Laura dropped into the chair by the window, her gaze fixed, unseeing, on the cold, gray garden outside. Her head was pounding, her chest aching. She set the rifle carefully down on the table and gripped the carved wooden arms of the chair, forcing herself to breathe.
On hearing the shot, the neighbors had come around, their reactions as black and white as a chessboard. Nate had prodded, waiting for tears. He thought she was too weak to be here, running her daddy’s place. In laughable contradiction, Alan and Helen had been in shock, staring at the gun in her hand, their expressions making it clear they thought her a cold-hearted monster.
Only Mose, getting down from his tractor after the dirt had been mounded up over the grave, had understood. But when he’d enveloped her in an awkward embrace, the smell of diesel and grease and sweat filling her nostrils as he tried to give some comfort, grief had remained locked inside, unreachable.
Walking back to the house, she’d wondered if they weren’t all right about her. The one person she thought might’ve understood hadn’t been there. But he hadn’t been around in some time.
Memory of the little mare’s trusting dark eyes returned and a shudder ran through her. Why couldn’t it have been the colt? He was a handful and it might’ve saved her the cost of gelding. The thought made her flush with shame and guilt. The end of…
