Wildflowers from Winter (16 page)

Bethany took two steps closer, but Storm snorted and swished her tail. Evan held up his free hand for Bethany to stop and whispered more soothing words to the horse. And as if he could read Bethany’s mind, Evan addressed her questions, his voice calm and even. “She slipped on the ice.” He jerked his head toward a patch of ice that disappeared beneath the snow leading out into the field. “I’m pretty sure she broke her leg.”

Somebody stepped behind Bethany—a middle-aged woman holding a
black bag. She didn’t bother introducing herself. Instead, she approached the injured animal. Storm didn’t move. She just stared with pain-filled eyes that pierced Bethany’s soul.

Horse eyes had always fascinated her. Two large walnuts colored with wisdom and expression. But Storm’s eyes were different. As the mare watched the woman approach, her eyes looked lethargic, almost dead. Bethany wanted to go to the horse. She wanted to place her hand between those eyes and make them come to life, but she was afraid if she tried, her movement would only cause Storm more distress.

“Keep your hand on her neck, Evan. We don’t want her to injure herself more by moving. That’s a girl.” The woman’s voice came out like honey, smooth and inviting. “How did this happen?”

“I was out fixing one of the fence lines. Right there.” Evan nodded toward the pasture. “Storm decided to come out and visit. Something must have spooked her because she startled and then slipped on that patch of ice. She got up fast but hasn’t been able to bear any weight on her leg.” Evan stopped talking to the woman and whispered to Storm. So gentle. And while he did, the quickness of the horse’s breathing slowed just a little.

The woman crouched and ran her hands up Storm’s leg, stopping and applying pressure in various places. The horse didn’t move until the vet’s hands came about halfway up the leg. When she reached that spot, Storm shifted away. Evan moved with her. The vet examined the spot again, then scooted back and frowned.

“You were right.” She stood. “She fractured her cannon bone.”

Evan’s head dropped.

Nobody said anything for a stretched-out moment, leaving the horse to wallow in her pain. Why wasn’t the vet doing anything? So Storm had a broken bone. Instead of staring at her like she had just been diagnosed with a fatal disease, they should be preparing a splint or doing whatever needed to be done to fix the injury and relieve her pain.

Evan rubbed the mare’s velvety neck, scratched her withers, then stroked her back—almost as if he were saying some sort of good-bye. After a few moments, he gave a discreet nod to the vet, who bent over and reached for something in her bag. When she pulled out two needles, Bethany closed the gap between them. “Are you giving her some sort of narcotic for the pain?”

The horse startled at her fast approach. Evan spread his hands against Storm’s neck and made a shushing sound. Nobody answered her question. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Bethany, I think you should leave.”

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. “Why?”

“We have to put her down.”

Bethany swayed. “Put her down? But—but she’s standing. She can’t be hurt that bad.”

“She can’t put any weight on her front leg. If we keep her alive, not only would she be completely lame, she’d be in constant pain.” As if to prove his point, he moved his hand from Storm’s neck to her withers, where the animal’s quick breathing was more pronounced.

“It’s just a broken bone.” Bethany turned to the vet, who flicked at the bubbles in the ominous needles. “Don’t you know how to fix a leg?”

“A fractured cannon bone is too severe an injury to fix. Horses are hard to mend—especially old ones. It’s best if we put her down.”

“Best for whom? You and Evan?” Instead of taking the extra effort to care for the injury, they were just going to dispose of the entire animal? Her stomach flexed, then lurched. She pictured her dad in his wheelchair right after the accident, her grandfather spoon-feeding him while her mother hid in a shadowed corner and stared. With what? Fear? Pain? Revulsion?

Bethany spun toward Evan. “You can’t do this.”

“She’s almost thirty,” he said. “She’s not going to recover. She’d have no quality to her life.”

His words smacked her in the face. Quality of life? Since when was he
in charge of dictating the quality of life? Just because a person—or an animal—was injured, didn’t mean they didn’t deserve to live anymore.

“She’s in pain, Bethany.”

“I’m not allowing this. This is my farm.” Bethany grasped for something to hold on to. Anything. Storm might belong to Evan, but maybe if she put enough authority behind her words, he wouldn’t remember. “I want you to treat the injury.” Her traitorous voice shook and pitched in an uneven tone.

Evan let out a frustrated sigh. “Leaving Storm alive is cruel. She’s lived a long life. Putting her down is the humane thing to do.”

Pastor Fenton’s words echoed through her mind.
“It was for the best, Ruth. This is a blessing in the long run.”
She pushed his voice out of her head. She didn’t have any grounds for argument, other than one. She clung to it with desperation. “It’s my farm.”

Evan’s face pinched. Whatever he was about to say, she could tell he didn’t want to say it. “She’s my horse. Dan left me the animals, remember?” He nodded at the vet, then turned back to Bethany. “Please, Bethany. I really think you should go.”

She shook her head and backed away, unable to block out the image in front of her. Evan holding on to Storm’s neck. The horse’s labored breathing, her eyes dull and lifeless, each ear twisting from voice to voice, as if listening to their entire conversation. Did she know? Did she sense what the vet was about to do? Just as Bethany bumped into the barn wall, the vet brought one of the needles closer to Storm. Bethany clamped her hand over her mouth and ran out the door.

Loud rustling filled the barn as Evan shook the tarp out in front of him. He draped it over Storm, took a long breath, and shut his eyes. How much
death would he have to endure before the week ended? Putting down the horse in the wake of everything else was like jabbing a needle into an open wound.

He’d have to get the Bobcat out from the machine shed and dig a hole in the frozen ground. The sooner the better, especially with Bethany out and about. His mind revisited the look on her face—eyes more frantic than the injured horse’s. She hadn’t understood why they had to put Storm down. She’d looked at them like they were a pair of sadists. He needed to find her and explain. For whatever reason, he didn’t like Bethany thinking him cruel.

On his way to the house, he spotted her snow-covered car in the driveway, half-surprised she hadn’t left yet. He’d expected her to pack her bags as soon as she knew the needles weren’t pain medicine. How could a woman with seemingly no sentimentality throw such a fit over a horse?

He entered the dark kitchen through the side door and poked his head into the living room. Bethany sat on the couch, her back to Evan, so still he couldn’t even detect the rise and fall of her breathing. He cleared his throat, but she didn’t move. What was she doing, sitting in the living room like a statue? He walked around the couch, so he could see her face.

Her bloodshot eyes stared at the wall in front of her. He didn’t understand it. She didn’t cry for her grandfather or her brokenhearted best friend, but she cried for a horse? One that lived on a farm she didn’t want? He cleared his throat again, just to make extra sure she knew he was there. Her eyes flickered.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She didn’t say anything at first. She just sat there until he became painfully aware of his hands. He let them hang by his sides, folded them behind his back, then settled on sticking them in his pockets.

“Why did you have to kill that horse, Evan?” It was the first time she’d addressed him by his name, and the way she said it pulled something tight in his chest.

He eased onto the couch, careful to stay on the opposite side. “Storm was thirty years old. She broke her cannon bone. She wasn’t going to recover from that.”

“Just because something isn’t useful, it doesn’t give you the right to kill it.”

Somehow, he had a feeling they weren’t talking about the horse anymore. He studied her profile, trying to figure out who they
were
talking about. A tear spilled over and raced down her cheek. She brushed it away and stole a furtive glance in his direction, as if checking to see if he’d caught her lapse. He pretended he hadn’t.

“You sound just like
him
.”

He shifted his weight, the couch protesting. “Who?”

“Pastor Fenton.”

Evan’s eyes widened. He didn’t understand how putting a horse out of its misery made him sound like the pastor of First Light. “Explain to me what you’re talking about.”

She stood, hugged her waist, and made like she was going to leave, but he grabbed her arm.

“Bethany.”

She tried to shrug him off. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Obviously, it does.” He didn’t let go. Dan had never liked Pastor Fenton. Evan always assumed it was because he didn’t agree with the man’s preaching. But after Bethany’s reaction to Fenton at the funeral, and now this, he wanted to know what role that pastor had played in Dan’s family.

She pulled her arm from his grip, and all traces of vulnerability vanished from her face. The detached, professional Bethany was back, leaving him more than a little disoriented. “I came to find you to tell you my plans.”

Everything in him sank. She was going to sell. She didn’t even need to say anything out loud. It was written all over her face.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet,” she said.

His heart skipped over her words, cultivating a hope that came much too quick.

She must have noticed, because she hurried onward. “I mean, I’m going to sell. I just haven’t worked out the details yet.”

His hope fizzled.

She sat down in Dan’s recliner. “I’m not going back to Chicago. At least not right away.”

He leaned over his knees, heat gathering in his chest. Bethany was going to sell. She gave a whole one-night’s thought to her decision.

“I was hoping you’d let me stay here while I worked out the details.”

He looked up, sure he’d heard wrong. When it became obvious he hadn’t, he pointed at the floor. “Here?”

“Where else am I supposed to stay?”

“I don’t know. Your mom’s?”

She gawked at him like he’d dropped a calf in the living room.

“Or Robin’s? I don’t care where you stay. It’s just not going to be here.”

She threw an irritated glance in his direction. “This used to be my house, you know.”

“And I used to have a farm. I guess
used to
doesn’t mean very much right now.” He unzipped the top of his Carhartt and ran a finger beneath the collar of his flannel shirt. Maybe if he walked outside and lay in the snow, he’d cool down.

She eyed the Bible sitting in the center of the coffee table. “This is about your beliefs, isn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“You won’t let me stay because you’re worried what people are going to think.” She crossed her arms, her entire posture radiating accusation. “This is exactly the kind of thing that bugs me about you people.”

“You people?”

“Yes.
You
people.”

“Care to elaborate?”

She jiggled her leg. “Christians.”

He looked from her bouncing foot to her thin face. “You do realize you’ve stopped making sense, don’t you?”

She continued to glare.

“I don’t want you here because I can’t stand what you’re going to do with the farm. If I have to sit around and watch you work out the details, I’m pretty sure I’ll go insane.”

Her eyes flashed.

“And if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t think you’re a very nice person.”

“What?” She jumped out of her seat. “
You
don’t think
I’m
a nice person?”

“Not exactly. No.”

“Who called who ‘horrible’ at Dan’s visitation? That’s not a very nice thing to say. And you’re the one who just put down a horse because of a broken bone.”

“That was me being nice.” He stood with her and enunciated each one of his next words, trying to drive the point into her thick skull. “Bethany, the horse was in pain.”

She made a beeline for the staircase.

“Where are you going?”

“To pack my things,” she said, stomping up the stairs. “I’d hate to be the one to drive you to insanity.”

He followed after her. “Why are you upset? I’m not the one stealing someone’s dreams here.”

She stopped in front of her room. “I’m not trying to steal your dreams.” Her bottom lip trembled when she spoke. She twisted the knob and pushed open the door. “Look, I’m tired. I’m overemotional. I miss Dan …” If a tear fell, he didn’t see it. But she brushed her cheek anyway.

The motion stabbed his chest. He wanted to tell her he missed Dan too. He wanted to tell her he missed him so much he couldn’t sleep at night. And that fighting like this wasn’t going to help either of them. But while he struggled to formulate the right words, she stepped inside her room. “I’ll be out of here in fifteen minutes.”