“Yeah. A few years later. I was…almost fourteen I think. I didn’t want a horse anymore by that point. I’d grown out of the phase and I knew that I had to study hard if I was going to go to college, because I’d need the scholarships because my parents wouldn’t pay once they found out…” Lake trailed off.
That he was queer. It made me angry to even think about it. “What happened?”
“My dad had gotten a good deal from someone who didn’t want the horse anymore. It was this quarter cross, they’d used him at some shitty farm until he just stopped. He didn’t want to be saddled, didn’t want anything to do with humans. But he was easily led in a lead rope so the guy who sold him fooled my dad.” Lake sighed and walked to the hay bales piled nearby. He sat down and continued. “I must’ve spent hours sitting in his stall in the corner of this old barn we had at home. I studied.”
“You got him used to you,” I murmured.
“Yeah. I remembered Aunt Ruth mentioning that when we came here. Like how you could let a horse get used to you by just being around a lot.”
“Did you ever ride him?”
Lake chuckled, a fond expression coming over his features. “Yeah, twice. He bucked me off both times. Never told my parents, I didn’t want them to punish him. He was done with that life.”
That was how some horses were, especially the older ones, or the ones that had been used to within an inch of their life by humans who didn’t see them as anything but tools.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but asked anyway. “What happened to him?”
“Of all things, he broke his leg while on his pasture. Stumbled on something I guess, stepped wrong or in a hole. I…I didn’t wait and see. I ran.”
“Jesus,” I breathed.
“I can’t think about it much. I can still remember the sound of the leg snapping.” Lake’s eyes filled with tears and he grimaced. “I ran to the neighbor because he had a rifle. It was faster than trying to get a vet there.”
Now I felt rotten. I’d judged Lake too harshly. I swallowed hard. “How old were you?”
“I had him about a year and a half, so close to fifteen.” Lake wiped his eyes. “The neighbor who put him down wanted to take him to feed to his dogs.”
“Holy fuck.”
Lake made a sound I couldn’t really interpret. “Yeah. So I said no, and I used some of my savings from birthdays and such to hire another neighbor with machinery to dig a hole at the edge of our property to bury him there.” He looked angry as fuck when he added, “Because my dad was ready to have him chopped up for dog food.”
I felt like my initial assessment of Lake’s father had been right. Even though I’d of course been affected by Ruth’s opinion of her brother, the way the man had felt to me had been all wrong. All…self-centered and not caring about anyone else’s opinion. Only what he could get out of them.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that as a kid,” I finally murmured, realizing we’d both fallen into our own thoughts.
“When I came out a few years later, right after graduation, they kicked me out. I ended up leaving town instead of going to college, and I took all my savings and started over in New York City. Not that it got me far, but you know…” Lake’s eyes shuttered, he became guarded, and Theo could tell he wasn’t going to talk about what had happened then.
“But you met River and then Rey, and you now have this place.” I gestured around them.
“For the time being, at least. I don’t know what to do with it, Theo.”
My heart constricted with conflicting emotions. In the end, I just said, “We’ll figure it out. There’s a lot to talk about. Lots of things you have to take into consideration.”
Lake nodded, then locked his determined gaze with mine. “Wehave to take into consideration. You’re the expert here.”
“Everyone’ll pitch in with opinions. We have a couple of volunteers who have stuck around for years. Sierra is a professional, and she did a lot of the fundraising with Ruth, and we have Hudson, too.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Lake parroted his earlier words back to me, then smiled slightly, holding out his hand. “Truce?”
I chuckled and rubbed the back of my neck, then extended my hand to shake Lake’s. “Truce.”
Chapter 5
Lake
I couldn’t believe I’d talked about Perry to Theo like that. I never mentioned that day, what had happened to my beloved, slightly ornery horse. Then again, it had led to an understanding of sorts, and that was definitely what we needed, what Twin Star needed.
We talked a little about the draft siblings’ training, if you could call it that. Theo admitted he’d dropped the ball and that he needed to figure out something else for them.
