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The approaching truck kicked up dust and dirt as it rumbled closer. Calla’s jaw clenched and she clicked her teeth. Prissy came to attention underneath her. When Calla squeezed her thighs, Prissy responded.
The movements were almost unconscious at this point. She and Prissy had been together so long, the horse was more like an extension of Calla herself. So it was barely a thought in her head before Prissy took off at a canter that quickly became a full gallop around the side of the house to the practice paddock.
The gate was open and Calla leaned back in the saddle as they sped toward one of the barrels that was still set up in a cloverleaf pattern. She pulled on the left rein and Prissy turned on a dime to circle the first barrel.
Calla urged her on with her legs and then they were flying toward the second barrel. She felt her hat flip off at the speed but she pushed even harder. Wind beat at her face as she leaned back and pulled on the opposite rein to circle the second barrel. Prissy made an even tighter turn than the first and then dirt flew as they went hell for leather toward the third and then fourth barrel.
Both Calla and her mare were breathing hard when Calla finally pulled the reins to bring Prissy to a halt right beside the paddock fence.
Calla leaned over and breathed in Prissy’s familiar horsey smell as she clapped her on the neck. “That’s right, my strong girl. You did so good. You never let me down. Not once in my whole life.”
Calla got Prissy when the mare was just two years old. Calla was eleven and more often than not in the past fourteen years, Prissy felt like the only true friend Calla had in the world. And now she had to say goodbye.
A loud clapping shook her out of her thoughts. Calla swung around to see Chris standing by the gate. She’d arranged to sell Prissy to him a few weeks ago. Just a few years older than her, Calla knew Chris in the same way she did most people in Hawthorne—he was a friendly acquaintance she’d known forever.
Growing up, she told herself the reason she didn’t have any close friends was just because there’d always been too much work to be done around the ranch. There was no time for socializing when you had to run home after school to see to the calving, or check the irrigation lines, or to help bring in the hay.
Dad started showing symptoms for Huntington’s when she was twelve and she’d had to take on more and more of the physical tasks around the ranch every year as he got worse.
It wasn’t until she got to college that she finally realized the real reason she didn’t get close to people. Every year she watched her dad’s health decline, she knew the same could be in store for her. Would likely be in store for her. She was a dead ringer for her dad—she’d looked at pictures of him when he was her age and they could have been twins.
She couldn’t get the test to find out if she had the mutated gene that brought on the disease until she was eighteen. And by then she’d made such a habit of keeping folks at a distance that it was a way of life.
As for the test? Now twenty-four, she still hadn’t taken it. Because even though she fully expected to test positive for the gene, there was some foolish little part of her that thought, you never know. Maybe you don’t have it. Stupid as it was, she hadn’t wanted to give up that hope by testing and learning for certain.
“If I wasn’t already sold on her, that run would have convinced me.” Chris looked admiringly at Prissy. “How fast was that? Seventeen seconds? Less?”
Calla swallowed hard, her throat thick. “Don’t know. Just wanted one last run.”
Chris’s expression changed from impressed to sympathetic. Pitying. It was the same look everyone had been flashing her around town since news of the deal with Cunningham had been announced in the local paper.
Calla swung off of Prissy, her back to Chris. She took a moment to compose herself and then turned around to face him again. “She should make for a great training horse.”
“Don’t I know it.” His admiring gaze was on Prissy before he looked back to Calla. “You can come visit her anytime you want.”
Calla controlled her features. It might about kill her to have to go visit her beloved horse and then turn her back over for someone else to stable. She could only handle so goddamned much. “Maybe I will,” she lied.
She turned away to unbuckle the cinch straps that secured the saddle. She ran her hand down Prissy’s flank and gave her one last pat before tying the cinch and sliding the saddle off.
