Myra jogged out of the barn after Drew and Blake had finished untacking and grooming their horses. Blake had trotted Frosty for several circuits around the ring, and she knew he’d be happy to share the exciting news with his daughter when she called tonight. Drew was still moving at Spot’s slow walk, relying on the support of sidewalkers until he regained more strength and mobility, but he had followed her instructions with a palpable intensity. She had originally thought he might be defiant and reluctant to listen to her, but she was quickly realizing that she’d need to rein him in instead. She admired his determination to improve, and it was up to her to temper it so he didn’t aggravate his injury instead of healing it. She had managed to lose herself in the lesson for the most part, drawn as she was to her students and their progress, but she had also been acutely aware of every car she could see driving in or out of the parking lot. Ainslee hadn’t left yet.
She skidded to a halt in the middle of the gravel lot and tried to decide where to look first. Kate, returning with a full wheelbarrow from the huge pile of shavings, tilted her head toward the hay barn. Myra waved her thanks and headed over there.
She slowed down once she was in the large, open-air structure. A mountain of flaked golden shavings towered over her on her left side. Behind the retaining wall that kept the bedding contained was a storage area for the tractor and miscellaneous equipment. Trunks containing winter blankets, extra poles and jump standards, and pots full of brightly colored plastic flowers that decorated the arena when Cedar Grove hosted horse shows were strewn about on the packed-dirt floor. Myra scanned the area. No sign of Ainslee. The right side of the barn was filled with bales of hay—timothy in the front and alfalfa in the back. Kate had just received a shipment of alfalfa, and the bales were piled twenty high. The timothy section was less full and looked more climbable, so Myra started there.
She reached up and tucked her fingers between two bales, scrambling for a foothold as she hoisted herself up. Some loose hay fell onto her face and hair when she pulled her hands out to climb higher, and she sneezed at the dusty smell. The woodsy scent of cedar shavings and the crisp, floral smell of grass hay were as familiar as her coconut shampoo and lavender soap. She couldn’t count how many hours she had spent in hay barns like this one, from teenaged years when she needed solitude to later when she had wanted privacy with a girlfriend or a lonely place to weep after losing Jeffrey. Just last week, she had been sitting up here near the rafters on a woolen saddle pad while she graded chemistry assignments.
Myra crawled over the topmost bale, careful not to pull too hard on it and send both herself and the hay to the ground. The thought of Ainslee maneuvering up here with her new leg and her uncertain balance made Myra squeamish. She exhaled in relief when she saw Ainslee sitting on the top of the hay pile with her back propped against a bale. She had bits of hay stuck in her dark hair, and Myra wanted to pull it free from its rubber band and run her fingers through it, removing the green stems. She imagined what the wavy strands would feel like against her sensitive wrist and palm as the hair brushed her skin, curled away, and touched her again. A curving helix with intermittent contact. Myra swallowed and sat on a bale several yards away from Ainslee.
“I’m glad you’re still here,” Myra said. She sniffed as the dust stirred up by her arrival settled around them. “I’m so—”
“Don’t. Don’t apologize. I deserved it and I’m the one who should say sorry.” Ainslee shrugged and turned away. Her eyes were red rimmed, but dry. “I can’t believe I acted like such a baby!”
Her exclamation ended on a high note, and Myra covered her mouth to hide a laugh at the match between words and tone. She was so relieved to have found Ainslee still at the barn—and had been proud when Vanessa told her Ainslee had stopped to apologize even in the midst of her sullen exit. She’d been convinced that Ainslee would walk out the door, out of the program and out of Myra’s life. The worry had overwhelmed her, and she had tried to dismiss it as a normal reaction she’d have with any of her students. Even if she hadn’t truly known better, she’d have realized it when she climbed up the stack of hay bales and felt unaccountably giddy at the sight of Ainslee sitting here.
Ainslee glared at Myra, but her mouth turned up in a smile and the rest of her sour expression cracked bit by bit, like dominoes falling, until she was laughing along with Myra. The release was as potent as the earlier tension had been.
Myra wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sighed as her laughter died down. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Ainslee had flopped into a prone position while laughing, and she tucked one elbow behind her head. “It was you,” she said, her voice serious and quiet now.
“Something I said?” Myra asked, replaying their conversation in the tack room. “Or because I was walking slowly?”
“No.” Ainslee waved her free hand. She paused. “I saw you outside, carrying grain, and you were…”
Her gaze skimmed over Myra’s chest and up to her face and Myra felt it like a rough caress. She inhaled with a barely audible gasp and self-consciously tucked her hair behind her ear. Ainslee looked up at the ceiling of the barn.
“You were strong, playful. You made me think about the woman I used to be.”
Did Ainslee mean she used to be like Myra? Or that she’d have been interested in someone like her? Myra let the silence stretch between them like a rubber band, ready to snap. Finally Ainslee started talking again.
“Before…this”—she gestured toward her right leg, the metal gleaming incongruously against the dull green hay—“I was different. I’d have been the first to jump on a horse and gallop into the woods, even if I didn’t know what I was doing. Crazy. Now I can’t get close enough to brush a sweet old guy like Deacon. I’m not used to being afraid.”
“So it comes out as anger,” Myra said. She gave in to some of her yearning and moved across the hay to sit by Ainslee’s feet. She put her hand on Ainslee’s left ankle.
“Right. I don’t know how to be me anymore. I’m scared of the horse, scared of hurting my leg more even though it’s gone. Scared of being attracted to someone because I have nothing left to offer.”
The last sentence was spoken so softly Myra barely heard it. Ainslee’s admission frightened her, too, but for the opposite reason. What did she have to offer someone like Ainslee? Myra would always be afraid, always expect Ainslee to make the decision that life without a leg yet with so many painful memories was too much to bear.
They stayed there, unmoving, with only the tentative connection of Myra’s hand and Ainslee’s confession between them, until a blue Ford drove past the hay barn and parked under a stand of fir trees.
“That’s my ride,” Ainslee said. She put her hand on the hay bale she’d been using as a backrest and pulled herself to her feet. “Sasha. A neighbor who’s been chauffeuring me around. I didn’t want to call and tell her to come early because I’d been booted out of class like a delinquent.”
She smiled, and the arch of her lower lip gave her a rueful air. Myra was happy she and Ainslee could joke about the incident. She followed her to the edge of the bales.
“Can I help you get down?”
“Seriously?”
Myra held up her hands in surrender. The instinct to take care of Ainslee was a stubborn one. “Sorry. I’m sure you’re fine on your own.”
Ainslee lowered herself over the edge of the bales without another word, and Myra took a parallel path. She reached the ground first but let Ainslee jump the last few feet on her own.
“I’m glad you stuck around,” Myra said as they walked to the parking lot.
“Me, too. I’m sorry about the lesson, and I hope you’ll let me back next week.”
Next week. When they’d be surrounded by the other riders and the volunteers. A regularly scheduled lesson, with Myra as the professional instructor. That’d be the best way for them to meet.
“Of course. As long as you promise to behave.”
“Not a chance,” Ainslee said as she opened the passenger door.
Myra grinned, even as warning signals coursed through her mind. The lesson today—as usual in this program—had aroused too many conflicting emotions in her. She’d be a fool and hold on to the moments of happiness and laughter she’d felt for a short while, even if they didn’t have a chance of lasting.