I waited for the trailers to turn the bend before I trotted back down the steps. Oscar and Saoirse, who’d been lazing on the porch swings, flanked me on either side, rubbing their coarse fur against my palms.
Cash was leaning against the door frame of the barn, typing something on his phone when I approached.
“Sorry for not signing for them,” I told him, my eyes quickly adjusting to the dim light of the barn.
The stall we’d put the goats in earlier was quiet, all of the terrified goats having relaxed over the course of the day.
Towards the back of the barn I could hear soft snorting and grunting as the mares acclimated to their new space.
Cash finished his text before finally looking up at me. His eyes seemed deeper tonight, like I could swim in their quicksilver depths if I only had the courage to. “I don’t blame you, these two are going to be a lot to handle—even for me.”
“I’ve never seen traumatized horses before,” I admitted, my gaze moving from his back to the stall where the mares were being housed. “It’s a little bit scary.”
“Trauma can be detrimental, but now that they are out of that situation in a safe place we can start helping them to heal,” Cash said and I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the horses or me. Sometimes it was like Cash could see right through me down to the damaged marrow of my soul. As if he could see my entire past.
Then he gently reached for me, sliding the tips of his finger under my palm before wrapping them around my hand completely.
Over the past couple of days Cash had been very careful not to touch me, even going as far as giving me a wide berth when we were both in his tiny kitchen. But now his cool gray skin slid against mine as he led me to the back of the barn.
Despite his cooler temperature, I realized that his skin onlylookedlike stone. In reality it was soft and smooth.
The contact made my heart race and then immediately slow down in the strangest way. One of Cash’s fingers rested on the inside of my wrist, could he feel it?
Turning my attention to the mares, I watched as they stared at us with big sad eyes that seemed to mirror the look that I sometimes saw in my own eyes. They were too skinny, the edges of their ribs visible underneath their spotty coats.
“What did the farmer do to them?” I asked, wishing I could go into the stall and wrap my arms around their necks and whisper that they would be okay. The starvation from the farmer’s children was one thing, but the scars covering their bodies came from years of abuse.
Cash sighed, leaning against the stall door and resting his elbows on the top of it. “As far as I can tell, he overworked them and when they didn’t respond to his commands he used a whip.”
My lip curled with disgust, thinking about all of the times when I didn’t manage to clean the house to Mike’s white-glove standards. My body shuddered at the memory of the slaps and venomous words.
Cash, seeing my expression, used his shoulder to give mine a gentle nudge. Something had definitely changed after his gargoyle client this afternoon and now he definitely wasn’t wary of physical contact.
“You want to help me with them?” he asked, his normally neutral expression shifting into something more hopeful.
I glanced between him and the mares, unsure of what he was asking of me. “How would I be able to help them?”
I didn’t know much about trauma and horses. What if I did something to make one of them worse?
“I can teach you, it’s not super hard. It just takes consistency and a level of understanding—sometimes hurt people can help hurt animals, kindred spirits and all that,” Cash said softly.
His words made me stiffen and I whirled to face him, a question already on my lips, but he stopped me.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, dragonfly, but I think you and these mares could maybe help each other.” Cash gave me one last nudge before turning and heading for the door, calling over his shoulder: “Supper will take about twenty minutes or so to whip up.”
With that he left me alone in the barn.
I nibbled on my lower lip, forcing the sickening desire to pack up and catch the first bus out of town back down. I knew Cash could see right through me, but his words still made me panic.
“You’re safe, you’re safe, you’re safe,” I whispered to the empty air of the barn. “Mike can’t find you here.”
I stood for what felt like forever, my vision blurring as I worked to calm myself until a soft whinny brought my attention back to the two horses in the stall.
The first one, a butter colored horse with big brown eyes, was standing face to face with me. It was like she could hear the raging storm of my thoughts and was trying to comfort me despite the fact that she was in much worse shape than I was.
“I guess Cash was right,” I whispered to her, wishing I could reach out and stroke her nose without worrying about reaction. “We really must be kindred spirits.”
I knew staying in one spot for very long, especially in such a small town, was a bad idea. But the desire to learn more about the gargoyle who spent his days tattooing supernatural creatures and his nights caring for abused animals won out in the end.
