Page 83 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

“Always.”

“Nervous?”

“Terrified.”

The interviewer laughed. “You don’t look terrified.”

“That’s because Blueberry doesn’t need to know.” She rubbed the mare’s neck.

The interviewer asked the obvious question. “Finals?”

Carson looked directly toward the camera. “Try keeping me away.”

The video ended. There wasn’t another race after it. I scrolled hoping to see more, but there was nothing. That had been her last run.

Exactly when the accident happened.

My thumb moved toward the search bar. I didn’t even have to finish typing.

Carson Rome accident appeared beneath her name.

I stared at it. One click. That was all it would take. There were probably articles. Maybe police reports summarized somewhere. Whatever had happened badly enough to put her in a hospital and end a career that looked like it had been weeks away from changing her life was probably online.

I wanted to know. More than I should have. Not because I liked gossip.

Because suddenly, the Carson I’d met made a little more sense, and somehow, that only made the missing pieces more noticeable.

I thought about her walking through the rain. Refusing help. Working a ranch that looked like it needed three of her. Sitting beside Meme while an entire town discussed bringing back something she’d once loved.

I could find out. She would never know…

That was exactly why I didn’t. I cleared the search. Whatever happened belonged to Carson. If she wanted me to know, she’d tell me.

I set my phone face down on the coffee table. For several minutes, I sat in the quiet. The thing bothering me wasn’t what happened to her. It was how much had happened all at once. She’d been twenty years old.

At twenty, my biggest concern had been whether Dad would ever trust me to run the garage without checking every invoice after I closed.

Carson had been building an actual career. Not dreaming about one. Then something put her in the hospital. Racing disappeared. Months later, James died.

And somewhere inside all of that, Marigold Ranch landed on her shoulders.

No wonder she didn’t want help.

Maybe help felt too close to admitting she couldn’t keep everything James left behind exactly the way he’d given it to her.

I understood that more than I wanted to. There was a difference between choosing to continue someone’s legacy and waking up one morning to discover you were responsible for keeping it alive.

Carson had been doing the second one for five years.

And from the looks of Marigold Ranch, she’d been doing it mostly alone.

I leaned my head against the couch. One memory from seventeen came back clearer than the others. James and I had been repairing a section of fence along the west pasture. I’d wanted to finish because it was hot as hell, my hands were blistered, and Jax had already gotten permission to leave early for some girl whose name neither of us remembered anymore.

I’d rushed the last section.

James walked over, wrapped one hand around the post, and shook it. It moved and he made me redo the entire thing. I’d been pissed. Told him it was good enough. James spat into the grass, looked at me, and said, “Good enough turns into somebody else’s problem.”

At seventeen, I’d thought he was talking about a fence.