She nodded. “Come on, baby, breakfast for good boys.” Her voice didn’t quite have her normal singsong tone, but it was close enough that Rain followed her across the pen. When she hung the bucket on the fence holder, she pulled her hand from Rain’s mane. The stallion nudged her shoulder gently, a soft whicker rumbling in his chest, and dipped his nose into the bucket.
“Well done,” Rowan said softly. “Leave him to it. If he doesn’t eat it all, we try a different way at dinner time.”
“Okay.” She blew out a shaky breath and followed him into the tack room.
“Your domain, for now.” Rowan’s voice was a low rumble. He nudged a large, rectangular plastic tub overflowing with leatherwork toward the sturdy wooden workbench that dominated the center of the small room. Bridles, reins, breast collars. “Hal’s been… distracted.” He didn’t elaborate, but the slight tightening around his eyes spoke volumes. Distracted likely meant overwhelmed, or maybe just fed up with cleaning tack nobody else seemed to care about. “Start with that pile.”
“I can do that.”
“Glycerin soap.” He tapped a green block sitting beside a deep metal sink against the far wall. “Sponges. Brushes. Neatsfoot oil. Warm water, not hot. Scrub in circles. Rinse clean. Dry thoroughly. Oil, while it’s still slightly damp. Don’t drown it.” His instructions were clipped and devoid of the anxious hovering that had defined her life for the past three months. He pointed to a tall stool tucked under the bench. “Use that. Take the weight off that ankle.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over her, assessing her readiness for the task. “Questions?”
Enya shook her head, the movement jerky. Her throat felt tight. The sheervolumeof the task was suddenly overwhelming, a physical manifestation of the mess inside her head. But underneath the panic fluttering like a trapped bird against her ribs, something else stirred. A faint, almost forgotten hum of purpose. “No. I got it.”
The corners of his lips lifted in what she suspected was a rare smile. “Good. Hal or I’ll check in later.” And then he was gone, the heavy barn door sighing shut behind him, leaving her alone with the silence and the smell of leather and the monumental pile of dirty tack.
She limped to the sink and turned on the faucet. The pipes groaned, then spat out a stream of water. She adjusted it to warm and picked up the block of glycerin soap. It was smooth, heavy, and smelled faintly of pine. She wet a sponge, worked up a thick, creamy lather.
She reached into the tangled mess in the tub and pulled out a bridle. The crownpiece was crusted with old sweat and dirt, and the reins were stiff and unyielding. This… this was exactly what she needed. Rain, and to go back to basics, to rebuild her world from the ground up.
One filthy bridle at a time.
She carried it to the workbench, dragged the stool out, and perched on the edge and got to work.
Scrub. Circle. Scrub.
The rhythmic wet rasp of sponge on leather and the drip of water into the bucket below filled the room. It pushed back the heavier silence, creating a bubble of focus around her and the bridle in her hands. Her world narrowed to the patch of leather under the sponge, the transformation from grimy neglect to something cleaner, revealed inch by stubborn inch.
Memories flickered into her mind like an old film reel of being maybe twelve and kneeling on the rubber matting of her parents’ barn aisle, meticulously cleaning her first real barrel racing saddle. Her small hands had worked the soap into the intricate tooling, her father’s patient voice guiding her.“Gentle, baby girl. Like you’re petting Bo-Bo. Let the soap do the work. See? It’s coming alive again.”
She focused on the feel of the sponge, the grit under her fingernails, the rhythmicscritch-scritch-scritchthat anchored her to this moment, this task.
Scrub. Circle. Scrub.
The stiff, grimy leather gradually yielded to the warm soap and the persistent circles of the sponge. The dark brown mud gave way to a richer, warmer hue. She rinsed each section under the warm tap, watching the dirty water swirl down the drain, taking some of the clinging heaviness inside her with it. She patted each piece dry with a clean, rough towel someone had left there for that purpose and felt the texture change beneath her touch, becoming a little less brittle and a little more receptive.
Kinda like me.
She worked until her shoulders screamed and her hands were pruny and red from the warm water. She worked through the pile in the tub, one piece at a time. A tight martingale, a pair of reins that had been stiff as boards. A breastplate crusted with dried mud. Each piece was a challenge, and each transformation a small, silent victory.
By the time the pile of clean, supple leather grew on the other side of the bench, and the pile of neglected mess shrank, her hands ached, her ankle throbbed, and she was exhausted. Her borrowed clothes were damp with sweat and splashed with soapy water. But as she stood there, breathing in the scent of a job done well done, of leather brought back from the trash can, a single, clear thought pierced the fog that had filled her head for months.
I did that.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rowan wandered into the kitchen,glanced at the clock, and wrinkled his nose. “Why the heck is it always 3:17 AM?”
“You might want to change the batteries.”
Shit.
He whirled around and glared at Enya. “I didn’t hear you coming down the hall.”
“That’s because I was in the living room with Trident.” Enya leaned against the doorway, her frame swallowed by the oversized hoodie she’d borrowed from him weeks ago and never given back. The fabric hung loose around her wrists, the cuffs rolled up haphazardly, as if she’d dressed in a hurry—or in the dark. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes, deep and violet-tinged. Her hair, usually pulled back in a tight braid, was a mess of loose waves, some strands clinging to the dampness at her temples. But her gaze was sharp, unnervingly so as if she knew of the horrors he was avoiding in his dreams.
“What, no Frog or cat tonight?” That surprised him as almost every night for the last three weeks, Enya, the dogs, and thekitten Gael had kept despite his protests, had curled themselves up on the couch, passing the darkest part of the night by watching the fire burn down to Embers.
“He and Poppy went to bed with Gael.” She padded into the kitchen and opened the cupboard. She surprised him by pulling out two glasses instead of the usual mugs for hot chocolate they’d been having about this time each night. “Tonight might be a night for something a little stronger than I am.”
