Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(55)

Who knew?

He definitely was a mystery.

And then, he saw her standing hesitantly at the door. He waved and said he’d put his horse in the barn and be right back.

Sadie swung to the kitchen table and sat down a bit weakly, trying to appear calm and nonchalant—if that was even a possibility.

Oh, my!

Dat, Uncle Levi, and Uncle Samuel had the worst timing in the world. How could they? The exact minute Mark appeared in the kitchen hallway, they all crowded in, all talking at once, trying to come up with a feasible plan to find the missing horse.

“What I cannot understand is how that horse got out in the first place,” Dat was saying.

“Someone had to let him out,” Uncle Levi said, setting down his coffee cup and reaching for a handful of Chex Mix. He chomped down on the salty mixture, scattering half of it across the clean linoleum floor.

Sadie sighed. Mark stood in the hallway. Then Samuel turned and caught sight of him.

“Hi, there!”

Too loudly. Too boisterously. Sadie despaired.

“Come on in. Make yourself at home, whoever you are. One of these bachelors that feel the pull of the West?”

Oh, no! Sadie wanted to disappear through the floor, down into the basement, and through that floor, too.

Mark grinned, and said quietly, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Dat? This is Mark Peight. Mark, my father and his brothers, Samuel and Levi.

“You all live around here?”

“Oh, yes. We do. Been here for five years, almost six.”

Dat’s eyes narrowed.

“How do you know Sadie?”

Sadie tried to salvage her pride by telling them Mark was the one who came upon her on the road with Nevaeh before Richard Caldwell had the veterinarian nurse him back to health.

“Mmmm,” Uncle Samuel said, nodding his head in that certain way, his eyes twinkling.

Levi grinned outright. Sadie willed him to be quiet.

They talked loudly now about other horses who had gotten away, the size of the pasture, if anyone believed there were actual horse thieves in this day and age, and whether there was a band of wild horses. The conversation turned to the night of the accident.

Sadie caught a movement behind the bathroom door.

Mam!

What was she doing pressed between the door and the shower curtain? Listening? Why wouldn’t she come to the kitchen?

“I know that horse was there this morning. I know it,” Dat insisted.

“But if he was, someone had to let him out. Do you think there could be a horse thief in broad daylight?” Levi asked around his Chex Mix.

“Hey, they do anything these days.”

“Let’s go search the pasture.”

They got into their coats, smashed their wool hats on their heads, stuck their feet into boots, pulled on gloves, and were gone.

Mark turned back, searching Sadie’s eyes.

“We’ll find him,” he assured her.

“Oh, I hope,” she whispered.

She held his gaze. Too long. The kitchen was filled with nothing at all. It all went away, except for the look in Mark’s eyes. It was a look so consuming, she heard singing, sort of a tune in her mind, a speck of happiness in song she had never heard before in her life.

Was love a song? Sort of, she figured.

Boy, she was in dangerous territory now, letting that happen. But she could have no more looked away than she could have stopped breathing. It was so natural.

Oh, my.

She sat at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, turmoil in her heart.

An hour passed with Aunt Lydia and Aunt Rachel sitting in the kitchen with her. They drank coffee, sampled desserts, and talked of things women talk about—having babies, which laundry soap works best, how to secure towels to the wash line without the ceaseless wind tearing them off and away, whose teacher was strict, whose was incompetent, and so on.

Sadie was becoming very worried and uneasy. She tapped her nails on the tabletop. How long could it take to find a horse in a pasture? It wasn’t that big.

Finally she heard voices and stamping feet.

Mark came in first, his face grim, followed by Dat, Levi, and Samuel. Their noses were red, eyes serious.

Sadie rose, standing on one leg. A hand went to her throat.

“What? Did you find him?”

Mark looked at Dat. Dat shook his head, saying nothing. Mark cleared his throat and looked away. Sadie knew, then, that something was wrong.

“What? Did you find him? Someone tell me.”

They told her.

They got to the very lower end of the pasture where the alders and brush almost hid the fence. The fence was torn, even the post pulled out. Brush everywhere. Snow mixed with the dirt and brown winter grasses. Signs of a terrible struggle. Blood. Lots of blood.

The blood left a trail that was easy to follow. They found Nevaeh. He was down, a great gash torn in the tender part of his stomach. There was a pool of blood and he was holding his hind leg at a grotesque angle.

Mark’s head was bent, one shoe pushing against the baseboard.

“But…” Sadie stammered.

It was not exactly clear what happened, what caused Nevaeh to become so frightened he became impaled on the fence post. Perhaps there was a cougar.

“But … how could he bleed to death?” Sadie whispered.

“He didn’t…completely. His leg was broken, almost off. We…we had to put him down.”