She’d walked away last night. Hadn’t said a single word to him during dinner. Darren felt like his heart was being broken all over again, and he wondered how many more cracks he could sustain before the thing would stop beating altogether.
“C’mon,” he said to the horse. He needed to turn away from the sight of Farrah on that horse, and he hoped Alaska would simply come with him. Slate had taken four steps when Darren heard Alaska begin walking too.
She fell into place on Slate’s left flank, and Darren led her back to the corral without throwing his rope at all. Corey dialed her phone as soon as she saw them, and Jim arrived just as Darren closed the gate behind them, Alaska properly contained.
Darren swung off Slate and flipped the reins over the top rung of the fence. He turned his attention to Alaska and started brushing her down, the horse’s eyes falling halfway closed. He wanted to lecture her, pour out his frustration with Farrah to her, but he let the words come out silently in in every brush stroke.
With her properly cared for, he let Slate into the stable too. Farrah stood a couple of stalls down, her hands stroking Featherwing’s neck. Darren scoffed and turned away. He couldn’t even speak to her right now, and he didn’t turn back when she called after him.
As he jumped back into his truck and got out of there, he thought maybe he finally understood how Farrah had felt, why she hadn’t been able to talk to him, after he’d submitted her name for the flag bearer in the parade.
He slammed on the brakes and threw the truck in park. He marched back down the street and right back into the stable. “I’m sorry, okay?” His voice echoed through the building, startling even himself. Farrah turned toward him, her cowgirl hat bathing her face in shadows.
“I said it a dozen times back in May, and I still mean it. I’m sorry I pushed you to ride in the parade.” But she should see herself atop a horse. She was beautiful and magnificent and it was clear she belonged in the saddle. Why couldn’t she see that? Why didn’t she want it?
Farrah took a step toward him, but he backed up to keep the distance between them.
“I hated seeing you on that horse,” he said, bitterness in every syllable. “Why—How—Why can you ride here and you won’t come to Steeple Ridge?” Pure agony carried in his question, amplified with every second that passed. And passed. And passed.
Unbelievable. She still wasn’t going to talk to him, really tell him what was going on with her. Darren ground his teeth together, willing her to say something.Anything.
He finally shook his head. “Whatever, Farrah.” He stepped to the door and practically ripped it off its hinges. “Idon’t want to talk toyouanymore.” His statement couldn’t be further from the truth, but he couldn’t keep opening his heart to this woman only to get it sliced and diced into bite-sized pieces.
He hated this cycle he and Farrah seemed to be in. This anger was only the first step. Then he’d withdraw for days, maybe even weeks. During that separation, he’d soften and forgive her, and then he’d try to get close to her again. Then she’d say or do something—ornotsay or not do something he wished she would—and his frustration would get the better of him and he’d walk away from her again.
“Time for a clean break,” he told himself as he reached his truck and fired up the engine. Totally clean.
If only he could figure out how to purge Farrah and all the memories they’d shared as easily as he could drive away from the stable where she still hid.
chapter
six
Idon’t wantto talk to you anymore.
Darren’s words lashed her insides with hot tar. Just as quickly as that pain came, more of what he’d said made her muscles cramp.
I hated seeing you on that horse.
Her body hadn’t particularly liked it either. Holding herself upright in the saddle required muscles she hadn’t used in a long time. But Jim and Corey had wormed their way into a soft spot in her heart, and when his prized horse had gotten out, Farrah hadn’t even hesitated.
It was nice to know that saddling and swinging onto a horse was like riding a bike. Though she hadn’t done it for a dozen years, she still knew how. Her fingers still knew exactly what to do.
She finally managed to move her feet enough to get her out of the stable. Darren was long gone. So were Jim and Corey. Farrah felt the same way she had those twelve years ago when she walked away from Steeple Ridge, vowing never to return.
Deflated. Defeated. Depleted.
Darren wanted to ride with her so badly, share his farm life with her so much, and she’d denied him that. She hadn’tunderstood until ten minutes ago, with his handsome face contorted with pure agony, his questions lifting into the rafters, how much she’d hurt him by refusing to go out to Steeple Ridge.
But how could she explain to him what had happened there? She didn’t talk about it with anyone—she never had. She’d bottled everything up and left Island Park for college in another state.
She slid into her car, her muscles tight tight tight, and her mind whirling. So she’d need to adjust to horseback riding again. She’d realized after only a moment in the saddle how natural it felt. How much more like herself she felt. How big of a piece of herself she’d thrown away all those years ago.
“Who cares that Paul Fletcher wasn’t your real father?” she asked herself as she started the ignition. She sat in the idling car, contemplating where she should go. To Burlington, where her mom and dad lived? But not her biological parents. The thought still brought a pinprick of breathlessness to her lungs.
To Steeple Ridge, where the only man who’d ever made her feel loved was probably storming around, saddling his own horse so he could escape into the forests beyond the farm and try to forget the argument he’d just had with her?
She backed away from the stable and set the car down the dirt lane back to the highway. Farrah usually smiled as she passed the Bybee’s Botanical Farm sign, with the slogan “From Scales to Strawberries” along the bottom.
