"She’s never done that,” Quinn says, coming out of the barn with a black horse by his side. "She trusts you." He smiles at me.
"Or she knows I’m just as broken as she is,” I say and then look at his horse. The horse looks almost purple in the light. “Is that your horse?"
"This is Lady," he tells me and touches her neck. “Let me help you get on the horse."
"Um," I say, looking at him when he walks up to me and puts his hand on my waist.
"You are going to put your foot in this." He points at the silver stirrup. “Then throw your other leg over."
"Okay,” I say, concentrating on the way his hands feel on me instead of what he’s saying. He picks me up without forcing himself. My foot goes into the stirrup, and I throw my other leg over. I sit on her, and she haws. “I’m sorry,” I say, and she doesn’t move.
"Be easy on her," Quinn tells Hope. “Don’t hurt her."
"She won’t hurt me," I defend her as I watch Quinn walk over to his horse, and he gets on her easily. His whole arm flexes even bigger than before, and I have to look away before I start gawking at him.
"Ready,” he says, and I just nod.
"We are going to go on a secret trail,” he says next to me as our horses walk side by side. I see Hope looking over at times and then turning her head to look forward.
He walks through the field into the trees, and when I look back, the trees slowly close around us. “So what are your plans?" he asks. "When you are free to leave here."
My heart speeds up when he asks me this. “I have no idea,” I say the truth. “I have nothing left of the inheritance." I look down, seeing Hope’s head go down also. “I have never been somewhere that I didn’t want to leave." Except now, I hear the words in my head. I don’t look over at him, and I also don’t tell him that staying here with him is tempting. "I guess this is as fresh of a start as I will ever get." We ride side by side. His hands never move from in front of him.
"If you could pick a place, what would it look like?" he asks, and I can see from my peripheral view that he is looking over at me.
"It would be where no one knows me," I answer honestly. “It would be where people would think I’m just someone else."
I look over at him. “Would you ever leave here?"
He shakes his head. “Nope, not for all the money in the world." He returns his focus ahead of him.
“Why?” I ask him.
“Well, for one, my family is here," he starts. “Second, my business is here. And third, this is where I want my kids to grow up. Running through the fields chasing their cousins. Going from house to house like a revolving door. Having someone have your back the whole time. I want all that for my kids."
"I’ve never had that,” I say, his words echoing in my ears. “The longest we stayed in one place was before Benjamin. It was for one whole year. I even made two friends." I smile, thinking back to the two girls who lived in the same building as me. "Rosalie even cooked dinner."
"What happened?" he asks, and I think about lying to him, but at this point, nothing he hears will have him think less of me.
"She had an affair with a married man," I start to say. “All was going well until the wife showed up at the door. It turns out, her father was like some big shot, and let’s just say we left very quickly.”
“That must have been hard,” he says, his voice soft.
"It was, but it was what it was, and nothing I could have done would have changed it." I learned that real fast. "Where are we going?" I ask, and then I stop talking when we come to an opening in the forest, and I hear the sound of water trickling.
I look at the creek ahead of me and then see a large rock in the middle of the clearing. “This is part of my grandparents’ land,” he says, stopping and getting down off his horse. “My aunt Kallie used to come here with my uncle Jacob when they were younger." He walks over to me, holding out his hand. I look at him and then the horse.
"I’m going to fall,” I say, not sure I can hold him with my one hand and then slide off.
"I won’t let you fall,” he says. “Trust me."
I look at his hand and then back in front of me. “I don’t want to fall,” I say.
I wait for him to use my fears against me. Wait for him to just yank me off the horse. But instead of all that, he says words that cut me to the core. "I promise you that as long as you’re with me, I will never ever make you fall.”
Chapter 23
Quinn
"Good morning," I say, sticking my head into Amelia’s office. “You’re here early.” I look at the clock on the wall and see that it’s only after eight.
"I have to leave early today." She puts down the pen in her hand. Amelia is my officer manager, and I don’t know what I would do without her, to be honest. She comes in and makes all the appointments and pays the bills each month and makes sure everyone has their paychecks. "I have to get to the bar this afternoon." She looks at me. “We have a couple of bands playing tonight, and they want to set up."
"You could have taken the day off,” I say, and she leans back in her chair. She is working two jobs, and no one actually knows this but she is silently buying the bar from our aunt Savannah, who wanted to just give it to her, but being the stubborn woman who she is, she fought her. I even offered to loan her the money, but she didn’t want to take it from me.
"Did you just get back?" she asks, and I nod, going to sit in the chair in front of her. "You like the morning rides?" She picks up the coffee and brings it to her lips, trying to hide the smirk.
For the past five days, we have come to the barn at five thirty and taken a ride. "You know me. I love to ride no matter what the time is."
"Where is Willow now?" She looks around, peeking over to the door and seeing it empty.
"She is mucking out Hope’s stall,” I say, shaking my head. After our first ride, she watched me for a couple of minutes and then walked over to grab a bucket and made sure the rest of the horses had water. I told her not to, but she didn’t listen. Instead, she just did what she wanted to. I told her to stop, but the way she smiled when she talked to the horses was everything. So instead, I watched her and made sure she was okay. "Then she’s going to make sure everyone has water and feed them." I lean back in the chair and stretch.
“She’s going to leave," I admit to Amelia, and just the thought makes my stomach ill. It makes my body go tense, and my anger comes to the surface. I have tried to ignore it, and I have tried not to think about it, but every single time I do, it just makes me sick.
“She already has one foot out the door,” Amelia says, sitting up and making sure it’s just us. “She hasn’t unpacked anything yet,” she points out. “She sleeps in her clothes at night,” she whispers. “She rotates between two pairs of jeans, washing one and then wearing the other.”
“You don’t think I know that,” I say. “Every single night, I go into her room to make sure she’s covered. She hasn’t even gone under the covers yet,” I say, and I lean forward. “I have no idea what to do."