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“You’ll grow to love it,” she said, only a touch of bite in her tone as she mocked something her mother had said when she’d first called a few months ago to tell Cora that it was time to come home. Kat was pregnant again, due at the beginning ofNovember, and Momma would be seventy a few weeks before that.
Cora turned toward the good, earthy scent of the stables and walked down the gravel path that ran in front of them. She didn’t see anyone, thankfully, because her emotions stormed out of control, and she had no idea if she would burst into laughter, break down into tears, or glare someone’s face off if she encountered them.
She only knew she needed to be alone, and she ducked around the corner of the stable and pressed her back into the warm wood, which faced west. The sun shone down on her, casting a halo effect around the Teton Mountains and making her breath catch with the beauty of God’s creations.
Yes, Cora had loved Wyoming at some point in her past. “And you will again,” she told herself out loud. It would just take some getting used to, and no one could fault her for that. Truth be told, she didn’t think they did, and she’d been so overwhelmed with the packets and folders thrust at her today that she feared she had put off a vibe that she didn’t want to be here.
“Well, they’re not entirely wrong about that either,” she muttered.
She stood in the sunshine and simply breathed, and when she didn’t feel like her own ribs would suffocate her, she went around the other side of the stable and found several horses with their heads hanging out of their stalls. Pure joy filled her, because Cora had been a country girl in her youth. Something deep and hidden yawned inside her, reminding her that she could become one again.
Every time she came home, her mother made her ride. Cora had hated it for the past several years, mostly because it felt like a manipulation tactic that Momma was using to get Cora tovolunteerto come home. Now she moved down the row of horses, lovingly giving each one of them a stroke down the sideof their neck, though the animals scared her a little bit. They had such big heads and bodies, and her daddy had taught her to respect their space but also demand that they obey her.
They’ll take a mile if you give them a millimeter,he’d said, and Cora smiled to herself, pure missing and homesickness combining together into a terrible feeling that slipped through her blood like water over cliffs.
In Miami, it had been far easier to manage her emotions. Every little thing she saw didn’t remind her of something amazing her father had taught her or said or that they had done together. She didn’t have to see that her mother had aged and couldn’t keep up with the lodge anymore. She didn’t have to see her sister’s sad face as she talked about Daddy and hosted birthday dinners in his honor.
Cora could experience all of that from afar, inside a very busy life. She’d lived with her best friend in a tiny, two-bedroom, one-bath condo on the outskirts of the city. And Cora could admit that she should have come home sooner.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispered as she finally reached the end of the row of horses and found her favorite one—Marigold.
“Hey, my beautiful girl,” she said to the pale yellow horse. She was technically a gray, and Cora loved the gentle creature with everything inside her. Her mother had scheduled horseback riding for tomorrow morning, where Cora was sure her training would continue. Jeremy, Kat’s husband, had added several trails and riding expeditions to their excursions, and every employee at Silver Sage knew about and had personally experienced every offering provided to guests.
So Cora’s schedule for the next several weeks looked like she was on vacation in the wilds of Wyoming, when really she was retraining herself to know everything that her mother and sister had built into Silver Sage.
Suddenly, she didn’t want tomorrow to be the first time she had to saddle a horse in front of everyone. Acting quickly, she entered the stable and went into the tack room to get Marigold’s saddle.
She struggled under the weight of it, as Cora really was used to lifting paper clips or a stapler and working on a computer. She stayed in the air-conditioned tack room and watched a couple of videos to remember how to properly saddle a horse. Then she brought Marigold out of her stall and threw the rope around the tethering rail in front of it.
It took her several long minutes, but she managed to saddle the horse and get herself atop her. “Look at that,” she said to herself, joy and pride streaming through her now, chasing away disappointment of leaving behind a great job and good friends and, yes, a boyfriend in Miami.
She shook Tomas out of her head, because they’d technically broken up before Thanksgiving last year. Out of the pair of them,shewas the only one who’d hoped they’d get back together.
Perhaps she’d left a broken heart in Miami and could have a fresh start here. She rejected that idea too, because Cora needed a boyfriend like she needed another hole in her head.
She had plenty on her plate just trying to get caught up with everything happening at the lodge—not to mention the cabin she’d been given to live in needed to be emptied from top to bottom, scrubbed clean, and put back together.
She clicked her tongue and gently pushed her heels back into Marigold’s body. The horse moved forward at a slow, plodding pace, as she usually did. Hopefully, Cora would be able to get the horse saddled and get her moving like this tomorrow as well, and maybe then her mother wouldn’t look at her like she’d made the worst mistake possible by asking Cora to come home and take over the operations at the lodge.
She walked the horse straight across the field that sat in front of the stable, nearing the woods. A chill seemed to emanate from them, and Cora didn’t want to go into the shady depths alone. Wild animals lived out there, and she needed to remember that.
She turned Marigold, proud that she could pull a little bit on the left rein and get the horse to turn and walk parallel to the edge of the forest.
Some of this was their private land. If Cora hadn’t been shown fifteen thousand pieces of paper today, she might remember the exact acreage. As it was, she knew it was somewhere in the vicinity of one hundred acres, and they took private hunting parties out during deer and elk season. With the property close to the Teton National Forest and Park and Yellowstone National Park, there definitely were more wolves and bears in the area than ever.
In fact, Cora could remember a time when she was nine years old and had come outside to feed the horses—her chore at the time—and come across a magnificent herd of buffalo bedded down in the snow in the very field she had just crossed.
“Some things never change,” she murmured to herself, and this time, the feeling of nostalgia and being home struck a happy chord inside her.
Marigold’s hooves made clopping noises against the dirt and snapping sounds in the underbrush where twigs and leaves had fallen. She relaxed fully, and the thought of,It’s sure good to be homehad just crossed her mind when a loud, whip-like cracking sound filled the air.
Cora yelped, immediately tightening her hold on the reins as Marigold also whinnied, rose up on her back legs, and took off running.
Her normally calm horsebolted.
“No, no, no, no!” Cora yelled, immediately and instinctively curling over the saddle horn and holding on with everything she had.
“Goldie, it’s okay,” she yelled. “Slow down. Whoa, whoa!”
