Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After changing into the sweats and hoodie, Enya gritted her teeth against the ache in her ankle as she followed Rowan out of the house.
A gravel drive stretched before them, leading down towards the barnyard.
The distance seemed immense. Each step sent fresh jolts of pain up her leg as the gravel shifted treacherously under her boots.
She focused on putting one foot in front of the other, breathing through the pain, her gaze fixed on the wide sliding door of the metal barn.
Almost there.
Almost there.
“Shit, Rowan cursed softly. “I’m sorry, I’m an ass. Do you want me to grab one of the ATVs and drive you down?”
“No, it’s fine. I can sit while I’m cleaning the tack, right?” If he said no, she just might cry. But she’d spilled enough tears over the last three months. She didn’t want to cry anymore. She was so over pain, nightmares, sorrow, and everything that went with them.
I just want to be me again.
Maybe the first step to that was cleaning tack in a hero’s barn.
“Yeah, you can sit.” Rowan slowed his steps. “Despite what the guys might tell you, I’m not an asshole all the time.”
“Then I’m goo—” A loud whinny echoed up the yard. She’d know that sound anywhere. “Rain.”
“He’s fine.” Rowan was quick to reassure her. “Dawsyn put him in the round pen a while ago. You want to say hi before you get to work?”
They reached the side door of the barn, a smaller entrance beside the main slider. Rowan opened it and ushered her in ahead of him. “Round pen is straight through here if you do, so it won’t take but a minute. It might do you both good to start with hello.”
“Okay.” A hello couldn’t hurt, right? Rain deserved that much.
What was the point of coming here if I don’t at least try to see if we’re too broken?
The smell hit her like a physical embrace.
She loved the mix of rich alfalfa hay, sweet grain, leather, horse sweat, manure, and liniment.
The deep, comforting, living scent of a working barn had always meant home to her.
Tears pricked hotly at her eyes, and she blinked them back, inhaling deeply, letting the familiar smells anchor her in the present moment.
This is real.
This is now.
The barn was long and wide, lined on both sides with spacious stalls fronted by heavy steel bars.
Industrial fans hummed softly overhead, circulating the air.
A few curious heads popped over stall doors as she limped down the central aisle.
A sleek bay, a dappled grey, a massive chestnut with intelligent eyes.
They watched them pass, ears flickering, nostrils flaring as they sampled her unfamiliar scent mixed with Rowan’s.
Some of them nickered a greeting to Rowan, but none of them were who she was searching for.
“Go ahead,” Rowan urged. “I’ll be right here. Yell if you need me.”
She was grateful there wasn’t going to be a witness to what was to come. She walked through the door on the opposite side of the barn and into the round pen. Her breath caught in her throat. “Rain.”
His head shot up at the sound of her voice.
Guilt slammed into her as he nickered in response.
He looked… diminished. His normally gleaming coat was dull, lacking its usual sheen.
His powerful neck seemed thinner, and the muscles less defined.
His expression was weary, almost vacant.
The vibrant fire that had always defined him, the fierce intelligence that made him, him, seemed banked…
smothered… almost like he was a reflection of her. “Rain,” her voice cracked.
This is my fault.
I did this to him.
The guilt, a constant, gnawing companion, surged up, thick and choking because he probably thought that she’d abandoned him. First in El Paso, then in her father’s barn. She’d let her own darkness swallow his light. Her father’s harsh words echoed in her mind: “You’re killing him.”
A sob threatened to break free, but she choked it down, forcing her trembling legs to carry her the last few yards to him. She reached for his nose but stopped just short of touching it. “Hey, boy,” she managed, her voice thick with emotions she had no words for. “Hey, Rain.”
He watched her for another long moment, his breath puffing softly in the cool air.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he took another step closer.
He stretched his neck and his velvety muzzle reached towards her.
The soft warmth of his nose brushed against the knuckles of her hand, and the contact was electric.
It was a jolt of pure, grounding reality.
Rain in his purest form. He was solid, warm, alive, here, and he still wanted to know her.
Tears spilled over, hot and unchecked, trailing tracks down her cheeks.
This time, she didn’t try to stop them. She leaned her forehead against Rain’s forehead and closed her eyes.
His breath warmed her skin, his nickers warmed her heart, and finally the phantom of his screams in her head faded, replaced by the soft snuffle he made as he nudged her chest gently, insistently.
“Still mine. Still my boy.” She slid her hand up, burying her fingers in the thick, coarse hair of his forelock, the familiar texture a balm to her battered soul.
“I’m sorry I got lost, baby.” He lowered his head further, accepting her touch, his warm breath sighing out against her arm.
Their reunion had the quiet rawness of two broken creatures finding each other in the wreckage of what had happened.
Enya decided that drawing comfort simply from each other’s presence, from their touch, and from the unspoken understanding that they were still connected mattered more than the damage that had been wrought.
“We’ll fix this, Rain,” she promised. “We’ll fix us, ’kay?
Maybe that’s why we’re here in this place.
Where I was born doesn’t feel like home anymore, but maybe where you were born will. ”
She didn’t know how long she stood there, with her fingers tangled in Rain’s forelock, her tears soaking into his hair.
Time blurred into the rhythm of Rain’s breathing, the soft rustle of shavings as he shifted his weight, the distant hum of machinery.
A fragile peace settled over her, thin as morning mist, but enough for her to see a light at the end of what had been a very long, dark road.
The scrape of a boot heel on concrete shattered the bubble around her and Rain. Her head snapped up, heart leaping into her throat, until she saw Rowan leaning against the doorframe of the barn.
He pushed off the doorframe and walked towards them, his steps unhurried, and he stopped a respectful distance away. His gaze flickered from her tear-streaked face to her hand buried in Rain’s forelock, and smiled.
“The first step is always the hardest,” he said, his voice low and even.
“Why don’t you bring him over to the feed bucket and see if he’ll have some chow today, too?
” He took the final step, closing the small distance between them.
He didn’t touch her, but his presence was overwhelmingly solid and unyielding.
He held out a bucket. “Go hang that on the holder, and feed your boy.”
She nodded. “Come on, baby, breakfast for good boys.” Her voice didn’t quite have her normal singsong tone, but it was close enough that Rain followed her across the pen.
When she hung the bucket on the fence holder, she pulled her hand from Rain’s mane.
The stallion nudged her shoulder gently, a soft whicker rumbling in his chest, and dipped his nose into the bucket.
“Well done,” Rowan said softly. “Leave him to it. If he doesn’t eat it all, we try a different way at dinner time.”
“Okay.” She blew out a shaky breath and followed him into the tack room.
“Your domain, for now.” Rowan’s voice was a low rumble.
He nudged a large, rectangular plastic tub overflowing with leatherwork toward the sturdy wooden workbench that dominated the center of the small room.
Bridles, reins, breast collars. “Hal’s been…
distracted.” He didn’t elaborate, but the slight tightening around his eyes spoke volumes.
Distracted likely meant overwhelmed, or maybe just fed up with cleaning tack nobody else seemed to care about. “Start with that pile.”
“I can do that.”
“Glycerin soap.” He tapped a green block sitting beside a deep metal sink against the far wall.
“Sponges. Brushes. Neatsfoot oil. Warm water, not hot. Scrub in circles. Rinse clean. Dry thoroughly. Oil, while it’s still slightly damp.
Don’t drown it.” His instructions were clipped and devoid of the anxious hovering that had defined her life for the past three months.
He pointed to a tall stool tucked under the bench.
“Use that. Take the weight off that ankle.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over her, assessing her readiness for the task. “Questions?”
Enya shook her head, the movement jerky.
Her throat felt tight. The sheer volume of the task was suddenly overwhelming, a physical manifestation of the mess inside her head.
But underneath the panic fluttering like a trapped bird against her ribs, something else stirred.
A faint, almost forgotten hum of purpose. “No. I got it.”
The corners of his lips lifted in what she suspected was a rare smile. “Good. Hal or I’ll check in later.” And then he was gone, the heavy barn door sighing shut behind him, leaving her alone with the silence and the smell of leather and the monumental pile of dirty tack.
She limped to the sink and turned on the faucet. The pipes groaned, then spat out a stream of water. She adjusted it to warm and picked up the block of glycerin soap. It was smooth, heavy, and smelled faintly of pine. She wet a sponge, worked up a thick, creamy lather.
She reached into the tangled mess in the tub and pulled out a bridle. The crownpiece was crusted with old sweat and dirt, and the reins were stiff and unyielding. This… this was exactly what she needed. Rain, and to go back to basics, to rebuild her world from the ground up.
One filthy bridle at a time.
She carried it to the workbench, dragged the stool out, and perched on the edge and got to work.
Scrub. Circle. Scrub.
The rhythmic wet rasp of sponge on leather and the drip of water into the bucket below filled the room.
It pushed back the heavier silence, creating a bubble of focus around her and the bridle in her hands.
Her world narrowed to the patch of leather under the sponge, the transformation from grimy neglect to something cleaner, revealed inch by stubborn inch.
Memories flickered into her mind like an old film reel of being maybe twelve and kneeling on the rubber matting of her parents’ barn aisle, meticulously cleaning her first real barrel racing saddle.
Her small hands had worked the soap into the intricate tooling, her father’s patient voice guiding her.
“Gentle, baby girl. Like you’re petting Bo-Bo.
Let the soap do the work. See? It’s coming alive again. ”
She focused on the feel of the sponge, the grit under her fingernails, the rhythmic scritch-scritch-scritch that anchored her to this moment, this task.
Scrub. Circle. Scrub.
The stiff, grimy leather gradually yielded to the warm soap and the persistent circles of the sponge.
The dark brown mud gave way to a richer, warmer hue.
She rinsed each section under the warm tap, watching the dirty water swirl down the drain, taking some of the clinging heaviness inside her with it.
She patted each piece dry with a clean, rough towel someone had left there for that purpose and felt the texture change beneath her touch, becoming a little less brittle and a little more receptive.
Kinda like me.
She worked until her shoulders screamed and her hands were pruny and red from the warm water.
She worked through the pile in the tub, one piece at a time.
A tight martingale, a pair of reins that had been stiff as boards.
A breastplate crusted with dried mud. Each piece was a challenge, and each transformation a small, silent victory.
By the time the pile of clean, supple leather grew on the other side of the bench, and the pile of neglected mess shrank, her hands ached, her ankle throbbed, and she was exhausted.
Her borrowed clothes were damp with sweat and splashed with soapy water.
But as she stood there, breathing in the scent of a job done well done, of leather brought back from the trash can, a single, clear thought pierced the fog that had filled her head for months.
I did that.