“Come on. I’ll give you the anticlimactic tour.”
I take the lead, following the less-worn path. The terrain evens out to an open field surrounded by small hills. The old barn sits in the distance, still in decent shape. It’s not used for anything now, but Daddy made sure it wasn’t a hazard.
“My best friends, Bea and Shiloh, and I used to bring sleeping bags and enough junk food to feed an army out here in the summers and sleep in the barn.” I don’t know why I’m telling her. She didn’t ask, and she probably doesn’t care. “Bea’s older brother, Cillian, and his best friend, Clayton, used to sneak over here from Reclamation Ranch and scare us. Bea and Shiloh were much braver than I was and always had to talk me down. They always got the boys back, though.”
A smile tugs at my lips as I recall the time when we were fourteen, and Bea ripped into Clayton for scaring me. I was so terrified that there was a ghost because they’d hooked a fishing line up to my sleeping bag and were moving it around. Bea got Clayton back by switching his toothpaste for hydrocortisone cream.
“Sounds like you have some good friends. Were they at the bar on Friday?”
“Shiloh was. That’s who I was sitting with: her, Clay, and Cillian. Bea… Bea never wanted to stay in Copper Creek. She had the itch to travel. She and Shiloh went off to school in the city, where she met her boyfriend, and then she moved to Austin with him. I haven’t heard from her in a while.”
Addison hums in acknowledgment. “Sometimes it’s hard to go back home after you’ve been away for a while.”
“Know that from experience?”
“Yeah. I had the itch to run, too. That’s why I loved barrel racing. I got to travel and never had to stay put for too long.”
She says it like she’s not going to barrel race anymore. Am I allowed to ask why? We don’t know each other like that, and I don’t want to overstep my bounds, but my curiosity for this woman knows no boundaries.
“Why did you stop racing?”
Addison’s eyes flick to mine, and her jaw sets.
Damn it, I shouldn’t have asked. I should have kept my mouth shut or changed topics. Now I’ve gone and undone any progress we’d made.
I’m about to apologize for overstepping when she speaks. “I was working at an equine boarding center after I’d won first at a big rodeo in Colorado. I wanted to give my horse, Artemis, a little time to relax before we started training for the next season. Anyway, there was a leak in one of the stalls, so they had to move her to one of the outside pens, and the horse she was with got spooked or something—no one could tell me exactly what happened—and started raging.”
I can already predict where the story is going, and my stomach sinks. I search Addison’s face for any sign of tears or distress, but she keeps her expression schooled, almost like she’s numb.
“Artemis was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Her breath stutters like the words get stuck in her throat. It sounds like she wants to cry, but I doubt she feels safe enough to do that here and now with me. “The other horse kicked her right above her front right knee and snapped it in half.”
I stop Daffodil and turn her so I can sidle up next to Addison. Hesitantly, I place my hand on her thigh. “You don’t have to say the next part. I’ve been around horses my whole life. I can deduce what happened. I’m so sorry, Addison. That must have been absolutely devastating.”
She interlocks our fingers, rubbing her thumb over the knuckle of my pinky. I can’t tell if she’s trying to comfort herself or comfort me, but I can’t deny how much I enjoy touching her in this way. My heart is set to burst, from sadness for her for losingArtemis, from elation that she’s opening up to me, and from the feeling that the end of this season is bound to be one of the hardest when she leaves.
“Thank you. It was hard. I tried to race with another horse, but I’d been racing with Artemis since I was old enough to know I wanted to. We were so in sync. I swear she knew the barrels better than I did. It’s not the same without her, and I don’t want to race with just any horse, you know? I want to find one I connect with on a deeper level.” She huffs out a small laugh through her nose. “That probably sounds crazy.”
“Not at all.” My eyes are drawn to Athena. “I think taking the time to find a horse that you can bond with is good.”
Addison picked Athena on her first day here, and they’ve been like two peas in a pod ever since.
“You don’t think that my not racing for two years because I don’t want to race a random horse is ridiculous? Everyone else thinks so.”
“The only person who matters in this situation is you, Addison. Fuck what anyone else thinks.”
She gives me a droll look. “Aren’t you the one who gets anxious over what everyone else thinks?”
Heat suffuses my cheeks, and I want to blame the sun, but the clouds are covering it.Shit.“I never said I followed my own advice.”
I swear, a smirk pulls at the corner of her mouth. I don’t know if she wants to say something else, but a clap of thunder interrupts right before rain sprinkles down around us.
“Let’s get to the barn before it gets worse,” I nudge Daffodil with my heels, urging her toward the barn with Athena and Addison on our heels.
By the time I get the door open and we’re all inside, my hair is wet, and the rain’s no longer a light sprinkle but a full-on downpour. I don’t remember the weather calling for rain, but my mind was preoccupied with other things. Maybe I misread the report.
Daddy keeps a small stock of hay and emergency provisions in here because he knows this is a place I come to if I need even more space than my small home allows. We lead Daffodil and Athena into the makeshift stalls and give them a late afternoon snack before we lay out the blanket Addison packed to eat ours.
Another clap of thunder has me jumping, my hand landing on Addison’s. I didn’t realize we were so close. The static from the blanket causes a spark to burst between us.
