His vivid blue gaze locked onto her eyes at last, and even in the dim of the barn she could see that intensity in his expression that made him seem like his carefully guarded emotions were about to boil over.
“Why?” he asked, tilting his head, his tone slightly sharp. “Are you going to make it better?”
But she didn’t take in his words because she had just gotten close enough to see that his hands were wrapped in rags.
“Dalton, what happened?” she asked, reaching out for his wrists. “This is from the boxes, isn’t it?”
He didn’t have to answer for her to know she was right. Obviously, he’d been out here all day without gloves, without help, without taking breaks, and he’d torn his hands to shreds.
And when they started to bleed, instead of taking care of himself, he’d wrapped them in rags and kept going.
“Why?” she asked softly.
But he didn’t answer, and when she looked up, his eyes were on the barn door, over her shoulder.
So he’s not going to talk to me,she thought to herself.It’s nothing more than I deserve for cutting off our friendship these last few weeks.
“Let’s clean you up,” she said, her mom-side taking over. “Come on.”
But he stood stubbornly in place.
“I don’t want your parents to worry about it,” he said gruffly.
“We’ve got a first aid kit out here,” she told him. “And there’s a sink in the old tack room. Come on.”
“Why do you have a tack room?” he grumbled, lettinghimself be led away from the boxes at last. “You have one pony.”
“My grandparents had horses,” she told him, hoping to distract him long enough to get him properly taken care of. “I always wished my parents had kept that tradition going. But I guess horses are a lot of work, even Goldie.”
She pulled the chain to turn on the bulb in the tack room, and she swore she caught the faint ghost of leather and citrus from back in the days when her grandparents cleaned the horses’ gear every day in the little room. Nowadays, Dove just scrambled up on Goldie bareback from time to time. The pony wore nothing but a nylon halter.
“Makes sense,” Dalton said, nodding. “I guess it is a lot of work to take care of horses.”
“You grew up kind of the opposite of this, I guess,” she laughed weakly.
“Exactly the opposite,” he told her.
“So, not on a family farm?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said, his voice a little warmer than before. “I would have loved all this.”
“What would you have loved about it?” she asked.
She expected him to say the wide-open spaces or the beautiful views. That was normally what city people said about Trinity Falls—they liked that it was picturesque, or that you felt like you could throw your arms out and take a real breath here.
“Hard work, good food, family all around,” he said. “Anyone would love it.”
“Wow,” she said softly, grabbing the first aid kit downfrom the wall.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t think a lot of kids would puthard workhigh up on the list of things to be grateful for,” she said, digging through the kit for everything she needed.
“Kids need something to do,” he said. “Dove likes to work at the farmers market.”
“That’s true,” Ella said, nodding.
“You didn’t like to work on the farm?” he asked.
