Chapter 1
Little River Stallions Book Three
“I’ll show you to the barn,” Avi said, picking her bag up off the ground. “If that’s okay.”
Hell yes, it was okay.
But Fallon didn’t say that. She just nodded.
“We’ll see you in the morning,” Zara said. “Rest well, Fallon.”
“Thank you.”
Avi gestured toward the barn and she followed him.
Inside, she saw workbenches and stacks of wood and boxes piled on top of each other.
He led her to a flight of wooden steps up to a landing on one side of the barn, and when they reached the top, he opened a door and stepped aside so she could walk in first.
Inside, she found a quaint studio apartment with a small kitchenette and a main room separated into a living space and a bedroom by a folding screen.
“Bathroom’s over there,” he gestured as he set her bag on the bed.
“The kitchen is stocked, but I was kind of guessing about the kinds of things you might like. You can let me know what you’d like and I’ll be happy to get it. ”
Her chest tightened unexpectedly.
Her throat felt too tight to speak.
What would she say anyway?
That she knew what he was, but it was too much right now? That her life was in such complete upheaval that there was no way in hell she should even be thinking the very incredible word that her jaguar kept trying to get her to say?
She finally managed a thank you, and he nodded.
“There’s a walkie on the counter, just turn it to channel three and whoever is on patrol will answer. All of us carry walkies when we’re around the farm so we can be in touch easily. And we all live in the farmhouse, so we’re really close. Can I get you anything?”
He spoke so kindly, so reassuringly, that she wanted to just fall into his arms and find out what it felt like to be held by someone so seemingly strong, but instead she shook her head.
She was so freaking exhausted.
He gave her a quiet look. “You’re safe here, Fallon, I promise. If you need anything, just holler. I’ll be close by.”
He walked out of the apartment and closed the door behind him. She stood frozen for a little while in the silence of the apartment.
Safe.
Everyone kept saying the word safe, like an echo. She’d heard it a dozen times in the last hour.
But she didn’t exactly feel safe. Not yet anyway.
Not when Otto was still out there, possibly nearby and waiting. Not when she didn’t know what was going on with her mom.
Not when everything in her life had been torn up by the roots and scattered.
She sat on the edge of the bed and exhaled shakily. The apartment was quiet and private.
For just a moment, she felt like she was standing on the edge of a new beginning. A new chapter of her life that had everything to do with the stallion male with coal-black hair and enchanting blue eyes.
She wasn’t sure she could afford to believe in a new beginning.
She felt like she could only handle surviving to the next day.
As she settled back on the bed, she stared at the ceiling until it blurred with tears, and then she let herself go into the marrow-deep sorrow.
She cried for the life she’d had to abandon and the hopelessness she felt now.
And she cried for Avi, because she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to say out loud the word that kept banging around in her mind.
Soulmate.
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