CHAPTER TEN
Danica
Just as I was returning from the house with more bottles of milk—after also using the bathroom again—I could hear Tom’s soft voice speaking English. The closer I drew to the stall, the louder his conversation became, until I realized he wasn’t speaking to Midnight, but rather someone on his phone.
“Si. Si. Grazie mille. Grazie.” Sighing heavily, he hung up and faced me. “We have a nurse mare. Raven will be here later today.”
Relief filled me and combined with my grief over Angel, and my exhaustion, my knees gave way a little. “Oh, thank goodness.”
I hadn’t even clued in to the subdued weather as I crossed his property to the house and back.
But the wind had died down a fair bit, though the clouds seemed to still be thick, gray, and hanging lower than I think anybody would like.
We would take this ebb though, and use it to our advantage to get Raven here. Midnight needed her.
Who is “we”?
I ignored my conscience asking a question I wasn’t prepared to answer just yet, and handed Tom one of the bottles. “Here.”
“Grazie.”
Midnight was awake and full of energy, still not quite sure what was going on with his mother.
He’d given up trying to nurse now, but kept headbutting her abdomen and neck to try to wake her up.
My heart ripped clean in two as he cocked his little head to the side in confusion when she wouldn’t respond.
Tom inched closer to the colt and waggled the bottle beside his head. Instantly, Midnight zeroed in, knowing that the glass bottle meant food.
His lips reached for the nipple like two little hands attached to his cute face, and his eyes bugged out a bit until he latched on properly.
“I need to call Cameron to help me move the body,” he said solemnly, glancing over at Angel.
“Let me.” I pulled out my phone and sent off a quick text to Cameron Arendelle, as well as some of the McEvoy brothers.
While I’d normally include Jagger and Maverick as well, they were both recovering from injuries.
Jagger from a shattered knee after rescuing my nephew, Marco, from being kidnapped, and Maverick from a spinal fracture in hockey.
Neither of them should be trying to help lift a dead horse.
Nobody would be up yet, since it wasn’t quite three o’clock, but they’d all get them when they woke. While Angel was emaciated and undoubtedly lighter than your average horse, she still would take more than two grown men to lift onto a trailer, or however Tom planned to transport her.
“Should we move him to a different stall?” I asked, not sure of the protocol when it came to newly orphaned foals and removing them from the scene with their dead mother. Was there standard protocol?
Tom nodded. “We will. Si.”
His yawn was big, and his eyes were tired. I’d guessed he didn’t get much sleep last night either and was running on fumes now.
“You can go sleep at your house for a few hours,” I offered. “I can stay with Midnight. Now that Angel has passed, we don’t need two of us.”
He shook his head and yawned again. “I am okay.”
“Tom. I’m serious.”
He leveled me with red-rimmed brown eyes. “I know. But so am I. Thank you, Danica.”
We held each other’s gaze for a moment longer than I expected, and heat crept into my face. I wasn’t sure which one of us broke eye contact first, since we seemed to do it at the same time, to stare down at a hungry Midnight.
“You do not need to stay. I appreciate all of your help …” His gaze met mine again. “And company. But you should go home to your daughter. Shower. Rest.”
Shower? Did I stink?
I probably smelled like horse and hay, but so did he.
I resisted the urge to lift my arms and smell my pits.
He was right after all. Angel was gone; it was just Midnight and the rest of the horses now. The nurse mare would be there later today. Tom didn’t need me anymore.
Reluctantly, I nodded. “You’re probably right.”
Was that disappointment on his face? He just told me to go.
I fought off a yawn, but failed miserably, and located my jacket, slinging it over my arm.
My eyes slid to Angel, and my heart grew heavy.
Entering the stall again, I crouched down beside her head and swept my hand over her forehead.
“You were strong for him. I hope you’re at peace, sweet mama. We’ve got him now.”
Who is this “we” again?
Then I leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss to her head, and then swept my hand over Midnight’s ears, but he was too busy guzzling to give me any acknowledgment. “I’ll see you … soon,” I said to Tom. “I’m sure Sam will want to see him.”
He nodded. “Bring her by after school if you’d like. Cameron will be here with Francesca.”
Knowing I was going to see him again and soon, brought me way too much joy than it should have, and I had to temper my smile. “Okay. I will.”
“Ciao, Danica. Thank you again.”
“Ciao, Tommaso. Thank you.” Then I headed out of the stall and down the barn, simply waving at the horses and donkeys that hung their heads over the stalls, eager for some love.
I would see them later.
I would see him later.
Since I didn’t get a call from the school to go pick up Sam early, I figured that was a good sign, and that she’d had a better day.
Such was not the case.
She rode the bus home with her cousins, but every stomp up the stairs to our carriage house seemed heavier than the last. I knew something wasn’t right before the door even opened.
I saved my work on the computer and met her in the living room. “What happened?”
The way she glanced up at me, with her chin down, eyes tipped up, reminded me so much of her father that goosebumps chased their way along my arms, and I had to stop myself from taking a step back. “What do you think happened? Clyde. Of course.”
Sucking in a deep breath through my nose, I stepped forward and removed her backpack from her shoulders, then helped her slouch out of her jacket. “What did he do now?”
She growled and bunched her fists at her side, her complexion going from pristine peaches and cream to a scary, mottled red.
Resting my hands on her shoulders, I applied a bit of pressure to help ground her in the moment. “Breathe, Samantha. Breathe. It won’t do either of us any good if you pass out.”
She’d squeezed her eyes shut, but opened them, exhaled, and let her shoulders relax. “First, he pulled my chair out just as I was about to sit down, and then I fell on my butt—hard.”
“What the hell?”
“Then he unzipped all the zippers on my backpack as we stood waiting for the bus. So then everything fell out and into a puddle as I walked to get on the bus. Mr. Figgs was nice enough to wait for me, and Honor and Laurel helped me pick it all up. But my lunch kit, binder, and the book I had just checked out from the library are soaking wet and muddy.”
I clenched my molars together, waiting for her to add the last bit. I could tell the pièce de résistance was just around the corner.
“Then he sat behind me on the bus and put gum in my hair.” She turned around. “See!”
I inhaled a lungful of air, counted to ten in my head, and channeled all sixty minutes of the one and only yoga class I had ever taken. Surely, I had to feel a few minutes of Zen in between stretching my body in ways it didn’t want to be stretched. “Is that it?”
She nodded, and her bottom lip wobbled as tears welled up in her eyes. “I hate him so much, Mom.”
“Me too, sweetheart. Me too. But right now, we have to get that gum out. Here. Let’s get the peanut butter. Then, we’re going to go to Tom’s to see the new nurse mare and check how Midnight is coming along.”
I was gently guiding her to the kitchen, but she stopped in her tracks. “Nurse mare? Did Angel die?”
“Oh shit.” Taking her hands, I gave them a squeeze.
“I’m so sorry, honey. Yes, last night. Justine gave her something for the pain, and we were there with her.
So was Midnight. She didn’t die alone. She died with her little boy curled up beside her, feeling every bit of her love.
And I got some goats’ milk from Fred Love to tide us over, but it’s not a permanent solution. We need a mare.”
We?
Once is an accident, twice a mistake. Three times? Is it becoming a habit?
“A-and Tom found one?”
“He did. Raven will be on the island today. She’s probably already there.”
The sadness in her hazel-green eyes almost made me drop the jar of peanut butter on my foot.
Children should never have to feel the level of grief I knew she was feeling for Angel and Midnight.
Because my kid was a deep feeler. A more empathic person, I’m not sure I’d ever met.
Which was a blessing, considering the sociopathic monster who fathered her.
“That poor baby,” she practically whimpered, leaning over the sink so I could spoon a glob of peanut butter into the gum at the back of her head. “He must be so confused.” She sniffled a little, and her slender frame trembled. “Not even a day old and already an orphan.”
“He’s got a lot of people caring for him. You, me, Tom. Francesca will be there. So will Cameron. And Raven will be his adopted mother, at least for a little while. Then he can join the other horses and be a family with them.”
“I guess …”
I had to really work the peanut butter into the gum before it started to disintegrate from the peanut oil, then I rinsed it away.
“I’m going to go have a shower and wash my hair,” Sam said. “I won’t be able to get the smell of peanut butter out of it if I don’t.”
I didn’t argue with her and let her go, leaving me to go through her backpack and the muddy, wet contents.