“All you have to do is sit there.”
She ticked her finger back and forth like a metronome. “Oh no.I’mnot falling for that one. I did learn that last night. There’s no such thing as just sitting there when riding.”
“Did some research?” He closed the door behind them and flipped the latch into place. The two pieces of wood scraped together with a harsh grinding. “What else did you learn?”
The horse he’d called Sasha nickered at them from her stall.
“Not enough to be comfortable in the saddle.” She scooped up a kitten when it tried to climb her leg. “And who are you?”
“That’s Jax.” Chase tickled the kitten under the chin. “His siblings are around here somewhere. Probably in the loft sleeping.”
“Resident mice catchers?” The kitten purred and she tucked him under her chin. “He’s adorable.”
“He’s spoiled. We brought his mom over from the feed store, and she surprised us with him and three others. Mom thinks they should be fed twice a day.” He tried to sound mean, but the way his eyes softened when he stroked the kitten ruined the effect.
“He’s just a baby.” She kissed the top of Jax’s head. “He’ll learn. Speaking of learning.” A deep breath stretched her lungs. “What if we started with you teaching me how to groom the horses? That’s helpful, isn’t it?”
“I can do that.” He checked his watch, then squinted toward the barn doors. “We can start now. I’ll ride out and check the fence another day.”
She bombarded him with questions while he brought one of the horses out of the stalls and clipped a long rope to a ring in the wall. She asked about ranching, how important it was to check the fences, and how many horses they had.
Chase’s patience never ran out. He paused sometimes before answering, but he never ignored her questions, even the ridiculous ones.
“How many horses have you owned in your life?”
“Just my personal horse or all the ranch horses?” He held out a brush with short, stiff bristles. “This one is good for when the horses have dried mud on them after going out and rolling.”
“Yours.” She took the brush and ran it back and forth over her arm. “It kind of tickles.”
He chose another brush and rubbed the horse’s red coat in small circles. Dirt and fine hairs rolled out beneath the rubber bristles. “There have been four that I’d call mine.”
“Tell me about them.” She loved hearing him talk. He made it easy to ask questions and not feel guilty or ridiculous for not already knowing the answer. “What’s this?” She picked up a U-shaped metal instrument with rubber handles on either end.
“That’s a sweat scraper. Also works when they’ve gone swimming or had a bath. Takes the water off quickly so they dry.” He switched to the horse’s other side by ducking underneath its neck. “Am I going to get to ask you questions?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “But I won’t be able to answer ninety-nine percent of them unless they’re about the last six months.”
“What did you do for Christmas?” He’d ducked out of sight, which muffled his voice.
The mention of Christmas sawed out a humorless, grinding laugh. “I sat in front of a fake fire, drank eggnog, and stared out the window for half the day.”
“And the rest of the day?”
She fiddled with the horse’s mane, flipping it from one side of his neck to the other and combing her fingers through the rough strands. “I watched sappy Christmas movies until I fell asleep on the couch.” A familiar burn worked up her throat. “Do you know when was the last time I talked to Sarah before this? I searched my phone, my emails, everything that I could think of. I didn’t find anything recent. Even my pictures on my phone are garbage shots of the city.”
“How is this going to help?” He straightened and draped his arms over the horse’s back. “What if you’re beating yourself up over nothing.”
“I feel it.” She fisted a hand over her heart. “I might not remember, but there’s a part deep down in here that knows something is wrong. It tells me that losing my memory might be punishment for being a horrible human being. I have this deep distrust of myself, like I’m disappointed but I don’t know why.” She grabbed his hands. She’d taken off the gloves when they started working on grooming and the feel of dirt pressed between their fingers startled her. “If you know why I feel this way, you need to tell me.”
“I don’t know what happened between you and Sarah. If you stopped talking to her, she hasn’t mentioned it to me.”
“She probably wouldn’t tell you. She’d talk to your mom about it.” Her top teeth worried her bottom lip. “I wonder if she’d tell me.” She said it absentmindedly, but Chase shook his head. “You don’t think she would?”
“I know she wouldn’t unless Sarah told her to.” He rubbed his thumbs back and forth over her knuckles. “Ask Sarah.”
“She says I’ll remember when I’m meant to remember, and I shouldn’t worry about it. According to her, we drifted apart, but it was nothing that I did that was wrong.” Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. It beat in time with her heart, a steady thump-thumpthat argued she had so much to make up for and no way to even know how or where to start.
Chase released her hands. “I think that’s enough for today. You can come back Monday.” He dismissed her casually, and the pain of it pierced her all the way through.
