Page 211 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

A laugh almost escaped me. “I’ll let Rosie know you said that.”

“Can she be in the parade?”

“What parade?”

“The Halloween parade in town.”

“I don’t know…”

The girl reached through the fence carefully. Blueberry stretched toward her. I moved closer and showed her where to place her hand. Blueberry accepted the attention like the shameless creature she was.

“She’s really pretty.”

“She knows.”

“Can horses know they’re pretty?”

“This one absolutely does.”

The girl’s mother laughed. After I found the forgotten jacket and they drove away, I returned to the pasture. Blueberry was standing exactly where I’d left her. I stared at her. Her ears flicked. For years, people had assumed I stopped riding because I couldn’t.

That wasn’t true, I’d ridden after the accident. Only once.

It had been months after I received my first prosthetic. Pops was already gone by then, which meant every milestone I reached felt strangely empty because the person who would’ve celebrated loudest wasn’t there to see it.

My physical therapist had been supportive.

Meme had been terrified.

I had been arrogant.

I remembered telling everyone I knew how to ride before I knew how to properly walk. As though that meant my body would remember what to do automatically.

Blueberry had been perfect, Pops had spent months working with her in therapy and it had paid off. She’d been patient in a way she’d never been before the accident. We’d used a mounting block. I’d gotten into the saddle, and for approximately thirty seconds, I had felt like myself again.

Then Blueberry took three steps, and everything was wrong. My balance was off. The pressure distribution through my legs. The instinctive cues I’d spent most of my life giving without thinking.

I had known exactly what I wanted my body to do and discovered that knowing wasn’t the same as being able to do it.

I lasted less than five minutes.

Afterward, I’d stood inside the barn crying until there was nothing left.

I stopped trying because I couldn’t survive repeatedly meeting the woman I used to be and losing her again.

Blueberry nudged my shoulder.

“I know.” I pressed my forehead against hers. “I miss it too.”

Beau picked me up shortly before six that night. I’d spent nearly fifteen minutes standing in front of my closet beforehand, staring at the same collection of jeans I’d been choosing from for years.

Georgia had apparently forgotten it was October.

The temperature had hovered in the upper seventies all day, and I had no legitimate reason to put on denim except habit.

I reached for my jeans anyway.

The memory of Beau’s face in the tack room came back to me. Not when he first saw the prosthetic. After. The way he touched me. The way nothing in his eyes changed.