Page 7 of A Reckless Memory

“Don’t...” She rolled her lips in and eyed her shot glass. “Don’t, uh, his relatives live around there?”

“You mean ‘he who shall not be named’?” The man I’d almost forgotten about. He was nothing but a reckless memory.

“Yeah, that guy. Wilder couldn’t believe you moved near Coal Haven and all the Barrons around there.”

He’d told me. So had Cody, Austen, and Eliot. Some days, I expected them to tell me I was putting my socks on wrong.

“It’s the safest place.” At her perplexed look, I explained. “Ansen”—my throat ached saying his name again after all these years—“didn’t talk to his family. He barely had anything to do with his dad and brother. When we were”—I swallowed hard—“together, he’d never even visited North Dakota, and Coal Haven is three hours away from Buffalo Gully.”

“What if he’s reconciled since then?”

I shook my head. “No, see, there’s this brewery not far from the refinery, and it’s run by Ansen’s cousin. I went there after I interviewed, and she struck up a conversation, telling me all about her family—her dad’s my boss.”

Sutton screwed her face up. “That’s some small-town shit.”

“Tell me about it. I had heart palpitations during the whole visit for my interview. But she mentioned Archer and that he was in Coal Haven now and that she hadn’t met Archer’s brother.”

“And Archer is Ansen’s older brother?”

I nodded. Should I take the next shot? The night was young, but talking exes was depressing on a good day. Talking about him ripped open bandages that had been haphazardly placed and that Lawson had loosened with our final argument. “Just in case, I found the property in Crocus Valley, about twenty minutes from Coal Haven. The position at the refinery was too good to pass up. The benefits are better than what I was getting.”

If I had to work in an office, then I wanted to afford a decent retirement. As much as I avoided Daddy, I hated to think about his eventual passing, and I refused to live my life gambling on an inheritance. He’d probably dock mine in half because Mama’s life insurance had gone to me.

Inheritance or not, I didn’t need guys like Lawson who thought they could swoop in and “take care” of me when I was doing just fine for myself. I was done with guys like Penley, my boyfriend before Lawson, who’d whined about how I made more than he did and felt it emasculated him but was just fine soaking off my income.

Sutton squinted at the next photo. “Whose horses are these?”

“Yeah, that.” I swiped through the next few. “My real estate agent knows my background and approached me about pasturing them. They were seized from a neglectful owner, and she’s keeping all five in one of her pastures for now, but they need care and training.”

“You said yes? You just moved there.”

I lifted a shoulder, hesitant to tell someone else about my plans. Sutton wasn’t bossy like my brothers, but I’d had enough opinions in my life. “She’s waiting for my answer when I return home. I miss having horses around.” Eliot said Daddy had put down Mathilda when Daddy got sick of treating her arthritis, and my other horse was never really mine. She was a project horse that was actually fully trained. She’d been a way to dupe me into thinking I was contributing to the ranch. “I thought maybe...it could be a side gig. A nonprofit.”

“You’re going to start a rescue?” She sounded mixed parts surprised and impressed.

“I dunno. Maybe? I have the facilities, but they need a lot of attention, and I work full-time.”

“Can you hire someone?”

“Maybe, but I’d have to vet them, and I’m not sure I have time to go through their records, hire them, then hang around and make sure they’re not worse for the animals.” I had more reasons not to, like marketing and forming a company for the rescue, but my mind kept circling back to the possibility.

She poked me in the side. “But you’ve thought about it. You’ve thought about doing a rescue or even flipping horses.”

“You don’t like horse traders.”

“I know you’d be ethical.”

“Don’t you dare tell my brothers about this conversation.” I playfully scowled at her and swiped through the photos again. The kid of a horse rancher and the finance woman inside me couldn’t help themselves. I missed working with animals, horses especially. If I didn’t open a full rescue, I could buy problem horses, train them properly, and sell them to good homes.

I wanted to take the horses, so I’d better figure it out.

A slight blur overlaid the pictures. The alcohol was hitting my bloodstream, and I didn’t drink often. Sutton never did either, but it’d been a week.

I struggled to refocus. “Yeah, I thought of opening a rescue.” There. I admitted it. Out loud. The pressure stayed crowded on my shoulders.

“Would you quit and work the rescue full time?”

“I need the benefits.” I had some of Mama’s money left. I’d gotten my degree with it and supported myself until I landed a decent job. I had enough in reserve to make the idea of opening a rescue by myself almost not crazy. “I could hire someone to get everything started with the rescue, but I can’t take much time off since I’m new. They’d have to know what they’re doing.”

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