Chapter 3
The staging area was a cleared lot behind the Baptist church, fenced on three sides with split rail and backed by a tree line that ran along the creek. Richard had secured it through whatever combination of charm and persistence passed for negotiation in Hope Hollow.
By the time Wyatt pulled in at seven that morning, someone had already set up a temporary corral and hung a hand-lettered sign on the fence.
PARADE STAGING—NO PARKING BEYOND THIS POINT.
Richard’s handwriting. Nobody else used block letters that aggressive.
Wyatt backed his truck up to the corral gate and cut the engine. His kit was in the bed—rasp, nippers, pull-offs, anvil stand, and the leather apron he’d inherited from his grandfather along with everything else.
He lowered the tailgate, set up his station on the grass, and waited for the first trailer.
The sheriff’s unit arrived at 7:20. Four horses, four riders, one deputy handling logistics. The horses were quarter horses, well-maintained. The kind of animals that had been through enough public events to stand quietly while the world moved around them.
Wyatt worked through them one at a time, checking shoes, testing for loose nails, picking up each hoof to inspect the sole and frog for cracks or bruising. All four were solid. Whoever the department’s regular farrier was—and Wyatt suspected it was Ted Greenlee over in Maryville—had done good work.
He made a few notes on his clipboard, checked the fourth horse’s right rear shoe, which had a slightly worn heel, and told the deputy they were parade-ready.
The carriage horse came next. A Percheron draft, seventeen hands, dark gray with feathered feet and a patient expression that said she’d been doing this longer than most of the people in town had been alive.
Her owner, a man named Dan from the next county over, backed her off the trailer and walked her to the corral gate.
“She’s overdue,” Dan said. “I know.”
He did know. The Percheron’s hooves were long, the shoes worn thin at the toes. Not dangerous yet, but close.
Wyatt crouched and picked up her front left. The mare lowered her head and stood. Sixteen hundred pounds of horse, and she gave him the foot like she was handing over a set of keys.
“I can reset her today,” Wyatt said. “New shoes all around. She’ll need a couple of days on soft ground after, so I’d rather do it now than wait.”
Dan nodded. “Whatever you think.”
Wyatt pulled his apron from the tailgate and buckled it on. The leather was worn soft where his grandfather’s hands had folded it for forty years. He dug through his kit for the right size shoes and set up his anvil stand. The Percheron watched with calm disinterest.
He was halfway through the first hoof when the reenactment trailer pulled in. He heard it before he saw it.
The trailer was rocking. Not the gentle shift of a horse adjusting its weight during a haul. This was rhythmic banging, the kind that came from a horse pawing or kicking inside a straight-load. The truck pulling it parked too fast, at an angle that blocked half the lot.
The driver got out. A man in his fifties wearing a Confederate cavalry uniform that was either very authentic or very old.
“She does this,” the man said to no one in particular.
Wyatt set the Percheron’s foot down carefully and straightened. The trailer rocked again. A high whinny came from inside—thin, sharp, and scared.
“How old?” Wyatt asked.
“Five. She’s fine once she’s out.”
Maybe.
The man lowered the ramp. The trailer rocked one more time, hard, and then a chestnut mare came off at a trot, head high, nostrils wide, every muscle telegraphing that she was three seconds from going sideways.
The man did the right thing. Kept walking. Gave her room to look around. Let her move. The mare circled him twice, snorting at the corral panels, the parked trucks, the Percheron watching her with the bored tolerance of a school principal observing a freshman.
She was too green for this. Wyatt could see it in the way she carried herself—too high, too tight, scanning for threats. A horse like that in a fenced lot behind a church was not going to walk calmly down Main Street with marching bands, flags, and crowds pressing in from both sides.
But that wasn’t his call. Not yet. He was here to check shoes, not evaluate temperament.
He went back to the Percheron. Finished the first hoof. Started the second. Kept one eye on the chestnut, who was still circling, still scanning, her tail clamped tight against her hindquarters.
He was shaping the second shoe on the anvil when he heard a car pull in behind him. A door closed. Footsteps on gravel.
“Where do you want me?”
Meghan’s voice.
Wyatt didn’t turn around right away. He finished the strike, checked the curve of the shoe, and set the hammer down before he trusted himself to look.
She stood a few feet away with a canvas bag over one shoulder and a notebook in her hand. Her hair was pulled back, and she wore jeans and a plain shirt, dressed for a worksite instead of the salon.
Somehow, that was worse. Not worse. Better. Just not easier.
“Riders are over by the fence,” he said, nodding toward the small group near the corral. “Richard said you’d need to get measurements and figure out what everyone’s wearing.”
“Richard says a lot of things.”
That almost got a smile out of him. He looked down at the hoof before his mouth could give him away.
Meghan walked past him toward the group. Wyatt went back to work. Fit the shoe. Drove the first nail. The Percheron didn’t flinch.
He could hear Meghan talking to the riders.
Professional, easy, asking about hat brims and collar heights and whether anyone had a preference for how their hair sat under a helmet.
The deputies were stiff at first, the way men got when someone wanted to talk about their appearance, but she loosened them up fast.
One of them laughed.
Of course he did. She was good at that. Making people comfortable in the exact moment they didn’t want to be fussed over. Wyatt had seen it from Brynn’s chair for years—the way clients walked in tense and walked out lighter, and half the time it had nothing to do with the haircut.
He finished the Percheron’s second hoof and moved to the rear. The mare shifted her weight to accommodate him, easy as breathing. A horse this steady was worth her weight. Literally.
“What’s wrong with that one?”
Meghan was beside him now. Not close. A few feet away, far enough to stay clear of the work.
Close enough that he caught the same faint, clean sweetness from the salon.
She was looking at the chestnut, now tied to the corral fence and pulling back against the rope every time a car passed on the road.
“She’s young,” Wyatt said. He set the Percheron’s rear hoof down and straightened, pressing a hand into the small of his back. “Hasn’t been around enough noise and movement to feel safe in it.”
“Can you fix that?”
“Not in a month.” He watched the chestnut flinch at a truck door closing. “You can’t rush a horse past being scared. You just show up every day and be the same thing until they trust it.”
Meghan was quiet for a second. She had her notebook open, but she wasn’t writing.
“My grandmother had a horse,” she said. “When I was little. A big gray one with spots on his rear end.”
“Appaloosa.”
“She let me brush him sometimes, but I was never allowed to ride. She said he was too unpredictable.” Meghan looked down at her notebook, then back at the chestnut. “I think she just didn’t want me to get hurt.”
“Smart grandmother.”
“She thought so.”
Wyatt smiled. This time, he didn’t quite manage to stop it. Meghan noticed. He knew she did because her eyes flicked to his mouth for half a second before she looked back at the horse.
That half second stayed with him longer than it should have.
He turned back to the Percheron and picked up the third hoof.
Meghan stayed. She didn’t hover or crowd the workspace.
She stood near the corral fence where she could see what he was doing and still keep an eye on the riders.
She asked questions—not the kind people asked to fill silence, but the kind that came from paying attention.
Why the Percheron needed new shoes and the sheriff’s horses didn’t.
How he could tell a hoof was overgrown.
What the nails were made of.
Whether it hurt the horse.
“It’s like trimming your fingernails,” he said. “The outer wall doesn’t have nerve endings. If I go too deep, I’ll hit live tissue, and she’ll let me know.”
“Has that happened?”
“Once. I was twenty. The horse forgave me before my grandfather did.”
Meghan smiled at that. Wyatt looked away first.
She was easy to be around. That was the problem.
She didn’t pretend. Didn’t push. Didn’t try to make the silence into something it wasn’t.
She just stood there and watched and asked things she actually wanted to know, and every minute of it made it harder to remember that he’d spent six years sitting in the wrong chair specifically to avoid this.
He finished the Percheron. Four new shoes, all four feet trimmed and balanced. Dan walked the mare around the lot to check her gait—smooth, even, the heavy feathered feet falling in a rhythm that said everything was where it should be.
Meghan watched the Percheron move. “She’s beautiful.”
“She’s a professional,” Wyatt said. “Sixteen years pulling carriages. She’s seen everything.”
Meghan nodded toward the chestnut, who was now standing still but rigid, every tendon visible, ears locked forward. “Unlike that one.”
“Unlike that one.”
He started packing up his kit. Meghan stayed near the fence, notebook closed now, bag slung over her shoulder. The riders had dispersed to their trailers. The lot had gone quieter, the morning heat beginning to rise off the gravel.
“Same time Friday?” she asked.
“I’ll be here most mornings this month.” He loaded the anvil stand into the truck bed. “The chestnut will need daily work if she’s going to get anywhere near that parade.”
Meghan looked at the mare again. “You think she’ll make it?”
Wyatt set his toolbox beside the anvil stand, then pulled off the leather apron and folded it the way his grandfather always had. “Ask me in two weeks.”
She nodded. She didn’t push for a better answer.
Curtis was at the trailer, checking the latch on the ramp. Wyatt walked over before he could talk himself out of it.
“I’d like to work with her,” Wyatt said. “Mornings, before the lot gets busy. Get her used to the space, the noise. Build up from there.”
Curtis looked at him for a long moment. Then he looked at the chestnut, standing calm now in the corral, head low, as though the last hour hadn’t happened.
“You think it’ll help?”
“I think it’s the only thing that will.”
Curtis nodded slowly. “She’s yours in the mornings, then.”
Curtis was at the trailer, checking the latch on the ramp. Wyatt walked over before he could talk himself out of it.
“I’d like to work with her,” Wyatt said. “Mornings, before the lot gets busy. Get her used to the space, the noise. Build up from there.”
Curtis looked at him for a long moment. Then he looked at the chestnut, standing calm now in the corral, head low, as though the last hour hadn’t happened.
“You think it’ll help?”
“I think it’s the only thing that will.”
Curtis nodded slowly. “She’s yours in the mornings, then.
” Didn’t tell him it would probably be fine just because that was the easier thing to say.
She walked back to her car, tossed her bag in the passenger seat, and pulled out of the lot with a wave he almost missed because he was trying not to watch her leave.
He stood at his tailgate for a minute after she was gone. The chestnut was still at the fence, still tight, still watching the road like it might come for her.
Finally, he let out a breath. “I know,” he said to the horse.
The mare flicked one ear toward him.