Tell Me When It Hurts (24 page)

A large indoor arena was attached to the main barn. The arena doors were rolled aside, and he could see two women working their horses over the low jumps. Though the January air had a bite, the day was sunny and still. The natural daylight was probably welcome, he supposed.

He went in the door to the main barn. He had walked only a few stall lengths when he was greeted by a middle-aged woman in riding clothes. She had her faded blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a green John Deere ball cap on her head. She stepped up to Connor and stuck out her hand. “Hi. I’m Jane Russo. You must be Connor.”

“
Yes, I am.” He shook her hand. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“
Not at all. I was actually delighted to hear from you. Everyone here really liked Archer, and we loved Annie. We were all a little nervous when they first came, you know, given Archer’s background as one of the top riders in the country. Some of the instructors were afraid she’d be a real pain in the neck—real critical, you know—but she never was. And Annie—she was the kind of kid everyone hopes for.” Jane’s voice trailed off. She looked away, then said, “It was all so utterly tragic.” Her face dropped when she got to this part, and she looked up at Connor. “How is Archer doing?”

“
She’s okay,” Connor replied. “Mostly she’s coping. She got a volunteer job working for legal aid in Hartford. She’s there this morning. But the reason I came down is, I understand that Annie’s horse—Allegra, is it?—is still here. Is that right?”

“
Sure is. Archer never showed up again after Annie died, but she always pays Allegra’s board on time. I thought for sure she’d eventually come down, start riding her, or lease her out, but no. The horse is stagnating, and it makes all of us really sad. Annie loved that mare the way only a twelve-year-old girl can. You know, like it’s all that matters in the world. Those two were best friends. Annie would talk to Allegra from the moment she got here until she left again, and Allegra seemed to understand it all. That horse had a lot of potential to handle high-performance jumping courses.” Jane shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and looked down for a moment, then back up at Connor.

“
I see,” he said. He paused. “May I see the horse?”

“
Sure. Come on along.” Jane led him down the aisle, turned a corner, and stopped at the second stall on the left. She slid the door open, and a dark bay horse turned around, a white heart on her forehead. “This is Allegra.”

Connor entered the stall and held out his hand, and Allegra sniffed it and moved toward him. Patting her neck, he fed her a peppermint. She crunched on it, then stretched out her neck for another. “She’s a beauty,” Connor said, never turning from the horse.

“
Yeah, she is—and a real sweetheart. No quirks. Real quiet. I hate to see her just languish on the vine. She can’t go backward, but she can’t go forward, either. It just breaks your heart to see her like this.”

Connor stroked Allegra’s neck. She stood quietly, nuzzling the collar of his parka. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

* * *

That night, as they were cleaning up after dinner, Connor said, “I saw her.”

Archer turned from the sink, eyebrow raised. “Saw who?”

“
Allegra. You know, your horse?”

Archer’s face hardened, and she turned back to the sink.

“
And how, pray tell, do you know about her?” she asked.

“
I saw a bill for her board sitting on your kitchen counter last week.”

Without turning, Archer said flatly, “So instead of asking me about it, you took it upon yourself to snoop.” Feeling herself flush, she kept her back to Connor, knowing she had done far worse when she invaded his notebook.

“
I wasn’t snooping. It was there and I was curious. I mean, you said Annie had a horse, and I didn’t think it was some big secret. I just didn’t know you still owned her. I thought maybe we could bring her here—you know, we could both ride.”

Archer put down the plate she was drying and half turned toward him, twisting the dish towel in her hands. “Hey,” she said, “if you don’t want me riding Millie anymore, no problem. Just say so.”

“
That’s not it at all, and you know it. I love that you ride Millie. I just think that if Annie cared about that horse, maybe it makes sense to bring—”

Without warning, Archer whirled around with the plate and hurled it to the floor, where it exploded into hundreds of slivers. She grabbed another plate from the drying rack and smashed it, then a third. More fragments flew.

“
No!” she shouted, slamming her hand on the counter. “No, no, no, no!” She steadied herself against the counter, breathing hard, trying to regain control.

Connor looked stunned. But he stood his ground and said, “Archer, life goes on whether you want it to or not. You think doing whatever it is you do . . . on your outings . . . is going to make you forget. It won’t, and it’s killing you. I see it.”

Archer took a step closer to him, fists clenched. She then stepped back and roared, “Oh, really! You see? You
see
nothing
. You
know
nothing.” She turned back to the sink, but Connor caught her arm.

“
I know, Archer. I know.” He hesitated. “Well, I think I know. You do something that you think is justice. But it’s not, you know. It’s revenge, for sure. It’s even fair, maybe, but it’s not justice. Justice is the system that keeps it all in a box, the box that keeps us all from reverting to
Lord of the Flies.
”

Archer jerked her arm away. She brushed back a disheveled lock of hair and glared at him. “Oh, this pearl of wisdom from the man who’s never seen his own daughter. Come and talk to me when someone
you
love so much that you can’t breathe without them is ripped from
you.
” She looked away, then spat out, “Oh, I forgot. You’ve never in your life loved anyone that way.” She gulped a breath. “So spare me your armchair psychology, would you?”

She stopped and leaned against the counter. Then she said in a level voice, “You don’t know anything about me or what I do. You presume some easy fix. You think maybe I see the horse and it’s some instant healing thing.
Bullshit
, McCall! I am so damaged, they need a new word for it.” Her face was blazing now, and she looked as if she wanted to run out of the room but couldn’t. Now she shot out each word distinctly. “You just don’t get it, do you, McCall? The day I see that horse is the day I choose to die, because it would kill me. It would kill what’s left of me to see that horse. Whatever soul is left of my daughter is with that horse, and I can’t bear to contaminate that, too.”

She was still propped against the counter to keep from slumping onto the floor. After a minute, she quieted and said in almost a whisper, “
You
find Lauren in a dirty little alley, jeans down to her knees, torn underpants, claw marks on her face, and
then
we’ll talk about justice. You know
nothing . . . nothing.
You’re an amateur, McCall, who’s stepped unwittingly into the show ring with the heavyweight champ of the world.
Get out of the ring, newbie, before you get hurt!
” Each word rang menacingly.

Connor recoiled as if she had struck him. Then he straightened, as if with newfound resolve. “I still say you become what you do. It’s going to kill you, Archer. It’s going to change you, and there’ll be no coming back.”

“
Coming back to
what?
You tell me that, McCall. Coming back to what!”
Archer spoke in almost a whisper as she leaned over the sink, sobbing now. Then she raised her head. “Leave me alone, McCall. I can’t do this.”

“
Can’t do what?”

“
Oh, forget it.”

“
No—say it.”

She pushed back from the sink and stood facing the kitchen window, still holding the edge of the counter, just staring. She said nothing.

“
Say it
. I want to hear you say it.” Connor enunciated each word and stared at her back.

She spun around to face him, tears running down her face, and bellowed, “Have
you
and
her
! I can’t have you and her. And I chose
her.
”

Connor started toward her, then hesitated. He stepped back, crossed his arms across his chest, and shook his head, and after letting a few moments pass, he said quietly, “That’s just not true, Archer. I may not know anything about you and this horse or about you and Annie. But I do know some things about just plain old you. You can’t bring her back, no matter what you do. Her death wasn’t your fault, but somehow you think it was. It just happened because some sick pervert was loose, not because you failed her in some way. I know that. And you do, too, if you’ll let yourself. And your love isn’t limited. If you give love to me, it doesn’t mean there’s less for her. I know that I love you, and I can’t stand to watch you destroy yourself.”

“
Then don’t.” She straightened and moved stiffly to a kitchen chair, where she just drooped, head in her hands. Slowly she looked up. Connor was still standing, looking anxious, unsure, hands in his jeans pockets. After a minute, she said softly, eyes dry now, and voice drained of emotion, “McCall, I love you, too, but don’t ever mention that horse again. . . . I can’t take it.”

CHAPTER 26

The last week of February, the mood at Three Chimneys felt expectant. Connor’s calls had grown more frequent, until he was calling almost every day. Felix had all the shears, vehicles, and lamb incubators serviced in anticipation of shearing and the lambing that would follow, and he had arranged for roof repairs on the larger of the two barns and hired additional seasonal help. And although Felix was coordinating all the preparations, he sought approval and reassurance from Connor for anything bigger than a hundred-dollar plumbing job. Connor didn’t mind; he expected it as a necessary part of running a good-size operation from long distance.

On the mountain, Connor was restless. He felt like a politician about to throw his hat into the ring. While a win was no certainty, not by a long shot, the mere fact that he was jumping into the fray . . . well, it was enough to make you wake up tingling.

Connor’s excitement was tempered by fear. Archer never talked about tomorrow—only about today and, more rarely, yesterday. After the blowup over Allegra, Connor had tiptoed around the edges of Archer’s heavily fortified boundaries. It troubled him, but he felt certain they could talk things through, given enough time and trust.

Connor’s original plan had been to take Archer to dinner somewhere intimate and romantic and ask her to return to Wyoming with him. However, though he was a master at speaking to a boardroom full of executives or a crew of ranch hands, the thought of facing Archer and pleading his personal case was unnerving.

Connor wanted to say everything at once, so that Archer would have the full scope of his intentions before she gave her answer. He feared that he couldn’t talk fast enough to get his plea out before she raised an objection or reservation—she was awfully good at that. Then he would lose the advantage of the cumulative effect of his argument, perhaps never to recover.

His backup plan was to put his thoughts in writing so that Archer would have to read them through in their entirety and consider them in her deliberate way. She wasn’t good at being rushed or pressured, so this became his working plan.

It was a cold and dreary February afternoon, and Archer was out with Hadley getting the mail. Connor went into the kitchen and, opening the top drawer of Archer’s little desk table, took out two sheets of crisp white paper and a blue fine-point pen. Taking these over to the sofa, he sat down, leaning forward to rest the paper on the pile of books on the coffee table.

He sat with his elbows resting on his knees, thinking about what he wanted to say. After a moment, he knew what to say, but not how to say it in a way that gave it the proper texture. He needed three dimensions to explain himself, but his talents only enabled him to work in a straight line. His prose seemed flat to him, incapable of conveying the depth and nuance he felt. He was disappointing himself.

After laboring at it for an hour, Connor reviewed his note. It was unsatisfactory, but he could think of no way to improve it. He reread it once more: