“Hey, that’s great.”
“Yep. Now he gets paid to boss the entire fire station crew around.”
I grin. “As opposed to just bossing you around for free?”
My best friend since forever, a Yale Law grad with honors, already a senior associate at a prestigious global law firm and on his way to making partner,giggles. “Don’t be jealous.”
“Ha. I’m not. Believe me. After all the shit that went down with Luca, I’m happy being single.”
“You’ll find someone great when the time is right. And you’ll rebuild your friendship group as well,” Ollie says, his voice dipping into a smooth, reassuring tone. “For now, you’re recovering. You’ve just bought a horse rescue. And you’ve got Wagner and Sammy. Take it one step at a time. Focus on yourself. And when you least expect it, the perfect guy will turn up. Huh. Would you look at that? Icanbe positive.”
The pain of what happened with Luca and my so-called friends hits me with a ferocity I haven’t felt in ages. It’s bad enough he cheated, but when I discovered how many of my friends were involved, it was a body blow that knocked the wind out of me and sent me crashing to my lowest point.
I take another left. “Sage advice, old man.”
“I’m here for you. Anytime.”
“I appreciate that. Now, go help Derek with that big hose of his.”
Ollie laughs. “Oh, I will. Don’t you worry about that.”
With a groan, I disconnect the call. Except my Bluetooth has been playing up lately, so instead of returning to the true crime podcast I was listening to, a loud static sound hisses out of the speakers. I jam the buttons on the console to make it stop, but nothing works.
I slow down and take my eyes off the road for a second, finding the Off button with my thumb. When I glance back at the road, something moving in the shadows just beyond the road grabs my attention. At first, I think it’s fog catching the light, but then my beams catch the glint in its eyes.
It’s a horse.
Alone and untethered, with a big scar across one flank, it steps onto the road, right into the bright beam of my headlights. I slam on the brakes and swerve to miss it, hitting the horn in the hopes it’ll scare the creature enough so that it moves out of the way.
Dust billows around my car as I come to a grinding halt, my chest snapping forward against the belt. Catching my breath, I hear a sharp cry behind me. In the rearview mirror, the horse throws its weight back, rearing onto its hind legs, its front hooves slicing through the air.
A few moments pass while I try to figure out my next move. I’m not hurt, but there’s a wild horse loose on the road. As the new owner of a horse rescue center, it’s ironic that I have no fucking clue what to do.
Bright, jerky flashes of light cut through the field. A male voice calls out, “Hello. Who’s there? Is anyone injured?”
The horse whinnies as I open the door and get out of the car. The footsteps racing through the field get closer and closer.
And then I hear a disappointed “Not you again.”
I raise a hand to cover my face, the light from the flashlight blinding me. “I can’t see anything,” I say, flapping my arm, hoping whoever’s spotlighting me gets the hint.
They do, dropping the light down to a patch of dirt a few feet in front of me. It takes me a few seconds to adjust to the darkness again, but when I do, it’s my turn to say, “Not you again.”
Jackson Hunter strides up to me in a few long, purposeful steps, squinting hard, his faded gray T-shirt half tucked into a pair of navy cotton pants that have a hole in one knee.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demands.
“I was driving home, minding my own business, when that fucking horse came out of nowhere and tried to kill me,” I bark back, glancing over to where the animal stands, now pawing at the ground, ears flicking back and forth.
Jackson turns as if he hadn’t noticed the creature standing there the whole time. “Those fucking assholes!” he cries out. “Riven!”
He races over to the horse, and I follow…at a safe distance. “Careful. I think he’s wild.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Jackson retorts, not even bothering to look over his shoulder at me as he holds his hand up for me to stop walking.
I stop where I am because one of us doesn’t have a death wish. Jackson slows his approach and extends an arm, palm facing the ground. His steps become slower. Measured. The horse is skittish. Jackson murmurs something to it. I can’t hear what.
His approach seems to be working. The horse drops its head as Jackson reaches it and strokes its lower neck a few times, then trails his hands over its shoulder, slow and steady, until he reaches that sweet spot just behind the mane, gently whispering the whole time.
