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Reece ignored him. Or maybe not. He got too dizzy—or at least pretended to—and collapsed on the floor, the little boy landing on his chest. Then he pretended to play dead while the toddler poked at his face and called out for him to wake up. It was obviously a game they’d played before.
Reece pretended to rouse a little bit but then his head fell back and he started to snore loudly, eliciting a fresh round of giggles from the boy. Isobel couldn’t help smiling at their antics.
“Brenton Samuel Kent, what are you doing to poor Reece now?”
“Mommy!” the toddler abandoned Reece on the floor and ran to the very pregnant woman walking into the wide entry area. He flung himself with as much energy into her legs as he had into Reece’s.
“Oof,” she said, reaching for the wall to keep her balance in spite of the bundle of energy that just barreled into her. She was a beautiful woman who didn’t look more than thirty, if that, with long brown hair. She smiled, bemused, down at her little boy. Brenton. Isobel repeated it to herself, trying to keep track of all the names. Brenton and Liam and Reece. Brenton was busy tugging on the leg of his mom’s jeans. “Come, Mommy, we haf to wake up Wyeece.”
For his part, Reece stayed completely still, splayed out on the floor without moving.
The woman pried her son’s hand from her jeans. “I’ll let you do the honors, Brent honey. I need to talk to this nice lady.”
Brent looked up at Isobel like it was the first time he’d realized there was someone else in the room. And then he ran around behind his mom’s legs like he was suddenly shy.
Only then did Reece jump to his feet. “Hey bud, it’s about time for lunch. Why don’t we see if we can go find your brother and rustle up some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”
“Can we have gwape jewy?” The boy’s head peeked around his mom’s legs.
“You bet.” Reece reached down and scooped Brent up. Then they headed off into the big room that the entryway opened to on the left.
“Hi,” Isobel jumped forward to introduce herself to the pregnant woman. Liam said he was getting Mel. Was this her? As in, Mel of Mel’s Horse Ranch and Rescue? “I’m Isobel Snow. So nice to meet you.”
She smiled at Isobel warmly. “Hi. Melanie Kent. You can call me Mel. Everybody does. How can we help you?” Her other hand rested on her large belly.
Now that Isobel was standing here in front of her, nerves assaulted her. “I stable my horse with Rick at Northingham Stables in New Hampshire.”
Isobel’s summers riding Buttons and training with Rick had been a rare bright spot in her teenage years. The summer after her senior year she even spent the summer with him and his family working at the stables in an unofficial internship.
That was when everything had first started getting better. She’d already been accepted into Cornell, but it was during her summer at Northingham that she decided to focus her studies in biology with an emphasis in veterinary sciences so she could continue on to get her doctorate of veterinary medicine degree. Nothing helped her get her mind and focus off of herself and her problems like working with animals, especially horses.
Mel nodded at Rick’s name—obviously she knew him; Rick had told her as much.
“Well, Rick told me that every summer you look for helpers for your rescue. He said that you never have enough.” Isobel smiled and held up her hands, feeling more than a little awkward. “So here I am.”
But Mel wasn’t smiling anymore. Her face had fallen, in fact, her features scrunching in remorse. “Oh no, I’m so sorry. I wish you would have called ahead. You didn’t come all this way just for this, did you? From the East Coast?”
Isobel’s stomach dropped to the floor. “Um…” Rick made it sound like such a sure thing. Granted, it had been a while ago. Maybe a year. Or two? But he said they were always looking for help. Isobel daydreamed about spending the summer here, never thinking in a million years she’d actually do it.
Until she had suddenly needed a place off the map to disappear to where no one in the world would think to look for her.
“Usually it’s completely true that we don’t have enough help.” Mel’s face was apologetic. “But this summer we have more horses than ever since my husband’s taking in and training several wild horses. And with another baby coming—” She put a hand to her stomach. “So we advertised for the positions and actually have more than enough help for a change. I’m sorry.” She reached out and put a hand on Isobel’s forearm.
“Oh don’t be,” Isobel said, trying to speak through her suddenly strangled throat. “It’s my fault for not calling.”
Now that she thought about it, it was completely ridiculous how much faith she’d put on the fact that this place would be waiting for her—the position didn’t pay much but it provided room and board. And it had been her safe harbor. A place to hide. To stop running and find herself, if there was a her to find that wasn’t the fucked-up girl she’d been.
And now?
Now there was nothing.
Her father was dead. She had nothing but her car and the few clothes she’d grabbed. She didn’t dare use her credit or debit cards after she left New York. She’d withdrawn the maximum three hundred bucks allowed from an ATM at the pharmacy where she’d picked up her meds, and she’d already spent over a hundred of it on gas and the toiletries she’d forgotten to grab from home. She’d have to stay on the run except now she had no idea where to run to. She couldn’t just keep sleeping in her car forever.
Calm down, Isobel. Think.
She could go to a public library and look online at jobsites, then surf Craigslist for roommates—but she’d need a paycheck to be coming in first for a deposit on any apartment—and what, sleep out of her car for two months while she waited for all that? No. God. There had to be a way to make this work. There just had to be.
“Maybe you have all the stable hands you need, but you’re a rescue farm, right?” Isobel asked. Please God don’t let her hear the desperation in my voice. Panic made blood rush in Isobel’s ears. “I’m three years into my Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Cornell in New York—they’re the top veterinary school in the country—and my focus is actually on rehabbing injured horses. I could—”
