Page 46 of Inheriting Miss Fortune

Unfortunately, by the time I reached the lake, she was dead asleep. I carefully pulled the pack off and stood it on the grass, pulling out the old beach towel I’d brought as a makeshift picnic blanket and setting out the supplies for our lunch and a diaper change.

Once everything was set up, I carefully pulled her out of the pack and held her close as I settled onto the towel and gazed out at the lake. Another family played at the edge of the water, and their three kids alternated between laughing together and bickering.

A teenager farther down the lake shore played music from their phone while an older woman sat on a small camp chair and read a tattered paperback.

I looked down at Lellie’s face. Her dark lashes were curled against the tops of her cheeks, and her rosy lips poked outalmost like a pout. Her skin was impossibly flawless and soft. I ran a thumb across her cheek and jaw to her tiny ear. What had she looked like as a newborn?

Part of me now regretted missing it. Getting to know her now with her funny personality quirks had begun to make me realize what I’d missed. She was obsessed with flowers and frogs but had a clear aversion to birds for some reason. She was obsessed with apples but detested apple juice. She loved to dance, but her version of dancing was just swaying her body without ever moving her feet.

What had she experienced in her short life that had contributed to her idiosyncrasies?

I tried to imagine her growing up within the loving embrace of Jackson and Lake. They would be the fun kind of parents who nurtured a fierce love of outdoor adventure. They’d teach her to ride a bike and swim. They’d take her to the rodeo and introduce her to everyone in town. Jackson would be the kind of parent who volunteered at school, and Lake would most likely throw himself into making adorable Halloween costumes.

What wouldIbe like as a parent?

I was quieter and less social than they were. Yes, I loved being outside, too, but I’d be more likely to teach her to ride. To meander through the large ranch property in search of deer tracks and signs of elk. I’d spend cozy nights curled up on the sofa in front of the fire, reading books with her. Maybe it would be boring.

But maybe it would be exactly what she needed.

My brain whirred with options and various imagined scenarios until Lellie began to stir in my lap.

When she woke up, she happily ate her new favorite—PB&J—while stumbling back and forth to the water’s edge. Every time she reached the edge, she tried to lean over to pat her hand onthe cold water, and every time, I had to rescue her before she fell in.

I couldn’t hold back my grin. She really was stubborn…

Like her father.

It wasn’t until we were a quarter of a mile back down the trail that she lost her good mood and dissolved into a tantrum. I tried not to take it personally, as a sign of my failure as a parent, but it was hard not to feel like I could have somehow prevented it if only I’d been more experienced.

When we got back to the vehicle, she fought me at every turn. She didn’t want the car seat. She wanted “ap-puh” and “Dah.” I tried explaining that I was out of apples, and I couldn’t hold her while I drove.

My attempts to explain things rationally weren’t well received.

Lellie cried without pause the entire ride home. My nerves were completely shot by the time I pulled off the highway and onto the ranch road. I selfishly hoped Tully would be up for taking a turn with her, or, at the very least, I hoped his familiar presence might calm her.

But when I pulled up to the parking area, Tully was hopping behind the wheel of one of the ranch trucks, completely oblivious to my arrival. It wasn’t until he pulled past me that I noticed he was hauling a trailer with a horse in it.

Myhorse.

Trigger.

“Hey!” I shouted, throwing my truck door open and jumping out. “Hey!”

He didn’t hear me but continued driving away, the tires from the truck and trailer throwing up dust in their wake.

My heart was in my throat. What the hell was he doing with my horse, and why hadn’t he bothered to stop and explain?

“What’s happening?” I asked when I noticed Indigo standing near the large open doors to the barn.

He looked shaken. The whites of his eyes were huge. “I-I don’t know, man. Tully said… something about colic, I think? Asked me about where we keep the medicine, but I didn’t know. I’m sorry!”

Colic?

Trigger had seemed just fine last night. He was only nine years old, in his absolute prime. The gelding was my baby. He was more important to me than anything in the world, with the very recent exception of Lellie. The idea of him suffering made me nauseous.

I opened the door and unbuckled Lellie, taking her in my arms to soothe her cries. “Does he know where to go?” I asked Indigo.

Way pulled up on a utility vehicle and thumbed in the direction of the dust plume. “Hey. If the two of you are here, who was that in the truck?”

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