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“I’m sure you must be mistaken, Ellie,” he said earnestly. “No one would do such a dangerous thing.”
She looked from the items he was holding in his hands, recognized one of the shirts she had repaired and looked to Carly, who was sitting smugly at the table now, next to where he stood, sewing kit still in hand.
Her eyes hardened. “I’m sure you know just how stiff that latch is,” she retorted in a voice that still held a tremble, although this time there was a good dose of anger mixed in.
Syrus gave her a look that bordered on pity, and when she looked across at Cody, she found the same expression mirrored in his own eyes. They didn’t believe her… or at least; they didn’t believe that either Cora, Carly, or Sheri could be that duplicitous.
A gust of wind swept through the room as an equally sodden Ezra opened the door and then tackled it closed again.
“Did you get Blaze secured?”
And just like that, she was forgotten.
Turning away, Ellie had dripped her way across the hallway and up the stairs. She thought she might have heard her name called, but she’d switched off by now. She was too cold and wet and suffering from the aftereffects of being half scared to death. Her teeth chattered and her limbs were stiff, so she trudged straight into the bathroom, not sure she had the energy left for another set of stairs.
She got right into the shower, not caring that, once again, she didn’t have a change of clothes. She stayed right there under the spray, willing the water to warm her up and wash away the bitter tang of disappointment and disillusionment and the not inconsiderable ball of grief and anger that threatened to swamp her.
Except she’d been too exhausted to exercise any of the anger. When she was done in the shower she simply felt wrung out and she’d slunk up the stairs to her attic room, collapsed into bed and tried not to cry herself to sleep.
Why had Gran had to leave her like this? It wasn’t fair! She missed her so very much. More, almost, than her parents who she didn’t remember so clearly. She could hear Gran's voice bridging the gap between sorrow and sleep saying, ‘Come on now, girlie, a hug and a positive attitude will make everything better’,and she just wanted to pluck Gran out of her dreams and be hugged for real.
She missed having someone who cared. Someone who could make everything better just by holding her.
‘To appreciate true happiness, you must first have experienced true loss and sadness, otherwise, how would you know the difference and understand the value?’
Well, from now on, maybe a few other people were hopefully going to understand the value and appreciate the difference in the way things worked around here if she wasn’t doing them.
She didn’t bother making breakfast the next morning. They could all just fend for themselves. She wasn’t going to make dinner either, although that decision brought with it a twinge of guilt since she knew the men were out herding the cattle today, after yesterday’s storm, so they’d be returning tired and hungry.
She determinedly reminded herself that there were three other women in the house. One of them could do the work for a change, instead of just taking the credit for the things that Ellie did herself.
Instead, after a quick breakfast of toast and honey, she gathered up her tiny tin of fish-hooks and line and walked down to the creek.
The ranch house stood close to where the East and West branches joined the South Fork Big Creek, and the ranch held fishing rights to all the waters that ran through their property. Ellie didn’t really know that much about fishing, but she knew that if you dangled a line with a worm on a hook, you could usually catch something worthwhile.
As she grubbed for worms and dumped her finds in the jam jar she’d brought with her, she couldn’t help the little snigger that escaped when she thought aboutthe trifectatrying to take credit for what she was doing now. Nope! This was one thing that would never wash. The thought perked her up considerably.
She spent a contented couple of hours by the side of the creek, dangling her hook, soaking up the sun, enjoying the fresh washed scent that yesterday’s storm had left behind and luring in a decent catch. Enough to feed everybody, at least. She kept them contained in a drawstring mesh bag which doubled as a keep net and a carrier when she was finished.
Walking back through the yard, she eyed the stables with a wary gaze.
‘If you fall off a horse, you should jump back in the saddle straight away.’
She could hear Gran’s voice loud and clear as if she was standing right there next to her.
“Except I didn’t fall off the damn horse,” Ellie mumbled to herself, even though she knew it was just an idiom. Then she shook her head at the ridiculousness of it and took off towards the stable. Gran, or her conscience, or the devil on her shoulder, or whatever you wanted to call it, was right. It would only be more difficult if she allowed irrational fears to get the better of her. There had been many extraneous circumstances to yesterday’s ordeal, and they weren’t likely to converge a second time.
Besides, she had made a promise to Tono, and she liked to think that those were something she always kept.
Standing cautiously in the doorway of the stable, she wondered if Blaze was back in the foaling stall or if she’d been left in the small, quiet box that Ezra had led her to yesterday evening. Hanging her catch around the head of one of the taps at the sink near the entrance, she submerged the fish in water to keep them fresh and so that the unfamiliar smell didn’t upset the skittish mare. As Ellie walked down the wide aisle, she allowed the familiar, welcome scents of hay and horse to calm her and petted a few of the other mounts as she searched for Blaze.
She finally found the animal laying down in the small, specially fitted out box-stall that was used to calm the skittish horses. Not only that, but the artificial night-time and sense of privacy which horses favored for foaling had clearly encouraged Blaze to start the process, and it was clear she was in second stage labor. Ellie held her breath in wonder. It had been years since she had seen a foal birthed, but it was one of those special experiences that stayed with you. She could see one leg and knew it should be just minutes before the head and the other leg emerged, but as time ticked by, her chest tightened and that awful feeling when you began to suspect something was wrong, came over her. With no means of telling the time, she counted to sixty in her head. When she had done that five times over and there was still no progress, Ellie knew she wasn’t mistaken.
She ran back to the house as fast as she could, her mind reeling. Cody, Syrus and Ezra were all out in the far pastures and if there was a way to contact them, she didn’t know about it. She doubted, very much, that any of the sisters had practical horse experience, so she could only hope that Tono wasn’t too far away.
Cursing the fact that she didn’t have the convenience of a cell phone, Ellie rushed into the house and barged into the office to get to the landline, then realized she didn’t have the number. The business card Tono had given to herthat first daywas up in her room, but she noticed an address book on the neat desk; surely that would be quicker.
She searched under V for vet, without any luck. She was cursing under her breath and flipping through the pages to find T when Cora interrupted.
