Time For Love

As a kid, he’d longed for peace. He’d longed for silence. He’d longed for a place where his father’s belligerence and words and fists couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t hurt him. At his mother’s church, they’d talked about forgiveness and redemption. Those concepts were as unreachable back then as the stars. But today?

Does Phantom deserve redemption? He’d thought so once. But one shot was all he’d have.

Put him down. His father’s command, chilling and frozen in his memory.

“What’s wrong, Dylan? Knee bothering you?” Barry came down the outdoor steps from his garage apartment. With his shoulder-length, snowy hair and diminutive height, the former jockey could pass himself off as one of Santa’s elves.

Dylan let his gaze drift back to the tree-lined horizon. “My knee’s fine.” Aching in the brisk morning, but that was his new normal.

“Then let’s work Phantom.”

Dylan’s grip on the coffee mug tightened. He gazed out over the pasture, but he saw a different scene now, one from long ago. A boy wearing pajamas shut in a stall with a crippled horse and a gun.

“We need to make a withdrawal.” Barry gestured toward Phantom’s stall, the only one that had an outdoor paddock attached. “We can’t keep taking orders if there’s no product to sell. Lots of breeders are anxious for Phantom’s genes.”

Because they expected Dylan to destroy the champion. “Maybe tomorrow. Or next week.” Dylan forced himself to set the coffee cup down. “Maggie Mae should be in heat soon. We can’t collect the goods from Phantom without a mare in her cycle.”

“Excuses.” Barry’s hands swung Dylan’s reasoning aside. He probably waved off flies with less vigor. “It’s been six months, son. It’s time to get back in the saddle.”

“Maybe I’m the wrong person for the job. Maybe I’ve lost my touch.”

“The only thing you’ve lost is your nerve.” Barry propped a foot on the front porch step. “If I had quit riding races after one fall, I would have never won the Kentucky Derby. I had a gift for the ride. I’m too old now to compete, but if my body was able, I’d still be out there every week.”

“You’d have to give up beer and chili-cheese fries.”

“After twenty years of racing, I earned every extra pound.” Barry patted his still-svelte gut. He was only fifteen pounds over his racing weight. “But don’t go changing the subject. You’ve let that horse get into your head.”

Dylan didn’t argue that point. Everyone thought he’d lost his nerve after the accident, that he was afraid of Phantom and others like him.

Damn right he was afraid. But not of the stallion. He was afraid of what would happen if he couldn’t complete the collection procedure this time.

Barry took his silence for cowardly fear. “If you think he’s so dangerous, why did you buy him?”

“Because they were going to put him down.” Because Dylan felt partly to blame for Phantom’s attack, seeing as how he’d held the lead rope. “Because they were practically giving him away and his stud fees can save us.” On its own, his idea to run a ranch where unwanted horses could be rehabilitated and recovering alcoholics could build confidence wasn’t a profit-making proposition. “We barely make ends meet.”

“There you go again. Money,” Barry grumbled, pausing to face Dylan. “Money doesn’t make you a good man. Or a good father.”

“The bank and the family-court judge don’t agree.” Nor did Eileen. Dylan had to be a good provider, a better one than his own drunken, volatile father had been.

Barry made a noise that Dylan took for disapproval. He glanced back at Phantom’s stall. “When I fought in the Vietnam War, they sent me down into the tunnels because of my size. I acted like a man and said I was brave, but the truth was, I was scared. And probably just as scared as the Vietcong I was sent down there to kill.”

“All right. All right.” Message received. Dylan and the horse were both probably scared. “I’ll pay Phantom a visit.” And yet Dylan didn’t move.

Barry headed for the stables. “I’m going to open up his paddock door and muck out his stall. The Dylan O’Brien who used to live here would take advantage of that time. And if that Dylan O’Brien still lives here, he needs to make an appearance.”

A white cat wended its way between Dylan’s legs, then moved slowly down the porch steps, pausing at the bottom to look back at him and flick her crooked tail.

Even Ghost knows it’s time to do this.

One by one, horses extended their heads to Dylan as he passed their stalls. He paused to greet Peaches, leaning in to look at the little palomino. She extended her nose to reach his hand, as if to say she had complete faith in Dylan. She’d been Phantom’s stable mate through his racing career and his retirement to stud. Dylan grabbed her halter and brought her along just as Barry tripped the lever that opened Phantom’s stall to the paddock.

Phantom charged into the gray light of morning as if he was the last vestige of darkness racing toward the horizon. Or perhaps he just missed the starting gates of his youth. He skidded to a stop at the far end of the paddock, nearly sitting on his haunches, then began his patrol of the perimeter. He made a circuit, rearing in front of Dylan, ready to strike him as he’d done months ago. His eyes rolled, until the whites showed, and Dylan’s gut twisted, but he stood his ground.

Phantom’s front hooves landed in the dirt. He let out a shrill whinny, prancing in front of them. The stallion bared his teeth and made as if he was going to lunge, but he never extended his nose between the paddock rails. And his tail was raised proudly, not swishing with anger.

Peaches, bless her, snorted. She was accustomed to the stallion’s theatrics. The pony knew he used to have more bark than bite. Maybe he still was a big faker. Mostly. Maybe he was just a more dramatic faker. Mostly. Dylan began to hum “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” noticing that the stallion’s hooves needed trimming.

Barry slid the gate to his stall closed. “That horse needs a different tune. That one’s getting old.”

“I like it.” Dylan led Peaches around the paddock. Phantom followed, rearing, kicking and announcing to the world that he was one upset dude.

A lifetime of living with horses, years of horsemanship training, and after one tremendous failure, Dylan had grown too cautious. “You almost had me, Dad,” he whispered to the mist. His father excelled at breaking things—bottles, bones, boys. “You almost had me.”

Phantom’s hoof struck the metal rail.

He still might.

* * *

“FAR TURN FARMS is only giving us a few more weeks with Chance.” Gage’s words echoed ominously in the near-empty clinic.

Behind the partition separating the animal cages from the hallway to the office and exam rooms, Kathy stopped refilling a cat’s water dish to eavesdrop. Gage wasn’t an ominous-announcement type of guy.

“You got that horse-whispering fella,” Doc replied in his rumbly voice. Officially, the Harmony Valley Veterinary Clinic was owned and run by Gage. Unofficially, it was run by his wife’s grandfather, Dr. Warren Wentworth. Doc had founded the place in the fifties, closed it after his wife died, then reopened it when Gage came back this year and married his granddaughter. “What’s his name? Dylan? He used to be good. That should be enough.”

Kathy stepped into the hallway. “Are they taking Chance back?” He’d been bred to win the Triple Crown. With no permanent physical damage, in a little more than a year the colt could be a contender.

Gage and Doc exchanged glances that seemed to say, How much should we tell her?

It was Gage who spoke. “Chance...well, he only has a few more weeks to show he’s salvageable.”

“Salvageable?” Kathy’s voice escalated. “Don’t talk about him as if he’s disposable.” As if no one would care if he went away forever. “We’ve been nursing him back to health. He’s so much better. He has...he has...a right to live!” A right to a home and security. And people who loved him.

That was what Grandpa Ed had provided Kathy. He’d washed his hands of her mother and stepfather, paying them to stay away from Harmony Valley. He’d given Kathy the stability and safety a child should have. No more sneaking bills from her mother’s wallet after she passed out and then slipping away to the convenience store to buy milk and snack cakes for dinner. No more being locked in an apartment for days at a time while her mother disappeared on drunken binges, all the while wondering if she’d ever return. No more nights spent huddled beneath a thin blanket when there was no heat.

“Nothing’s been decided yet, girl.” Doc’s shaggy white hair brushed the upper rim of his thick eyeglasses. He was a man fully grounded in the why-worry-about-tomorrow philosophy.

“That’s right, Kathy. And you can help Dylan with Chance.” Gage spoke as if Kathy was their ace in the hole. He nodded at Doc. There was something they weren’t telling her.

Well, there was something Kathy wasn’t telling them, too. And it sickened her. Dylan thought Chance’s fate was inevitable. He’d said as much the first day he came.

Kathy hoped that Dylan was wrong. Because if it was, her odds at being salvageable were no better.

* * *

“I CAN’T WALK.” Wilson Hammacker gripped the arms of his tan recliner as if that would keep him anchored in his living room in Harmony Valley. “I have no toes.” His toes. His toes! He still dreamed that they were attached to his feet.

“You have special inserts for your shoes.” Becca Harris held up what were essentially plastic socks with marble-size plastic toes attached. Becca was young and pretty, and for some reason she wasn’t squeamish about needles, surgery scars or false toes. “You were released from rehab. So now it’s time to get back out in the world.”

“I am not going to walk anywhere outside this house.” Wilson knew he sounded like a child. But in the past year, he’d lost his wife, been diagnosed with diabetes and had his toes amputated. “I’m a recluse and happy with that status.”

“Dolly needs her shots.” Becca pointed to his wife’s rotund dachshund, who, upon hearing her name, rolled onto her back on the brown carpet for a tummy rub.

Wilson couldn’t reach that low to rub her tummy without losing his balance. “I paid you to take care of me for a month. Take her to the vet.”

“You said it. I’m paid to take care of you.” Becca’s smile was as resilient as the woman herself. “I’m also paid to help the Mionettis. I’m due there in fifteen minutes.” Becca was the only caregiver in a town where the majority of residents needed caregivers. “If you don’t feel up to driving, I can drop you two off.” She knelt at the base of the recliner and took his hand. “Don’t be afraid. You walk around here just fine.”

“Without shoes.” And only because he’d insisted Becca move his living room furniture so that he could stagger on his heels, feet pointed out like a duck, from one chair-back to another. “What if I fall?” His old bones were as fragile as his wife’s teacup collection.

“You’ll get up.” She slipped a prosthetic set of toes on his right foot. It was cold against his skin, but soft, and smelled of new plastic. “Comfortable?”

Wilson arched his foot as he’d been taught. Five fake toes moved as one. “As comfortable as I could be without my own toes.”

Becca slid on the other prosthetic.

His petulance lingered. “If Helen were alive, she wouldn’t make me go.”

“I’m sorry your wife’s not here.” Becca put his shoes on next. Her touch was firm, yet gentle. It reminded him of his mother, gone thirty years. “But you have to take better care of yourself. You’ve seen what can happen when you let the diabetes get out of control. And who knows what’s wrong with Dolly.”

He let the conversation about control drop. “Nothing’s wrong with that dog but old age.”

“Besides needing her shots, she’s a bit round.” Becca stood, tossing her brown braid over her shoulder. She held out her hand. “Come on.”

The thing about Becca was she didn’t put up with nonsense. You paid her in advance and then you were stuck with her. She showed up, listened to your complaints and did what the doctor ordered, even if that wasn’t what you wanted. He’d hired her to help him transition to this new reality. Shots? She didn’t sweat a bit. Finger pokes? Performed efficiently. Whining? She ignored it. Helen would have loved her.

He gripped the armrests again. “Once you get to a certain age, the rules shouldn’t apply to you anymore.”

Becca captured his hand and helped him to his feet. He took a step and then another, relearning the gently rolling feeling of something extending beyond the balls of his feet.

She hurried about, gathering her purse and Dolly. “Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you can cut corners on diabetes. We’ve got to get your blood sugar down, especially in the afternoon.”

“Poke-poke-poke. That’s what diabetes is. I hate it.” He much preferred drinking.

“Was all that skipped poking worth losing toes over?”

He’d like to say no, but that would be admitting that his current predicament was all his fault.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I NEED A minute with you alone.” Gage met Dylan in the Harmony Valley clinic’s parking lot. There was a stubborn tilt to the vet’s chin. “I know this is awkward. You’re here primarily for Kathy. But the colt, Chance, he needs your help.”

Dylan’s training had already failed one horse. He hesitated to make any promises. “I’ll do what I can, but that colt...”

“Is a fighter.” Gage grinned, but it was a fighter’s grin, an I’m-gonna-get-you-to-my-side-eventually grin. “I delivered him. I know what he was like before—happy-go-lucky, trusting, curious. And sometimes, he remembers, too.”

The vet could rationalize the situation all he liked. The fact remained: the colt was a danger to himself and others. He’d forever be unpredictable.

“Please.” Gage glanced away, as if he felt uncomfortable asking Dylan for anything. “Far Turn Farms called today and said if he isn’t suitably socialized in three weeks, they’re putting him down. They’ll destroy him for no other reason than the fact that he’s operating on survival instinct.”

Dylan agreed with all the things Gage said, but odds were the colt was like Phantom. Controllable until someone did something stupid. Was it worth the risk? Dylan had to be responsible.

Yet even as the thought ran through his head, Dylan felt defeat tumble in his gut. When had he stopped believing in redemption—not just in himself, but in horses, as well?

Instead of being the voice of reason, Dylan found himself saying, “It’ll take more than me working with him a few hours a day.” Which just proved what an idiot he was, giving the man false hope. The world was run by profit-and-loss statements, not heart and hope. That was what his old man used to say.

The vet’s attitude shifted subtly, like a horse who’d just realized what you wanted was what he wanted and he stopped fighting, but was too proud to lower his head. “Whatever you need.”

Yeah, what Dylan needed was his head examined. “If he hasn’t sent me to the emergency room in an hour, I’ll make you a list of activities that might help.”

“If things don’t work out...” Gage’s jaw hardened. “Is there room at Redemption Ranch?”

“If I still own the Double R in thirty days, we can talk.” Why not just lay all his failures at the good doctor’s door? While he was spilling his guts, he should tell Gage how hard he’d had it growing up with an abusive father.

“I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized.” Gage’s gaze dropped to the asphalt, but not quick enough to disguise the disappointment in his eyes. He was likely not so much sorry for Dylan’s misfortune as its impact on his concerns.

The vet went back inside. Dylan grabbed a thin, four-foot plastic pole with a red flag on one end and headed toward the stable.

When he was a boy, they’d lived in a small ramshackle place, the land not large enough to call a ranch. His mother waitressed, and his father worked odd jobs, but mostly people brought Dad horses to break. The money was good, but it was the chance to make another living thing suffer that appealed to Dad most. His old man was old-school. Tie the horse. Beat the horse. Defeat the horse. It got to the point where Dylan heard a horse trailer coming down the drive and he ran for his bedroom. He couldn’t stand the sound of a horse’s shrill screams. They sounded too much like his and his brother Billy’s.

It wasn’t until Child Protective Services took him and his brother away and placed them on a legitimate ranch with ten other foster boys that Dylan learned there was a gentler way to work with horses. To follow the more natural path, a horse trainer had to think like a horse, see the world like a horse, be the horse. Recognize every nuanced flicker of movement for what it was—confidence, trust, anxiety, fear, defense, rebellion.

Chance couldn’t be rehabilitated in a day, if at all. And despite the colt’s incredibly clean lines and heritage, he’d probably never make it on the track. There were too many noises there, too much visual stimuli. A racehorse was a trained athlete, one who could channel his focus down to one thing—outrunning the competition. Fears, phobias, quirks. They distracted. And distractions slowed a horse down.

He came through the back gate, and Sugar ambled toward him, ears perked forward, a marked contradiction to the colt’s quick steps and threatening posture. The colt probably assumed anything over one hundred pounds had the potential to pounce on him. Which might explain why Kathy, who was short and lacked meat on her bones, was the least threatening person at the clinic.

He paused to greet the mare and stroke her sleek neck. “You probably want to tell me how important it is to save Chance, too.”

She blew air through her nose onto his chest, a sign of relaxed affection that might just as easily have translated to I love him, you dummy.

“Yeah, I thought so.”

Kathy came out the back door of the clinic as Dylan limped up the path to the stables. “Hey, wait up.”

At least one of his Harmony Valley clients sought his company. Dylan mentally shifted from horse mode to people mode. Kathy approached him eagerly. As thin as she was, as hidden as her form was beneath jeans that didn’t fit and that pink jacket, she shouldn’t have been mesmerizing. But there was an energy and confidence to her walk that said Look at me, much like a seasoned racehorse passing the stands on the way to the starting gate. For a moment, Dylan forgot his purpose and his fears, both being edged aside by the unexpected power of Kathy’s presence.

She stopped within touching distance and crossed her arms over her chest. “We need to talk about Chance.”

Dylan held up a hand. “Gage told me about the urgency with the colt. And...”

“Good. What can I do to help?”

More than anything, Dylan wanted to tell her to go back to the kennel, where it was safe. The last thing anyone needed was an injury on-premises. But the determination in her eyes registered. He knew she wouldn’t listen. “You can observe.”

“But...”

“No buts. You took risks yesterday. You can stay if you follow my lead. Agreed?”

It took her too long to nod. And there was a flash to her blue eyes that matched the fire of her hair. She might just as well have said, Agreed. For now.

As happened yesterday, they entered the stable to greetings from the two pregnant mares and a kick from the colt.

Dylan’s steps slowed. “Does he know what grain is?”

“Yes.” Kathy flashed him a small, proud smile. Dylan felt a corresponding grin try to slip past his guard. And then she added, “Because of the accident, he was weaned early.” And that wiped out any cause for Dylan to grin.

Early weaning was a strike against the foal’s odds to recover his confidence, just as certainly as one of Kathy’s parents being an alcoholic was a strike against her odds to stay sober.

I defied the odds. He wasn’t a drunk or an abusive father. But since the accident, Dylan felt as if someone had narrowed the rails bordering his life. His options and possibilities were fewer than before.

The grain bin was stored near the colt’s stall. Dylan indicated Kathy stay back and walked past the stall without acknowledging the colt. He hummed a few jazzy bars of “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” scooped out some grain into a feed bucket and shook it.

The colt wasn’t kicking. He was probably salivating for some oats. Dylan turned his back on the colt and kept up the song.

Kathy moved closer. Her footsteps were clunky, those of the recently boot-converted. She clomped like a Clydesdale and waved a hand to catch his attention. “Uh, Chance is in the stall behind you.” Skepticism colored her voice.

Had Gage told her about Dylan’s failure? “I know that.” Dylan kept his voice smooth and easy. “He doesn’t like to be looked at, though, does he?”

“No.” There was a little grudging respect. “Or touched.” She came to stand next to him, bringing the scent of flowery perfume and the aura of raw courage. Her tenacity pulsed between them, as noticeable as the notes of the song he hummed.

The colt blew an impatient breath, signaling his desire for oats.

Dylan lowered his voice. “Whenever we’re in here together, Kathy, we need to keep our voices as soft as a baby’s blanket.” He resumed his spiderly piece.

“I’m not going to whisper sweet nothings to you.” But she was. Whispering, that was.

So prickly. Despite himself, Dylan smiled, enjoying their banter. In between verses, he asked, “Have you noticed anything?”

“Chance hasn’t thrown a tantrum.” There was wonder in her voice, the sweetness of a newly converted believer in the man who’d once been the miracle worker. “What do we do now?”

“We stay here and talk where he can see us.”

She glanced over her shoulder. The colt huffed.

“Don’t look him in the eye.” Dylan rattled the bucket of grain. He hummed louder. “Do you know this song?”

“What mother doesn’t?” Her humming blended with his, filling the stable. Not surprisingly, after a while, Kathy fidgeted. He’d suspected she wasn’t the type to stand still for long. Her boots scraped loudly across the concrete floor.

“Remind me not to take you dancing.”

Her gaze dropped to her tan leather cowboy boots, so new the soles still shined on the sides. “Nobody can walk quietly or gracefully in these things.”

“There are millions who’d argue that point.”

She huffed. The colt copied her.

“Red,” he said. “You need to use your happy indoor voice.”

She huffed again.

Dylan shook the grain, giving himself a mental headshake, as well. He was here primarily to support Kathy’s foundation of sobriety. He couldn’t do that without getting to know her better. “Tell me a story about yourself, Red.”

She didn’t blow smoke at the hair-color-related nickname. “My life isn’t the stuff of fairy tales.”

The colt shuffled about the stall, pushing straw with each step. Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.

“Red,” he scolded gently. “Nobody’s life is rainbows and pots of gold.” His certainly hadn’t been.

“You should meet my brother, Flynn.” Oh, there was sarcasm there, but it was almost hidden in the most saccharine of whispery tones. “He and his friends have the Midas touch. They created a popular farm app, sold it for millions. Came home to decompress and fell in love. Tra-la-la.”

He smiled. “So you’re the ugly stepsister? Never to find Prince Charming? Blaming Cinderella for your lot in life?”

“My mistakes are my own, Rumpelstiltskin.”

“Ah, a tragedy.” Behind him, the colt’s steps slowed. “What was the cause of your downfall? Spindle prick? Poisoned apple? Evil stepmother?”

At his last joking guess, she seemed to shrink.

Finally, a clue, a path he could follow to help her overcome the triggers of addiction. He felt energized, like a hunting dog receiving a burst of adrenaline as he picked up a scent.