Wild Horses (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

N
ORA
STARED
INTO
her glass of mediocre white wine and considered finishing the rest of it in one gulp. Like some kind of medicine for her hurt pride. Todd was standing her up. Either that or he was extremely late. It didn't matter, because now she was reminded of how often he'd been late for things toward the end of their relationship. It wasn't a part of her past she cared to relive.

He'd always had a good excuse, rushing in from meeting with one environmental group or another, blaming his tardiness on an issue that
had
to be discussed. But the truth was, at the end of college, at the end of
them
, he'd loved his activism way more than her. She'd notice him during their dates glancing at his watch to make sure he was on time for his next event. Their time together must have seemed boring to him compared to all that political urgency.

It wasn't that she didn't support his causes. She wanted people to stop cutting down the rain forest, too. She wanted wars to end and endangered species to be saved and oil spills to be stopped. But she hadn't felt the same need to devote
her entire life to protesting those problems.

Plus, she'd had her own cause back then. Wade. Maybe it was just a small cause, but it had been hers for as long as she could remember. Wade was so bright, and he was her baby brother, and she'd spent her childhood keeping him safe. When she'd gone away to college she'd been sure that if she could just keep him on track and get him through high school, he'd be okay.

So she'd worked extra jobs and sent him the money. She'd paid for cell phones so they could talk daily. And during those conversations, she tried to override the negative influence of their dad and brothers. And when that hadn't worked, she'd driven to Marker Ranch to take him with her when she'd started grad school.

Nora took one last gulp of her bad wine and stood up, pulling her jacket off the adjacent bar stool. She wasn't that love-struck college girl anymore. She didn't have any reason to wait around for Todd in a dive bar.

“Nora!” Todd strode across the stained floor, bringing the scent of fresh night air with him. He wore faded jeans and leather hiking boots, and a piece of straw clung to his hair. She reached up automatically and pulled it off, then jerked her hand back when she realized what she'd done.

“I'm sorry I'm late. One of my mares is foaling. I've got people with her now, but I had to wait for them to get there before I could leave.”

She set her coat back down, uncertain what to do now. It was, as usual, a reasonable excuse.

“Let me buy you a drink. Please don't go. I would have called but I didn't have your number...” His voice trailed off and she knew he was making the connection to the previous night. The look of discomfort on his face was
almost
funny.

“Plus you know that I don't have a phone. Right?”

He was silent, staring. And then she saw it...the realization, creeping across his face in slow motion. He knew that she knew who he was. And what he'd done. His eyes went wide and his bronzed skin paled a shade. “Nora, I'm...”

“Sorry you chucked my phone into the desert? I went back this morning, but I couldn't find it. You have a good arm.”

“You know it was me.” It came out heavily, with regret and maybe some relief.

“Yes.” She studied him, trying to picture the mask on his face. Now that she knew it was him, it was hard to imagine how she'd
not
seen it.

“I'll get you a new phone. I promise. Tomorrow.” He gestured toward the bar. “Stay? Have a drink with me? We obviously have a few things to discuss.”

It was tempting to leave. To leave him uncomfortable and wondering what she'd do next. But unfinished business would leave her uncomfortable, too. “Only if you order me something way better than this wine.”

He winced. “Ugh. I forgot that you like wine. This is not the place to drink it. How about something a little more foolproof? Beer?”

“Vodka.” She needed something stiffer than beer to face him. He looked so damn good and she was so angry. “And tonic.” She waited while he ordered for both of them.

“So,” he said, putting a few dollars of tip on the bar and picking up the drinks. “Maybe we should head over to a quiet corner?”

“Why, so we can discuss your criminal activity discreetly?” She wanted to shout it, but instead tossed the words quietly over her shoulder as she led the way to a booth tucked against the back wall and sat down on the scarred wooden bench. Todd took a seat on the other side of the table and slid her vodka toward her. She took a sip and waited. He'd asked her here—no way was she making it easy for him.

“I guess it could be considered criminal. I'm sorry about your phone. I didn't know what else to do.”

Anger, hot and self-righteous, was almost soothing in its purity. “Really? You almost killed me out there and you want to keep talking about the phone?”

“Well, it's a start.” His eyes were deer-in-headlights wide.

“I was huddled behind a rock, with the horses jumping over me
inches
from my head! I thought that was it. That I was going to die. And you want to talk about my phone?”

“No... I just... I'm just sorry, Nora.”

He looked so totally miserable that she felt a grim satisfaction. Enough to soften a little. “What were you thinking?”

He reached for her hand but she yanked it back.

“It never occurred to us...to me...that anyone would be walking out there after dark. I can't apologize enough. We only wanted to help the horses. When I realized I'd put you in danger, I regretted the entire thing.”

“You knew it was me.” She'd wondered if that was why he'd looked more worried than surprised in his shop today.

“I recognized your voice, but at first I couldn't believe it. I couldn't think straight.” He took a long pull of his beer but never took his eyes off her. He was still wary. Probably wondering if she'd tell the authorities what she knew.

“Do you usually go around grabbing strange women in the middle of the night?”

“No! Never.” He flushed red, right over his cheekbones.

“You're lucky I didn't just have a heart attack on the spot. First I almost got killed, then a masked man grabbed me in the dark... It's every woman's nightmare.” Her voice shook a little and she cursed the emotion welling in her chest. She wasn't here to cry. It was better to attack. “You were an idiot to follow me across the parking lot like that. A
complete
idiot.”

“I didn't think about how scary it would be for you. All I could think was that I didn't want you to call the sheriff.”

“Well, I can't say as I'm surprised. You always put your causes before anything else.”

He looked at her intently. “You're talking about the rain forest. After college.”

Nora hid her blush in a long swallow of the icy vodka. How could she have referred to the past like that? How could it still matter? “Well, you always
were
preoccupied with causes.”

“I guess you're right.” He picked up the cap from his beer bottle and rolled it in a slow circle on the tabletop. “How did you know it was me last night?”

“I didn't. Not last night. Your voice sounded familiar but I couldn't place it. But when you walked away through the gravel... Your steps were uneven. And then today at the shop...” She wasn't sure how to mention his disability.

“You saw me limping.” He finally met her eyes. His were dark green in the dim light. “I'm so sorry, Nora. I can't believe that after all these years, we ran into each other like this. And that I put you in danger...and scared you. I don't know how to make it up to you.”

“I'll just add it to the list of things you can't fix.” The words were out before she'd thought them through. Before she realized she was digging her embarrassing hole even deeper.

“You know, you
chose
not to go with me,” he said softly. “I wanted you to come to Brazil.
You
turned me down.”

She hadn't had a choice, but to be fair, she'd never really explained that to him. “I'm just cynical when it comes to you, I guess.”

“I probably deserve that.” He didn't have to elaborate. All the old angst hung between them like a line of limp, damp laundry. It was depressing. She didn't want to argue anymore.

“How'd it happen?” She changed the subject, nodding her head toward his leg, which extended straight out in front of him under the table.

“A run-in with a bulldozer.”

It wasn't at all what she'd expected. “A bulldozer?”

“I was down in Brazil on that rain forest project. They were going to clear-cut a whole new area near where we were working. No one was paying any attention to the science we were doing. I got fed up and I joined some locals in a protest to try to stop it. I lay down in front of a bulldozer. The driver saw me, but he just kept coming.”

“And you just stayed there.” He shrugged and she stared at him in disbelief. “You were always stubborn, but that's taking it to a new level!”

There was regret in his wry smile. “I figured he'd stop at the last minute.”

“But he didn't.”

“Nope. Went right over my leg as I tried to scramble out of the way.” He took another drink and looked out over the bar instead of at her. “Scariest game of chicken I ever played.”

She tried to picture what it would be like, to have a bulldozer coming toward her, intent on murder. To feel it crush you. She shivered.

“The locals carried me on a stretcher for a couple hours to the nearest village,” he continued “Then I was put in the back of a truck for the ride to the hospital.

“It took hours to get there—I honestly didn't think I'd make it. I passed out from the pain. When I woke up in the hospital, they'd pieced my leg together. Then I came back to the states and convalesced at my parents' house for a few months, listening to them tell me all the ways I'd disappointed them.”

“I'm sorry you got hurt.” Even in her bleakest moments she'd never wished him this kind of pain.

“Me, too. I had a lot of time to lie in bed and wish I'd never taken that job. That I'd stayed in the States. With you.”

The words she'd wanted to hear for so long, right there between them on the table. Now that they'd been said, Nora realized that no matter how many times she'd imagined him saying them, she'd never imagined her answer. She stared at him, but he was still looking out over the bar, lost in memory. Maybe he didn't even realize what he'd said. The gulp she took of her vodka went down with a burn and she coughed.

The sound seemed to bring Todd back to the present. If he was self-conscious about his confession, he masked it with a smile. “On the upside, I got a pretty big settlement. Turned out the guy who drove that bulldozer worked for one of the world's biggest timber companies. I had money to buy my ranch and my machine shop. Plus, now I can predict the weather with my leg.” He took a swallow of beer, grinned, and the cocky college boy she'd loved was suddenly right there in front of her.

She couldn't help but smile back. “So you're the guy I call when I want to know if rain is coming?”

“So far I've been right ninety-seven percent of the time. I've been keeping a spreadsheet.”

She laughed outright. “Why am I not surprised by that? Geek.”

He laughed softly and she had to look away. He was too familiar, still so beautiful, with a smile that lit his whole face, slashed dimples in his cheeks and added a spark of delight to his eyes.

“Some things don't change.” He lifted his bottle in her direction. “To old friends.” But the way he held her gaze, just a little too long, told her he was thinking about more. About what they'd been and how they'd been. About afternoons tangled up in his bed and nights sitting on his roof, watching the stars, reading poetry out loud by flashlight. He was remembering how crazy in love they'd been, so that it seemed the stars they watched were wheeling overhead in a private show just for them. He was remembering, suddenly, the utter magic of it all. The magic she'd never been able to forget.

“To old friends,” she answered, watching him clink his bottle to her glass. The sound was oddly festive, and very much at odds with the worry in her heart.

CHAPTER FIVE

N
ORA
TOOK
A
gulp of her vodka. Todd's toast was to
old
friends, and
old
was the key word here. A reminder that her memories of him should stay in the past where she'd buried them. Just because Todd was handing her a shovel didn't mean she had to start digging them back out.

Luckily, remembering what was wrong wasn't that difficult. All she had to do was touch the bruises on her hip. Or take a deep breath and feel the pinch under her ribs. She peppered her question with just a little sarcasm. “So are wild horses your new cause?”

“I guess they are. Not the cause I moved out here for, though. I was hired to manage a campaign to prevent fracking in this area. But when that project was over, I was burned-out. I mean, we'd stopped the destruction here for now, but they're still tearing up the rest of the earth for natural gas. It just felt futile. I bought the shop and figured I'd just be a mechanic and spend my free time in the mountains.”

“So what happened?”

“I went hiking in the scrub one day and saw a herd of wild horses running. A stallion, mares, even a few foals. They were incredible. After that I started going out there in all my spare time to watch them. It was so peaceful, you know? I got really into taking photos of them.

“And then one day, while I was watching them, a couple helicopters showed up. It was a roundup, and they chased the herd, flying behind them, really close to the ground. The horses were panicked, falling down, getting hurt. The foals got left behind, separated from their mothers, terrified and exhausted. It wasn't right.”

She nodded, a lump in her throat, picturing the horrifying scene he described.

“I loved those horses, and I was a witness to their suffering,” he continued. “I knew I had to try to help. So I started adopting them from the government auctions. And I convinced this local horse trainer to teach me how to work with them.”

“It's so strange to think of you on a horse,” she told him. “You were such a city boy.”

He smiled, tracing a water mark on the table with a callused index finger. “I sure was. But I learned pretty quick. It felt kind of natural to work with them. And once they were trained, I sold them as riding horses.”

“And you still do it?”

“I've trained and sold over two dozen mustangs now, but it's not enough. The Department of Range Management just rounds up more. There are only a certain number of people who want to adopt a mustang, no matter how well trained it is. And my ranch is getting pretty full. I can't adopt many more.”

“What happens if no one adopts them?”

“They spend their days in government holding facilities. Like the DRM station we were at last night. In dusty corrals, packed together, separated from their family groups, scared and miserable.”

“That's awful,” Nora said.

“They have thousands of horses in these holding facilities. Most of them are forced to live in terrible conditions. Yet they continue to round up more.”

Nora felt sick, imagining all those miserable, frightened horses lost in government limbo. But she'd been frightened, too. She remembered the hooves, and huddling by the rock that had saved her life. “So you stole them.”

“Moved them,” he corrected. “We've tried everything else—talking with the manager at the DRM station, a big letter-writing campaign, getting animal welfare organizations involved. But the government spins its wheels and the horses pay the price in a slow, painful death from the heat. So we got them to some land where they can be safe. And free.”

“I just don't get it.” She was casting around in her mind for solutions. As if she could, tonight, solve a problem he'd apparently been working on for a while now. “There has to be a way to help them, legally.”

“If there is, I couldn't find it. And even if the DRM makes better rules eventually,
these
horses would still suffer. I'm truly sorry that you got caught up in our plan. But can you understand that sometimes you have to do a little bad to make something good happen?”

“In theory.” It was all she could say to reassure him. How many times had she listened to her dad's excuses for his criminal behavior? There was always someone who wouldn't give him a break, a deal that was too good to be true—one excuse after another for stealing, and conning and dealing.

“Will you keep my secret?” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. Negotiating now for his safety. For her silence.

“That you're a horse thief?”

“Or a horse liberator,” he smiled faintly.

“Semantics.” She couldn't let him off the hook.

Todd studied her for a moment, as if pondering how to respond. “We always had this thing, you know. This banter. This way of talking. I've missed it.”

She stared at him, trying to figure out if he was serious or if he was only trying to make her feel special so she'd keep quiet about the horses. “We're bantering? I'm pretty sure we're disagreeing.”

But he was right. They did have a connection. And she'd loved it. Because she was usually shy and serious, and for some reason he was the only person she'd been witty with. The only person who'd brought that out in her.

“Maybe it can still be our thing.”

Warning sirens, flashing lights and stop signs filled her mind. He was throwing out these offers of connection like candy. But he was a stranger to her now. “Whoa, cowboy, there is no
our
. No
thing
.”

“If you say so.”

The cocky demeanor really did suit him. But he was wielding it like a hypnotist with a watch. “I know why you're doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Reminiscing. Reminding me about all the good stuff in our relationship—a relationship that you happily walked away from.”

“You could have come with me,” he said softly, leaning back, looking at her squarely. “I wanted you to.”

“And I couldn't.” Her stomach was in knots, her brain almost hurting from trying to figure out his motive. “Please don't bring up all this old stuff. Don't use our past to get what you want now. I won't say anything about last night.”

He looked relieved. “Thank you.”

“But I hate that I'm a part of your deception. By asking me to keep quiet about what you did, you make me a part of your illegal activities.”

He nodded. “I get it. And I appreciate your help.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Todd leaned forward. “Tell me what you were doing out there.” He took a sip of his beer, and his gaze on her was as intense as she'd remembered it.

She forced herself to remember that this was just a onetime drink. A conversation—nothing more. “You won't like it. I'm working for the government, for the Department of Range Management.”

“So that's why you were at the station. I couldn't figure it out.”

Nora couldn't help a wry smile. “Must have been like seeing the Ghost of Relationships Past.”

“It was pretty shocking.”

She took a deep breath and said the last words he'd want to hear. “I was hired to do a study on the impact of wild horses on native plant populations.”

He flinched, just as she'd expected. “And I take it the impact isn't exactly positive?”

“I've only been working on it for a few weeks. But from what I've seen so far, that's putting it mildly.”

“But you know the reasons the land is so overgrazed, right?” Todd leaned forward eagerly and in an instant he was the idealistic boy she'd known in college. Time seemed to jump back years again.

Nora caught her breath, momentarily disoriented. “I'm sure you're going to tell me.”

“There
are
too many horses for the land provided. But that's because the government is opening up all their grazing lands for fracking, for cattle, for minerals. So the mustangs have been crammed into a smaller space than can sustain them, and of course the native plants suffer. All the plants do. If we'd give them back their range, you wouldn't see these kinds of impacts.”

“Well, sadly, I'm not able to give back their land. And, frankly, there won't be too many native plants left if we keep the horses at the current population.”

“But the horses aren't the real problem.”

She glared at him. “Todd, I know all this. But the fact is, at this time, the DRM has a certain amount of land allotted for the horses. And the native plants on that land are being destroyed. My job is to go in and study the damage. Once my study is finished, the department will use the data to figure out how many horses can be allowed to roam free.”

“And you didn't feel bad signing on to this study knowing it's based on a false premise? Because they've already taken away the horses' normal rangeland?”

She bristled. “I was hired to do a study on their current range, and I'm doing that study.”

His voice was tinged with bitterness. “You never could get out of that scientific side of your head, could you? It's all data and facts with you.”

“It's not just that,” she protested.

“Well, what is it? The money?”

Nora's stomach did a sticky, nauseating flip. “You
didn't
just say that.” At least her rising outrage steadied her voice. “Some things never change.”

“What are you talking about?” Todd looked genuinely confused.

Was it really possible that he was this dense? “You have no right to judge me.”

“I'm not judging. I just think you're working for the wrong side on this issue.”

The words were spinning like a tornado in her head, there were so many she wanted to throw at him. “How's your family, Todd?” she spat out.

His eyes went wide. “What does my family have to do with anything?”

“Because they're wealthy.
You're
wealthy. And you sit there, safe in the lap of your moneyed family, and you judge people like me. People who need to have a regular job.”

“I'm not—”

She cut him off, spewing words that she'd wanted to say years ago. Back then she hadn't had the courage. “Has it ever occurred to you that some of us
need
steady work to make a living? Or that jobs for a plant biologist aren't easy to find? We don't all have enough money in our trust funds to run off and work for free in the rain forest.”

Nora stood up, feeling shaky and sick. She shouldn't have come here, shouldn't have thought she'd have the self-control to keep the past in the past.

Understanding dawned in Todd's eyes. But she didn't want to hear his reasons why she was wrong. Or to feel the weight of his judgment for one more second. “I need to go. I've got to work early. To get some more of that
money
I'm in it for. Thanks for the drink.”

“Nora, hang on.” He stood up, too, leaned a little across the table with his hand out, palm open, as if pleading for her to stay.

“No.” She took a deep breath and forced herself to look right at him and end this conversation for good. “Look. It's a strange coincidence that we ran into each other like we did, and that we're in the same town. But that doesn't mean we have to be friends. Let's just agree to be polite and we'll both be fine. I won't be in Benson forever anyway.”

“But...”

“I'll see you around, Todd.” There was all that old anguish in her—burning deep and low—that she didn't want to feel and, most of all, didn't want him to see.

Nora pushed through the double doors of the bar and into the summer night, inhaling the cool air with relief. She jumped into her Jeep and gunned the engine out of the parking lot, not stopping until she was outside town, until the streetlights were gone and the lights of Benson had faded and she could see every star, horizon to horizon.

She parked her car and stepped out, feeling the dry soil compress beneath her, letting the sensation ground her. Leaning against the driver's-side door, she looked up at the glittering sky.

How was it possible that Todd had the power to make her crazy after all these years? She was a rational person. She always had been—except when it came to him.

He said he'd changed, but he was still the clueless rich kid who'd never had to struggle to put a roof over his head.

Nora took a deep breath of the clean air and let it out slowly. She just wanted all of her feelings about him to be gone. To live her life without the burden of her old, dusty love for him. Because, despite his ignorance, despite their differences, he still haunted her.

She kept the memories at bay during the daytime—she'd had years of practice at that. But at night he came to her in dreams so vivid that she woke in the morning genuinely shocked to open her eyes and find him not there.

And now he
was
here, as opinionated and idealistic and idiotic as ever. The guy she'd dreamed of, who'd never dreamed of her. And somehow she would have to figure out how to keep going forward and living her life, knowing Todd wasn't just in her dreams anymore. He was in the machine shop in town, and at a ranch down the road. He was here in her hometown, judging her and finding her lacking.

Dreams were easy. They faded in the daylight. Reality was a lot more difficult.