Tacker (Arizona Vengeance #5)(34)

CHAPTER 15




Nora


Starlight navigates the rocky trail with ease, her gait smooth and self-assured. I’d saved her from the meat market two years ago. She’d easily been given up by her owners because she’d been a little wily. Yet, when I brought her to the ranch, she was the sweetest girl ever. I think she somehow knew she’d been saved, so she decided to turn over a new leaf.

She’s proof anyone can find happiness even after the darkest of times.

I guess I am, too.

Today’s the anniversary of the darkest day of my life, yet I’ve never felt more alive or free. Riding Starlight across the ranch I own, where I can give back and help others find their own healing, is a symbol this day is not to be feared.

I can be sad. I can reflect. I can grieve again.

But I can also leave that behind when I’m done to face the brightness that is otherwise my life.

True to form, I started my day with the smell of good cooking. Raul was in my kitchen, whipping up huevos rancheros for me. After a great breakfast with strong coffee, we did our morning chores together like we always do. Feed the animals, clean pens and stalls, make sure all troughs are full of water, and exercise any of the horses that weren’t on the rotation for lessons or counseling sessions.

A normal day in most respects. I woke up a year older. I started a new year of life.

But while birthdays are a celebration of life, there was just too much death attached to mine. As such, from my very first birthday after moving to the States with Helen, I had asked that we not actually celebrate it. That was tough on her… being a new mom and all. She wanted things to be perfect for me.

But she also respected the healing I needed to do. Helen knew how raw things were for me, and she’d paid special attention to the difficulties I faced—losing my family, moving to a new country with a virtual stranger, and mastering a new primary language. She reluctantly agreed to ignore my birthday on its actual date that year. The following year, I asked for the same again.

And again.

And so forth and so on until it had become a habit.

By my mid-twenties, I’d been more years without celebrating my birthday than celebrating it, and it was my new normal.

And let’s face it… in Kosovo, we led a poor life. My dad farmed. We didn’t have money for fancy cakes, balloons, or presents. We barely had enough to feed ourselves, so a celebration was Besjana making a favorite cake. It was simple, sweet, and nothing more than was needed.

Regardless, I did celebrate my adoption day with Helen. It became our time together to rejoice in my joining her family. Helen never married. In the time I lived with her, she never even dated anyone. She insisted she was happy raising me alone, and I was happy having her devoted attention. After bringing me to the States, she left her work as a contractor with NATO and went back to utilizing her degrees in psychology by doing family counseling.

I, of course, followed in her footsteps. I had been so moved by what she’d done for me and how she helped others that I couldn’t ever imagine doing anything different.

Helen didn’t have an extended or close family. She had a wayward brother back East that I met twice in my lifetime, who wasn’t overly interested in an adopted niece. Her parents had both died, and the few aunts, uncles, and cousins I had I really didn’t know. Helen had been a traveler and a pioneer, preferring to spend much of her life in war-torn countries helping victims of violence.

So it was just me and her. Her death left an immense hole within me. Luckily, my work here helped to refill the well.

The ranch itself fills it. It’s why after I’d finished chores, I saddled up Starlight and headed out for a ride. The sun feels amazing, the birds are making music, and the desert landscape always soothes me.

Arizona is truly my home, and Drenica is far behind me. My life here is full and complete.

Starlight and I don’t stay out long. I head back after about half an hour, stopping briefly to dismount and study a long snakeskin left behind by a rattler on the side of the trail. I love nature… even the scary parts of it. I consider bringing it back to show Tacker next time he comes for counseling, but then think better of it. If he knows I found it near the horse trail, I’ll never get him in the saddle for a ride.

The ride back is smooth. I consider detouring off into one of the pastures to let Starlight have a bit of a run, but as the gray barn comes into view, my heart skips a beat when I notice Tacker’s truck parked beside it. I can see him and Raul near the rear, both their forearms resting on the truck bed as they talk.

I have no clue why Tacker’s here. We don’t have a counseling session. After the full day of work he and the team gave me yesterday, he simply can’t be here to do more work. That would just be way too much on his part.

Their heads swivel when they hear Starlight’s hooves crunching behind them, Tacker’s eyes coming straight to mine. His smile is easy, and he probably doesn’t even understand what an accomplishment that is.

“What are you doing here?” I ask with a return smile. After I dismount, I hand the reins to Raul, who’d moved over to take Starlight from me.

As he leads the horse away, Tacker points to the back of his truck. I take a few steps over to peer in.

The entire bed is filled with bags of chicken feed.

Questioningly, I raise an eyebrow.

He shrugs. “I stopped by the tractor supply store on the way in. And, what do you know, chicken feed was on sale. Knew you couldn’t ever have enough.”