Page 33 of Quiver

Fletcher stepped back from the force of focus in those green eyes. “You need more. So much more.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“A hundred shots on the target. Here.” Fletcher unstrapped her own thigh quiver and held it out to her, trying to sound calmer than she felt. “Take this and five arrows. Shoot them all from the same basic position. Focus on feel, then reset and see if you can find the groove again with the next five. Do it twenty times if you hit them all.”

“And if I don’t?”

“If you miss one, don’t repeat that movement. Reset right away and try again.”

“On my own?”

“That’s the goal, right? I won’t be in the saddle or on the set with you. The whole point of this little experiment is to get you out of here and back on your way.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You’re not the only one with a job. Worry about yours, and let me do mine.”

Kylie’s triceps trembled as she drew the bow for literally the one-hundredth time, but she gritted her teeth and waited until she settled into what she’d come to think of as her slot. It wasn’t that the position felt any better than the others so much as it now felt more familiar. She released her final shot with a simple prayer of “please.”

When it struck true, not dead center, but close enough to call it a day, she nearly doubled over with relief, if not quite satisfaction. She heaved a few heavy breaths she’d denied herself while shooting, then straightened and glanced over her shoulder before kicking herself. Fletcher hadn’t seen her accomplishment, and she shouldn’t have cared. She wasn’t doing any of this for her approval. The only person she needed to convince was Sophia LeBlanc, and she had a long way to go before she’d even approach that level. Little milestones hardly mattered.

Kylie reminded herself she wasn’t the kind of person who needed constant praise or accolades in order to sustain her drive, or she would’ve left this business multiple times over the last few years when the dismal reviews and short runs outnumbered the standing ovations. Still, she couldn’t deny the flicker of annoyance that Fletcher had left her to her own devices for the last hour, or the low-level burn of disappointment when she didn’t even get a mumbled “good” or “nice” at the end of one hundred shots in a row.

She rubbed her arm, fingers running over the knotted muscle near her shoulder. She’d worked with personal trainers for years, but none of them ever tortured her with so many repetitions or offered so little encouragement in return. Then again, she’d paid them a lot more than she was paying Fletcher, which was nothing.

She scrunched up her face as if smelling something distasteful. It wasn’t that she didn’t mean to compensate her, but exchanging money with someone she’d once shared so much with seemed awkward, reductive, almost tawdry. But those days were long past, and their current relationship certainly felt transactional.

With that unhappy thought she wandered back from the arena to the barn. She hadn’t let herself dwell on the idea of accessing this space as a paying customer, nor did it feel like the days when she’d made herself at home here. She loosened the string and hung her bow in the tack room, then slipped the quiver from her thigh. She paused to breathe the scent of horses and hay. There were moments when she could easily forget she didn’t belong here, but they passed quickly, and she spent more time fighting the emotional whiplash than actually sitting in the feelings that had caused them.

The sound of a tail slapping the doorframe caused her to turn around.

Bear stared up at her, his dark eyes full of curiosity.

“What?” she asked, then added, “Where’s Fletcher?”

He opened his mouth so his pink tongue showed but didn’t move from his spot in her path.

She had to be close. While Bear appeared to have his run of the farm, he never got too far from Fletcher’s side when Kylie was around, as if she might need protecting from this newcomer, or maybe his other mom had put him on surveillance duty.

She rolled her eyes at the idea. Ava did didn’t seem capable of raising a spy dog. “Come on, Bear. Where’s your owner?”

Nothing.

“Person?”

Nope.

“Mom?”

He barked and turned in a quick circle.

“Oh Lord, seriously?” She snorted. “Do you call her ‘mom’?”

He barked again and gave a little bounce before trotting off.

She followed, shaking her head. “She’s getting soft.”

Sure enough, Bear slid through a slightly open barn door and out into the courtyard, where Fletcher stood with an axe in one hand and a saw in the other as she frowned at downed branches on the side of her driveway.