Amy fidgeted a little, winced, and then spoke. “I was on this warmblood mare who was the most amazing jumper. Seriously, this horse won every title in the book shy of an Olympic medal. Once she got past the initial training, she never refused a jump. Never.”
“Why do I get the feeling she broke that streak?”
Amy nodded, rolling her eyes. “God, did she ever. We went to this show, and she had just nailed every course so far. She’d won every class, and all we had left was the championship. Last jump of the last course…she refuses.” Amy sighed. “And of course, I’d long since started taking it for granted that she’d go over any jump I pointed her at, and she waited until the last possible second to refuse it, so I was so not expecting it.”
“So what happened?”
“She stopped, and I kept going.” Amy fidgeted a little, quite possibly shuddering at the memory. “I went right into the jump, took out half the poles and landed on my neck.”
I pulled in a breath. “Oh, ow…”
“Yeah. Upshot is, I got to ride in a helicopter for the first time.”
“They airlifted you?” I whistled. “Wow, you must have been in bad shape.”
“Real bad,” she said. “I don’t even remember the helicopter or any of that.”
“So how bad was it? Obviously you didn’t wind up dead or paralyzed, but…”
“I cracked my collarbone and a few ribs and had one hell of a concussion,” she said. “But my spine was fine. I was out of the saddle for a few weeks, and couldn’t jump until the vertigo cleared up three or four months later, but all things considered? I’ll take it.”
“No kidding.” Lust was definitely taking a backseat tonight, making way for the knowledge that if she’d landed just a little differently, maybe just a little harder or at a slightly different angle, she wouldn’t be here. I’d never have known her at all, and that was something I simply couldn’t fathom tonight. I cleared my throat. “Well, now you know why I think you jumpers are insane.”
Amy laughed. “This from the man who nearly broke his neck catching a running steer with a piece of string? At least jumps don’t move.”
“Okay, fair enough,” I said, chuckling, “but you fall a lot farther going over a six-foot jump than you do chasing a cow.”
“At least we wear helmets.”
“Says the woman who got a concussion anyway.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Good thing I was wearing it, then, isn’t it, cowboy?”
“Touché.” I laughed. “I could tell you more stories. Believe me, I have a few, and at least three ended with ambulance rides.”
“Any helicopters?”
“Nope.”
She gave a haughty sniff. “Amateur.”
I laughed. “Well, do me a favor. Don’t sign up for any helicopter rides while you’re here, all right?”
She saluted with two fingers. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good. I’ve got ice on standby, but it takes about thirty minutes at best for an ambulance to get here. Just so you know.”
“Now you tell me.” She adjusted her icepack. Her expression turned more serious, and she met my eyes. “So do you think we can get Blue back under saddle? I mean, do you think he’ll ever take a rider without…” She gestured at the two packs.
“Eventually. I’ve worked with horses way worse off than him with good results.” I carefully adjusted the icepack on her leg. “You just never know what it’s going to take for a given horse to have that breakthrough.”
Amy sat up a little, pulling in a hiss of breath through her teeth as she tried to move her leg. “Well, give me a few days to walk all this off, and I’ll be happy to keep working with him.”
I nodded. “Great. He seems to really like you.” I hesitated, and my heart sank a little as I quietly added, “Except you’re not planning on staying here forever. We both know that.”
“I know.” She thumbed the edge of her icepack. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve clicked with a horse like this. And it seems like he’s so close to…something. Some kind of breakthrough. I kind of feel like I owe it to him to see this through, you know?”
“I’d be thrilled if you did.” Even if every day you’re here drives me a little crazier. “You’ve come farther with him than I would have in the same amount of time.”
Amy said nothing.
I watched her silently for a moment, searching her expression for something I wasn’t even sure I could define. Then, “You really haven’t connected to a horse like this in a while, have you?”
Slowly, she shook her head. “I can’t even remember the last time I did.” Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the pillows. “I hate even having to admit that.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I said. “Burnout happens.”
“It wasn’t just burnout,” she whispered and opened her eyes again. “It’s what happens when you do what you love as a profession and let yourself forget why you loved it in the first place.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “Believe me, I’ve been afraid of that happening for a long time.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about.”
“What do you mean?”
A slight smile curved her lips. “Dustin, I’ve watched you work with the horses. You don’t have dollar signs in your eyes whenever you see them.”
“Did you?”
“No.” She sighed. “But I was married to someone who did, and I think I let myself get caught up in it.”
“Mind if I ask something personal?”
“Go ahead.”
“What was your marriage to Sam like?” I asked. “In the beginning, I mean.”
Amy sighed. “It was never great,” she said. “Not as bad as it was the last few years, but…”
“Why did you marry him?”
She sank deeper into the pillows and looked up at the ceiling. “At the risk of sounding like a spineless wimp who can’t make her own decisions, because I felt like I had no choice.”
“How do you mean?”
She took a deep breath, wincing and trying to get comfortable as she did. “Sam had the business expertise, I had the horse sense, and he was convinced that if we worked together, we could build the business we were both dreaming of. He had visions of building something from the ground up and turning it into something huge. I’d always dreamed of a state-of-the-art facility, horses as far as the eye could see, going to and winning national-level competitions.” She sighed. “And I think that was what we were both in love with, not each other. What we could create together as business partners, not what we could be together as husband and wife. I just—” She paused, lifting the ice pack off her elbow. “I think this one’s melted.”
“Yeah, this one’s warming up too.” I picked up the one off her leg and reached for the other. “Stay here, I’ll get a couple more.”
“Thanks,” she said.
I got up and went to the kitchen. While I was alone for a minute, I paused to collect my thoughts like I had in the tack room earlier. Talking about her husband like this, it didn’t sit quite well. Mostly because I wasn’t sure why I’d asked about him. To feel her out and figure out where she stood with his ghost? To figure out where I stood? Except we’d already established where everyone stood, and it should have been a moot point. It was a moot point. I thought it was, anyway. Didn’t I?
I am going out of my head. No two ways about it.
With two fresh ice packs in hand, I came back, handing one to her before taking my seat again and carefully pressing the second against her leg.
“Feeling any better?” I asked.
“A little.” She smiled. “Thank you, by the way.”
“Hey, my horse threw you into a fence,” I said. “Seems like the least I could do.”
She laughed. “Well, it’s much appreciated either way.”
“Any time.”
Her smile faded a little. “So, I was saying about Sam…”
“Right. Go on.”
Her eyes lost focus, but after a moment, she said, “Honestly, it wasn’t the way he treated me that made me resent him as much as I did. Yeah, I hated him when he did it, and I shouldn’t have tolerated it for as long as I did, and there’s no excuse for him ever laying a hand on me, but what made me really loathe him was what he did to my love of horses.”
“Is that right?”
Amy nodded. “Sam was obsessed with living out his dream of creating this successful business, and I became a cog in the machine of that dream. Whenever things weren’t going well, it was my fault, and I needed to work harder, and take on more clients, and turn out champions faster.” She rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. “Whatever it was, it was my fault. And after a few years, I didn’t just resent him, I resented the horses. They weren’t my dream anymore. They weren’t anything to me anymore. If anything, they were a means to making his dreams real. Then one day I realized I didn’t even resent them anymore. When I looked at them, I felt…nothing.” She looked at me, and in her eyes, where there hadn’t been anything but mild frustration after she’d been dumped over and over this afternoon, now there was a hint of extra wetness. “Nothing at all. And above everything else, I hated him for that.”
“Wow,” I whispered. “I can’t even imagine.”
She shifted against the cushions, swearing softly. Before I could ask if she wanted to change position to something more comfortable, she said, “So what made you start working with abused horses?”
I kept my gaze focused on the icepack in my hand. “Oh, it was kind of a natural progression.”
“How so?”
I moistened my lips. “You know that kid who brings home every injured bird? Or the guy who picks up a limping stray dog and takes it to the vet and shells out three hundred dollars to fix his leg?”
“That’s you?”
I nodded.
Amy smiled. “Pity there aren’t more guys like you. Especially in this business.”
My cheeks burned, and I laughed softly as I focused on the ice pack again. “Yeah, well, it’s not exactly good for business, but…I just can’t let an injured or traumatized animal go, you know?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, speaking softly, she said, “You don’t see many trainers who still have as much compassion for horses as you do.” When I looked up, I realized she was avoiding my eyes too, but she slowly raised her gaze and met mine as she added, “Seems like the business just sucks that right out of everyone.”
“Yeah, it can do that,” I said.
“Can I offer a word of advice?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Go ahead.”
“Don’t ever let the business take that from you,” she said, almost whispering. “Because you have no idea how difficult it is to get it back.”
Just as quietly, I said, “I’ll remember that.”
Chapter Nineteen
Amy
My leg was better today, but damn if that bruise on my elbow didn’t smart every time I moved it. Dustin checked on me constantly, asking how I was every time we passed anywhere on the farm, and I insisted I was okay, but Jesus, it was sore.
Once I was done feeding for the afternoon and had a little downtime, I decided to disappear into the house and put some ice on my arm while I had time to be out of sight. Good thing Dustin had given me a couple of packs to put in the freezer this morning, in spite of my insistence that I was fine. At least that meant I didn’t have to knock on his door and sheepishly ask if I could borrow them after all.
While I reclined on the sofa with an ice pack and a book, my phone vibrated. When I picked it up, my sister’s name on the caller ID simultaneously made me smile and unsettled my stomach.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, you,” she said. “Just checking up on you to make sure you haven’t gone off and joined the circus or something.”
I laughed. “No, I haven’t joined the circus. Actually, I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe I—”
“Do it, and I will hunt you down and drag you back here by your ear.”
“Okay, okay, I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“Pinky swear.”
“Good.”
“So,” I said, “things still going okay at the barn?”
“Pretty good, yeah,” she said. “But when are you coming back?”
I sighed and adjusted the icepack on my arm. “I’m not sure.”
“You sound a lot better. Like you’re not falling apart as much anymore.”
“I’m a lot better now,” I said. “A lot better.”
“I’m guessing things are going better there, wherever you are, than they were when you got there.”
I smiled. “Yeah. You could say that.”
“Oh?” Mariah paused. “Amy Lynn, what are you doing out there?”
“Um, well.” I smothered a giggle. “Well, okay, there’s something I kind of have to confess.”
“Oh?”
I gnawed my lower lip for a moment. “I…kind of met someone.”
Mariah was quiet for a moment. “You did?”
“Yeah. And he’s…oh, he’s amazing.” I closed my eyes. “Well, I mean, he is, but we sort of started, then backed off, and… God, now I don’t know what the hell we’re doing.”
“Oh, the on-again, off-again game?”
“Well, kind of.” I exhaled hard. “The thing is, I was afraid I was just grabbing on to the nearest warm body, and I didn’t want to use him like that, you know?”
“Not that I want to imagine my sister with any warm body, but okay.”
I snorted, heat rushing into my cheeks. “Sorry.”
She snickered. “Don’t worry about it. Honestly, I’m just glad to hear someone’s registered on your radar. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Which answers my question about why you still haven’t come home yet.” Her tone was playful and teasing but made me flinch nonetheless.
“Not…entirely.” I exhaled. “He’s not the only reason, I mean. I’m just still getting myself back together.”
“I’m just messing with you, baby,” she said. “I’ve got things under control here.” She paused. “To be honest, I think this has been good for me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She sounded almost shy now. “Curt’s still not happy about it, but he’s been backing off about me doing the training. I think he and everyone else are finally starting to see I really do know what I’m doing.”
“Well, good,” I said. “It’s about time everyone realized you’re a damn good trainer.”
“They’re learning. Now tell me about this guy. I mean, does this someone have a name?”
“Dustin,” I said, and just saying his name made me smile. That smile faded, though, and I rubbed my forehead with my thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know what’s going on, though. Like I said, we’ve kind of backed off. I’ve backed off.”
“But why?”
“Well, I’m still dealing with the fallout from Sam. And I’m not planning on staying here forever, so I keep trying to back off from Dustin so I don’t lead him on or something, but…”
“But he’s tempting?” she asked with a grin in her voice.
“God, yes.” I lay back across the sofa and smiled up at the ceiling. “He’s very, very tempting.”
“You have to send me a picture. No argument, doll. I want to see what kind of guy it took to get you sounding like a giddy teenager for once.”
“I don’t sound like a giddy teenager!”
“You do too. Send me a picture.”
“Maybe.” I giggled. “I don’t know, though. Tim might get a little worried if I start sending you pictures of a guy who wears a black cowboy hat on a regular—”
Mariah gasped. “A black cowboy hat? Amy Lynn Dover, you send me a picture of him at once!”
I laughed. “Okay, okay, I will.” I gnawed my lower lip. “Isn’t
it too soon, though? Like it’s disrespect—”
“Oh, nonsense.” I could almost see her waving the thought away like it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “Whoever this guy is, you can tell him I said it’s about damned time he came waltzing into your life.”
I laughed again but without a lot of feeling. “I still don’t know what I’m doing with him, though. I told him I needed to rein it back for now, but…”
“But he’s walking, talking temptation, isn’t he?”
“Ooh, yeah.”
“So what do you have to lose?”
“You mean, besides getting involved with someone when I’m planning on leaving eventually?”
“Oh. Yeah, I can see your point.” She paused. “But maybe he’d be okay with things just being short-term. Kind of, something for fun since you both know it’s not going to last.”
“Hmm.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Then I wouldn’t be leading him on.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m still not sure. But I’ll think on it.”
“It’s worth considering,” she said. “And anyway, I’m glad to hear—”
A male voice in the background cut her off. I was about to tell her to say hello to her husband but then I heard her tell him, “Just leave her alone. She’s got a lot to deal with right now, and she doesn’t need your shit.”
“Let me talk to her.” My brother’s voice made me cringe. “Come on.”
Mariah sighed. To me, she said, “Hey, Curt’s here. Do you—”
“Sure. Put him on.”
A second later, Curt snarled, “Where the fuck are you, Amy?”
“Hello to you too,” I said through my teeth.
“Cut the crap. Where are you?”
“I’m getting my head together, if that’s—”
“What the hell?” he asked. “You have a business to run, Amy. This is—”
“And it sounds like Mariah has it under control.”
“It’s still your responsibility,” he snapped. Then his tone softened but not by much. “Look, I understand you’re grieving. None of us have had an easy time with what happened to Sam. But really? Taking off and just leaving the whole world behind? Do you have any idea what this is doing to Mom and Dad?”
All the King's Horses Page 20
