandwiches and a tall glass of ice water on the desk.
“The name of the rescue comes from the first horses Ruth White rescued. An animal control officer called her to ask if she had space for a very pregnant and malnourished mare that was too skittish to be comfortable in noisier stables. Ruth immediately agreed to take Delilah in, having only two horses at her new farm. It turned out that Delilah, while heavily pregnant, wasn’t close to the due date yet, as she was carrying twin foals. Knowing how dangerous that could be for both the mare and the foals, Ruth took all precautions and hoped for the best while trying to prepare for the worst. Two weeks after Delilah arrived at the yet unnamed farm, she gave birth to the foals that sadly only lived for a few moments. Both foals had a large white star on their forehead, and so Ruth decided that the farm—and later the rescue—would be called Twin Star in memory of Delilah’s little ones.”
River’s smile was sad as he leaned his hip on the edge of the desk. “That’s tragic, but I guess it made her want to try and rescue more horses, so that’s good.”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I mean it’s sad they died, but it says Delilah lived for a decade afterwards and is buried somewhere near a big tree in the back of the property.”
“I think I can see the tree from one of my windows.” River picked up one of the brochures. “I’ll take one for Rey, too.”
“Is this for me?” I asked, nodding at the food.
“Nope, that’s Rey’s. I saw the door open on my way up. Yours is in the kitchen.” River leaned closer and kissed my temple. “Go eat. Read the rest of the thing so you can paraphrase it for me later.”
I chuckled as I watched River leave. River was the more educated one of the two of them. He’d struggled through nursing school to become a registered nurse a little over a year ago at twenty-four. The running joke between the three of them was that River didn’t want to read anything not mandatory for his job, so both Rey and I would give him abbreviated versions of anything interesting we came across.
Rey…well, Rey hadn’t finished high school before he became homeless. Luckily River and I had found him only a couple of weeks into said homelessness and he was safe now. It was rough to figure out what we should do with the boy. We’d tried to get him to open up once. To tell us what his name was or where he came from. It had ended with a distraught Rey running away from us in a horrible icy wind, and we’d only managed to catch up with Rey because he twisted his ankle a block from our apartment.
Yeah, we’d gotten the message. Don’t ask about the past. Don’t talk about whatever it was Rey was hiding from. No questions. We’d also learned that if we made sure Rey felt safe and loved and useful, he’d give us nuggets of information over time.
So far we knew he was local-ish to New York City. He’d run away because he was queer. He couldn’t go back home, nor did he want the authorities involved, because his family had connections and he’d probably be taken back by force if they found out.
It would’ve been hypocritical of me to insist on the kid going back to a family he had run from for the same reason I had been kicked out of my own. I could reason with myself, but River still had a hard time with everything. I figured it was a nurse thing. For half a year or so, River had channeled that side of himself into making sure Rey was taken care of in every way we could within the parameters set by Rey himself.
I sighed as I pushed away from the desk. I took the brochure and went to find my lunch. Time to learn more about Twin Star Rescue through what my aunt had wanted people to learn from the outside. There would be time for the inside thing, the hard stuff I’d have to learn if I was to make good with my promise of respecting Ruth’s wishes.
Surely I could handle three months around the jackass in charge? Because whoa boy, did Theo seem like an asshole and a half. The man might’ve been easy to look at, but with each passing moment, it felt like grains of sand were making their way under my skin whenever Theo was close.
If this was the situation now, less than two hours since meeting the man, where would we go from here? Peace and harmony? Yeah, right.
Chapter 4
Theo
Hudson and I dealt with the cops, and then Hudson went to check up on Sierra, while I took the opportunity to retreat to the stables.
My mind was churning with everything. Andy had been a shock, in a way, especially with the gun. The dogs followed me to the stable, sensing my state of mind. I’d mucked the stalls in the morning and let the horses out to their respective pastures.
The only ones inside were the two drafts we’d gotten a week before Ruth passed. She’d hand-picked these horses from a slaughter auction and then driven them back home from Tennessee. The horses were a mare and a gelding, a sibling pair, bonded as all hell, and we’d only calmed them down after a couple of our volunteers and I took down a wall between two of the largest box stalls and let them stay in there together.
They’d been handled, but were scared of loud noises and sudden movements, like many of our horses were in the beginning. They’d been getting better, but it might’ve been the atmosphere changing after the funeral that had slowed their progress.
What I wanted to do was to take them to the indoor arena and just hang out with them. It meant taking them through the yard and today didn’t seem to be quiet enough for that, especially not without another set of hands to help me.
Instead of going to them yet, I went to the tack room to finish sorting out some bits and bobs I’d been putting off because it was annoying as hell. The crap crate, like a volunteer had started to call the plastic bin at some point, was where everyone tossed the random things that they didn’t want to throw into the trash—that bin was on the opposite corner.
