“You’re passionate about Harlow.” I direct my horse around a blackened tree trunk, likely charred from lightning. “Some of my preconceived notions from high school may not be so true anymore, and I can admit that. Places change. People change. And at the end of the day—at the end of everything, I trust you.”
And the sunny smile that spreads across Daisy’s face makes it worth it. I hate that I’m a sucker for that smile.
“So what you’re saying,” she says, her look turning mischievous, “is that my vagina convinced you.”
I don’t point out how she’s using humor to deflect talking with me more honestly, and I don’t ask if she washed the same load of laundry over and over to avoid running into me today, because my body has gone cold. All I can say is, “Daisy, stop.”
“Jeez, it’s a joke.”
“No,stop.” I reach over and yank on her reins, jerking her to a halt.
“What—” The unmistakable shake of a rattlesnake cuts her off. We’ve encountered a fat, coiled one sunning itself in the middle of the path.
“Back up,” I whisper to her, patting her hands into action. I haven’t seen a rattlesnake face-to-face in years, but I remember how to deal with snakes on the trail. Daisy and I move in slow motion, one step, then another, not losing sight of the snake. Then, behind us comes a crack—her horse’s leg gives out, and he makes a high-pitched whinny. I reach for Daze, but it’s too late—her horse rears, and she soars toward the gritty earth.
My heart flies out of my body at the sight of Daisy in a puddle on the ground. I dismount so fast I trip, which spooks the horses even more.
“Whoa,” I say, holding up my hands to calm them.
I kneel next to Daisy and call her name to no response. Panic rises in my throat, but I swallow it. Now’s not the time to lose it, and all those Boy Scout meetings my parents made me attend have officially come in handy.
When I scan for the snake, I catch its tail end slithering away. I fight every instinct in me and leave Daisy’s side, fetching the reins for the horses to secure them to a large branch on the side of the trail, before grabbing the satphone. As I head over to Daisy, she’s lifting her upper body, and her eyes quiver open.
“Hey.” I rush to rest a firm hand on her shoulder, preventing her from moving around. “You fell, but you’re safe. I’m gonna call 911.”
“Holy shit.”
“Stay calm.”
“I just fell off a horse, Max, nothing about me is calm!”
“I know.” I ditch the phone to grab her head in both my hands, steadying her skull and forcing her to focus solely on me. “But I need you to listen to me, okay?”
She blinks a few times in rapid succession, finally whispering an “Okay” in response.
An anxious pit forms in my stomach seeing her less stubborn than her usual self.
“Do you remember what happened?” I ask.
“I f-fell.”
Her pupils look normal for the amount of sunlight right now. I give her my sunglasses anyway, since she’s wincing from the sun overhead.
“You passed out,” I say.
“How long?”
“Ten seconds, maybe.” It may as well have been an eternity.
“That’s not bad.”
“It was ten seconds too long.” I rest a palm on her cheek and stroke it with my thumb. The sooner I get her to a doctor, the better. “Do you know where you are?” I ask.
“The ranch. It’s like,” she says, waving her hand to our left, “literally right over there.”
I’m about to make the phone call, but I look in the direction she pointed. We’re close enough to the stables that a corner of a building appears down the path. If I want Daisy to be seen by a medical professional as soon as possible, I’m better off driving her myself, if she’s okay to move. An ambulance might take a while, half an hour even, and I’d rather not have her cooking in the sunlight with a concussion when she could be getting help in the emergency room.
“How’s your neck?”
