He led her into the back barn, which had seen a remodel since the last time she’d been here. The stall walls were all new, with chalkboards hanging beside each one to hold the horse’s name.
“Paintbrush,” she read aloud as he opened the stall door. A beautiful horse greeted him with a snuffle and a huff. He was tall and the color of cream, except for a few markings in red along his hooves and tail, as if he’d stepped in paint.
Darren explained that he’d earned the horse on a ranch in Nevada and hauled him all the way here in a rented trailer and truck. He obviously loved the horse, and the horse loved him.
Farrah stoked his neck. “He’s beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
“I used to have a horse named Evita,” she said, her mind flowing back to the black mare easily. “She was the best jumper. She could go over anything, into anything. She was fearless.”
Like Farrah was trying to be.
She sighed and turned her back to the stalls, leaning into the wood. “I sold her to a girl just younger than me when I quit.”
Darren tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, a loving, gentle gesture that nearly undid Farrah’s composure. “Why did you quit?”
Fear kept Farrah’s vocal cords silent. She didn’t want to tell him, while at the same time she hoped telling someone would free her from the chains she’d been wearing for so long.
“Come on.” She took his hand again and led him out of the barn and toward the show arena. “My parents never missed an event,” she said. “My dad drove me everywhere and anywhere I needed to go.” Her tongue only tripped slightly on the wordsmy dad. She didn’t think Darren noticed. “We used to live in Island Park, so we had our own pastures and barns and stables.”
They passed the storage shed which used to hold equipment and winter feed. She reached the fence that separated the hay fields from the show stadium and put one foot on the bottom rung.
“I rode and showed and won for a couple of years after high school. I thought I was going to be a champion rider and then a breeder. I thought I’d work at Steeple Ridge, and live in Island Park, forever.” She released his hand and leaned her elbows on the top of the fence.
Darren smartly gave her a few inches of space as he gazed out into the show arena too.
“Then one day, after I’d won an event that put me in the top qualifiers for a national championship, my father and I were the last ones here. He brought me right here.” Her throat narrowed, and Farrah closed her eyes to relive the short conversation they’d had.
She turned to break the memory threatening to crush the life out of her. “He told me that he wasn’t my real father. That my mother wasn’t my biological mother. That they hadn’t been able to have children, and that I was adopted.”
Farrah drew in a deep breath, her eyes never leaving Darren’s. To his credit, he didn’t gasp or sigh or react other than to breathe with her.
“I had no idea. I looked like my father. I acted like my mother. Everyone commented on it all the time. But I suddenly felt…lost. Alone. Abandoned.” Her chest shuddered. “Completely unwanted and unloved, though it makes no sense. My parents had showered me with love, given me anything I wanted.”
She absently rubbed her hands up and down her arms, and Darren took her into a warm embrace. “I started questioning everything. Who I was. What I really liked. Where I’d come from. Ineededto know.” She sighed into his chest, the solid security of it like a balm to her weary soul. “So I quit riding. It was something I thought me and my dad shared because of genetics, but it wasn’t. I went to college for a couple of years, and then I decided to try acting.”
“Across the country,” he murmured.
“My real father was a producer,” she said. “I’d tracked him down enough to know that.”
“Did you find him?”
She nodded, the tears gathering in her eyes now. She was proud she’d held them back for so long. “And he didn’t want me.” Her emotion spilled over and tears splashed down her cheeks. She shrugged, though nothing about what she was saying was inconsequential.
Farrah pulled in a ragged breath and clung to Darren. “I felt abandoned when I learned I was adopted. Like my own parents didn’t love me enough to keep me. And the parents whohadadopted me didn’t trust me enough to tell me I wasn’t theirs. And when I met my biological father, and he….” She shook her head and pulled away from him. Pulled out of his comforting embrace. Pulled back all the emotion she’d allowed to leak out.
“I am unlovable,” she said. “Unwanted. And I don’t believe anyone will ever love me or want me.” Her breath shuddered as he started to shake his head, his dark eyes ablaze with something she couldn’t quite name. “I’m broken, Darren. My dad broke me, right here by this fence.” She gestured to the whole of Steeple Ridge Farm behind Darren. “This place broke me, and that’s why I don’t ride horses anymore, and why I can’t come here and be with you.”
“Farrah,” he started, but she shook her head.
“So I’m sorry,” she continued. “I’m sorry for ever letting you think we could be together. I shouldn’t have gone out with you at all, and for that, I’m so, so sorry.” She hoped the depth of her apology could be heard in her tone so he would know she had never meant to hurt him.
“I have to go.”
“Don’t go.” His voice was made of air and agony.
“I’m sorry,” she said again before giving in to the insatiable urge to leave this farm and never come back.
