Chapter 12
JONAH
A few days after I shoe Rosie, I head back to the horse rescue to check up on Fuzz.
I’m worried about the infection and even though Beau can handle things without me, I know he has many other patients at the moment.
A few horses at one of the local ranches are sick with a virus, and he’s been trying to help them control the outbreak.
Inside the barn, I make a beeline for the office, just to let Candice and Beau know that I’m around. The door is shut, so I raise my fist to knock, but then hear strained voices coming from inside.
“I know what I need to do,” Winnie says. “I’m going to leave. I’ll leave in a few days and go somewhere even further away. Maybe California or—”
“No! Absolutely not, Win. You are not leaving,” Candice says, raising her voice in a way I rarely hear her do.
“I have to! They know I’m here and I don’t want them coming to find me.”
“Do you really believe their P.I. won’t find you? Following you out of the state from here won’t be difficult.”
“Okay! Fine! I’ll move every week. I’ll run as far away as I have to. Because what else am I supposed to do? I can’t access my trust fund and pay for I don’t know, bodyguards or a lawyer or whatever else I might need to protect myself.”
“Fuck,” Candice says. “I’m sorry. I just think you’re safer here.”
“I think I need to run for a while longer.”
“I don’t agree, but I’ll never try and stop you. Just think about it for a bit, okay?”
“Sure. I’m going to get going,” Winnie says, and then mumbles something I can’t hear.
The door to the office flies open and Winnie walks out. When she sees me she mutters, “Just perfect. I assume you overheard everything?”
And then she hurries past me, giving me a glimpse of her tear stained cheeks. On instinct, I follow her. She’s not my problem, but then I’ve never been able to ignore someone who needs my help.
She books it out of the barn and to the paddocks in the back, and I do my best to keep pace with her. But damn, she’s got long legs and clearly wants to get away from me.
“Stop following me!” she calls out.
“Not a chance,” I yell back.
Finally, she stops by the paddock that Rosie is in, and hops onto one of the fence rails. I stand beside her, and give her a few moments of silence.
“Why are you here, Jonah?” she asks.
“Because you’re clearly upset and I wanted to see if you needed my help.”
“You know, I actually have the money to help myself,” she says wistfully. “I have enough of it that I could fight whatever my parents throw at me, and buy my own house here, and build my own life, just like I’ve always wanted.”
“But?” I ask, slightly bewildered by what she’s getting at.
“But I’m not old enough to access my trust fund yet. So really, only thirty-year-old me has the money to do all that. To save herself.”
“And there’s no other way to access it?” I ask, even though I know fuck-all about trust funds.
“Unless I get married, no,” she says flatly.
“So, what? Pageants don’t pay?” She doesn’t exactly seem poor given all of the clothing she has, so I don’t really understand why she’s so hard up for cash.
Winnie snorts out a laugh. “Pageants cost a lot but pay in exposure. What I earned was from social media and appearances. And I earned a lot, Jonah. A fuck ton. Most of it went into my mom and dad’s accounts, though, and I barely saw a cent. I am the family business, after all,” she bites out.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to help my parents, but that doesn’t seem to be what Winnie is describing. “Are they really that bad?”
Winnie turns towards me and her face is set in harsh, angry lines. “Yes, that bad. Worse, even. They would have never let me go and I’m sure they’ll stop at nothing to get me back now that I’m free. Neither one of them have jobs. They need me.”
The reality of Winnie’s situation sinks in.
She’s on the run, as I suspected, but not from an ex and not from the law.
She’s on the run from her own parents. Her flesh and blood.
It makes me shudder. And it’s clear there isn’t much I can do to help her.
She needs money to fight her parents, and every cent I have goes to my mom’s medical bills.
“That’s…that’s awful, Winnie,” I say, at a loss for anything more constructive.
“Yeah. It is.”
In the paddock, Rosie is rolling around in the snow, and I see a flicker of a smile cross Winnie’s face as she watches her. Animals, especially horses, are magic—capable of making even the worst wounds seem a tiny bit better. After my mom got diagnosed, I spent a lot of time here at the rescue.
“How’s your relationship with your parents?” Winnie asks. “I hope it’s good, because I need to believe that it’s possible, and that mine are just some horrible anomaly.”
“My parents are great, honestly. I’m an only child, so I spent a lot of time with them as a kid, but they always came up with fun games to keep me entertained. My dad has a huge personality and makes everyone he knows laugh. And my mom…” My voice catches on the word.
“What?” Winnie asks softly.
“My mom is fine,” I say in a voice that is steadier that I feel.
“But for a few years she wasn’t. She got diagnosed with breast cancer a year and a half ago, and it was a hell of a fight.
I thought…I worried we might lose her. But still, I’m not—I’m not over it.
And we’ve still got medical bills from it hanging over our heads, reminding us of it daily. ”
It sounds simple when I put it like that, but inside I know I’m a mess. Wondering if the person you love the most in the world is going to make it to their next birthday will do that to you, and even though she’s okay now, sometimes I don’t believe that she really is.
Winnie reaches out and places her hand on mine on top of the fence, and gives it a quick squeeze.
“I’m glad she made it through. What’s she like?”
“Sort of like me,” I say. “That’s what my dad always says.”
“So, grumpy and a bit stubborn, but also quiet and kind?”
I feel my damn cheeks heat despite the cold and I almost can’t believe it. It’s been a long time since a woman made me blush, but then again, it’s also been a long time since I received a compliment so heartfelt. Especially from a woman.
“Something like that,” I mutter.
“Thanks for following me out here, Jonah,” Winnie says after a moment. “You don’t owe me anything and barely know me and yet you still came to make sure I was okay.”
“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help. Do you feel any better?” I ask.
“Definitely,” she says, giving me that sunny, radiant smile of hers.
For some reason, I don’t believe her.