‘I should have made you come earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t.’
‘Why?’
He stops on the track and faces me. ‘You’ll see.’
When the black thoroughbred trots to the fence, I stroke his neck and scratch under his mane. ‘I’ve been watching you for weeks.’ The horse puts his head over the fence and nudges my hip as if I might have a carrot in my pocket. ‘You don’t ride him often.’
‘He was raced young and broke down. Light work is all he can tolerate.’
I squeeze Cameron’s hand, not easy, as he’s hanging on so tightly. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Odin. I bought him as a companion horse for the grey.’
‘I’ve never seen you on the other horse.’
A brief hesitation. ‘He won’t let me saddle him.’
‘Why not?’
It’s only when Odin turns his head that I notice the grey coming out of the shadows. He’s not a thoroughbred like Odin, he’s a mishmash of stockhorse, quarter horse and who knows what else. He’s far from beautiful but—
‘Atticus?’ My breath hitches. ‘No …’
Cameron isn’t looking at the horse, he’s looking at me. ‘We were in drought the year your family left. I couldn’t watch him starve.’
Swallowing hard, I hold out my hand. ‘Atticus?’ The horse I took for my own, the horse I learned to ride on, is now more white than grey. Curious but cautious, he stops short of Odin. No one knew Atticus’s exact age, but going by his teeth and the long list of owners who’d given up on him, he would have been eleven or twelve when we left. At a minimum, now he’d be in his late twenties. ‘Do you remember me?’
A few more cautious steps and he puts his head over the fence. He places his nose against my outstretched hand and nuzzles. Then he rubs his head against my arm.
‘He remembers,’ Cameron says quietly.
‘Your family lived in town.’ Tears track down my face. ‘How did you look after him?’
‘I had a job at the service station. I paid for agistment.’
‘Could you ride him back then?’
‘I couldn’t get near him most of the time.’
‘Sixteen years …’ I tug Cameron around to face me. ‘You saved him.’
‘There were things about you I couldn’t let go.’ He frowns in remembrance. ‘I liked how you were younger and smarter than anyone else in the class. I liked the way you sat on your hands to stop yourself answering every question first. I liked how you looked at me across the room in the hope I might understand what the teachers were talking about in the way that you always did. I valued those moments but didn’t know how to express that.’
‘I …’
When no words come, he cups my face and keeps talking. ‘I was too young to know what I was feeling, but I had to look after your horse. And as soon as I saw you again, I worked out why that was. I wanted to know where you were. I wanted to know you were safe. I cared about you. Keeping Atticus was a way of keeping you.’
‘When we left—’ I pull back, wipe my face on my sleeve, ‘—I didn’t cry for Summerfield. I cried for Atticus.’
‘At night, I’d lie in bed and make up stories.’ His voice breaks. ‘One day, you’d come back for your horse. That’s when you’d find me.’
I lift my face and kiss his mouth. A tender kiss, a salty kiss. Our tears are all mixed up.
Chapter 23
It’s not easy for Cameron to keep hold of my hand while unlocking his front door, but he seems as reluctant to release me as I am to release him. He flicks on lights and—
There’s a vaulted ceiling in the entry, which leads to hallways to the left and the right. ‘Oh …’
