“You want Bethy to stay the night?” Delaney asked. “Like, all afternoon and evening?”
Beth glanced around the front porch from Eli to her sister to Sam—who looked like he suddenly wanted to pummel Eli—and then back at Eli again.
“Okay, first of all,” Beth began, “you say that as if you just found out I have lice and you now have to delouse me.”
Delaney scratched her head and pouted. “Do not remind me. I’m still traumatized by your third-grade class’s lice epidemic. Come to think of it, what did Mom ever do with all those stuffed animals she quarantined in giant garbage bags? Think they’re still in storage?”
“Ew!” Both women cried in unison.
“Forget it, Callahan,” Delaney said to her husband. “We’re skipping this cycle. Two kids double our chances of lice coming home from school. I’m not ready for that yet.”
Sam winced. “We can not be ready and still try…” he reasoned.
“You can stay, Bethy!” Delaney exclaimed.
Beth turned her gaze back to Eli, suddenly realizing the ends of his dark hair were damp with sweat, his expression pinched and strained.
“What is going on?” she asked him. “And no way I’m being used as an excuse to keep you two from getting busy.” She pointed back and forth between her sister and brother-in-law. “You all upped the security at the barn, right? So it’s safe for Midnight to head back home?”
Eli blew out a breath and finally looked Beth in the eye.
“I haven’t told you everything about that night.” He paused.
“It’s okay, Eli,” she told him, hoping he could hear how much she meant it. She realized now that if he truly cared for her after what she’d given him this past month—which was decidedly not Beth at her very best—she had nothing to worry about when it came to Eli’s past. This wasn’t a competition with the love he’d lost. It was whatever. It was them. And Beth and Eli were something entirely different from anything either of them had known before. Did the timing suck? Yeah. It sucked hard. But here they were, right now, taking on whatever came their way.
“You know what?” Delaney began. “We’ll leave you two alone to chat.” She looked at her watch and then at her husband. “Nolan is down for at least ninety minutes. Let’s go try.”
Sam’s face lit up, and he planted a smooch on his wife’s lips right there in front of everyone.
She yelped with laughter and then shushed herself.
“Come on, handsome.” Delaney grabbed Sam’s hand. “Put another baby in me if you can.”
“Challenge accepted, my beautiful, amazing wife.”
He gave her a gentle tug as he stepped back over the threshold into the house.
Delaney stage-whispered to her sister and Eli. “He says that when I know there are mushed carrots in my hair!”
And then they were gone, two of the happiest people Beth knew, to hopefully grow their family from three to four. Plus Scout. Plus Butch Catsidy. Plus all the animals at Delaney’s shelter, including the pregnant goat whose kid was due any day now.
Now it was just Beth and Eli on the porch, the two of them not quite a family but somehow also not quite not.
“Let’s sit,” Eli said, motioning toward the top step of the porch.
He held out a hand to help her, and though she didn’t need it…though her ankle felt better than it had felt in over two months, she took it and let him guide her to the ground before sitting beside her.
He blew a breath and ran a hand through his damp, dark hair.
“Fury didn’t just get loose that night,” he began.
His voice trembled, and his jaw clenched. Beth couldn’t tell if it was due to fear, pain, anger, or some combination of the three. All she knew was going back to that night was probably the hardest thing Eli had ever had to do, and he was doing it for her.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “I mean, I know it’s not okay. But I’m here, and I’m listening, and I’ll do whatever you need, if you’ll let me.”
She rested a gentle hand on his forearm, and he slid his arm up until her hand met his and their fingers intertwined.
She gave him a reassuring squeeze.
“There were poachers on the property. It’s all still kind of a blur…Tess and I hearing Fury’s distress even on top of the storm, the two of us bolting out of bed and running out in the rain. She ran after Fury, and I took off after the assholes who came to take her.” He paused. “Until the loudest crash of thunder shook the goddamn ground, and I heard Tess scream.”
“Oh god.” Beth squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to put him through this. She didn’t know if she could relive the night with him. “Eli, you don’t have to—”
“Yeah,” he interrupted before she could finish. “I do.”
He cleared his throat, and Beth didn’t know if he was looking at her or still staring straight ahead because she couldn’t open her eyes until he was done.
“I don’t know how I found her. It was so goddamned dark, and the rain was relentless. And I knew. I fucking knew when I got there that it was too late. I think she did too, but she kept telling me she was fine, that she’d get up in a minute but that I needed to find Fury. She’d never forgive herself if anything happened to that horse.” He let out a bitter laugh. “I used to tease her that she loved Fury more than she loved me, but I didn’t care. At least when it came to humans, I was her favorite in that arena.”
Silence stretched out for several seconds.
“You didn’t go after Fury,” Beth finally guessed.
Eli cleared his throat. “I did…but not until Tess was…not until…”
He didn’t have to say the rest. He didn’t have to tell her that he stayed with his wife until she was gone or that when he finally got to their almost stolen mare, she was injured too severely to save.
Beth opened her eyes because who the hell was she to let him go through this again…alone.
Eli’s eyes were red, his cheeks streaked with tears.
“Hey…Eli…” She shifted to face him, took his wet cheeks into her palms. “None of it was your fault. You know that, right?”
He shook his head. “I should have gone after the horse with her. She had no business trying to mount Fury bareback in a fucking storm.”
“And you did? It was an impossible situation that likely would have ended badly no matter which decision you made. But if you dwell on the what-ifs and don’t find a way to forgive yourself, you’ll never really be able to move on.”
He cleared his throat and shook his head, effectively shaking himself free from her grip.
“I can’t change what already happened. I get that. But I’m not going to fuck up like that again.”
Goose bumps pricked her flesh, and Beth wrapped her arms across her chest as if she was giving herself a hug.
“What do you mean…again?”
He stared at her for a long moment before continuing.
Beth was officially freaked out, and he hadn’t said another word yet.
Eli set his hands on her knees. “They never caught the poachers. I lost everything, and they never had to answer for it. And now? I thought I had a potential placement for Midnight, but something felt off, you know? Something about it just gave me this feeling like Midnight wasn’t going to be safe if I signed the deal. So I wanted to go over the paperwork, maybe get a lawyer’s eyes on it, but—”
“You found a placement for Midnight?” Beth’s voice trembled, and she felt the heat creep up her neck and into her cheeks until it filled her eyes with the familiar burning that came before the waterworks. “You’re still getting rid of her?”
She grabbed his hands and gently pushed them off her knees.
“Beth…”
It was one word. Just her name. But she heard it all in his tone.
You knew this was the plan.
She was never meant to stay.
You were never meant to stay.
“Were you even going to tell me?” she asked, sniffing back the tears. Beth knew the mare didn’t belong to her. Not in the technical sense. But she and Midnight belonged to each other in a way that no document or contract could explain. She knew it, and Eli knew it. But he still left her out of the conversation.
He nodded. “I’m telling you now.”
His eyes were still red, and his dried tears left streaks on his dirt-smudged face. She only now realized that it was more than just his sweat-dampened hair. Eli was a mess.
How could she be angry after what he’d just put himself through? How could she fault him for what was always supposed to happen? Logic told her she needed to hear him out, but her heart wasn’t listening to logic.
“Why?” She exhaled a shaky breath. “Why are you telling me now? Something happened.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “It’s more than Midnight’s door. I think someone’s been messing with the property, and I think whoever it is wants me to know that they can do it and get away unseen. So there’s no way in hell I’m bringing you back there and putting you in danger. I’ve got the trailer. I’m going to take Midnight back to the property and wait.”
Beth sprang to her feet. “You’re using her and yourself as bait? Are you crazy?”
Eli stood too. “It’s not like I can get the sheriff’s department involved. I don’t exactly have hard evidence.” He held his arms out and tilted his head toward the sky. “It’s gonna be a clear night.” He met her gaze again. “And I’ve got the alarm and the security cameras installed. It’s perfectly safe. The second I hear or see something, I’ll make a call, and it’ll finally be over.”
Beth’s heart raced. “This isn’t the Wild West. You know that, right? It’s California. I bet there’s even a vineyard not too far off.” He opened his mouth to respond, but she shook her head. She wasn’t finished. “And you wouldn’t be pawning me off on Delaney and Sam if it was ‘perfectly safe.’” She made air quotes around the last words. “When people want to steal something valuable, they usually resort to violence to get it. Is she valuable? Midnight? Was Fury valuable?”
Eli waited a beat before asking, “Do I get to talk now?”
Beth groaned. “Yes.”
He sighed. “Midnight is a Friesian, which is a rare enough breed as it is. That white star between her eyes, though? The appearance of a marking like that on a pure breed is even rarer. She and Fury could have been twins, and I know what Fury was worth, not that Tess or I would have ever sold her. So yeah. With Midnight being the horse she probably was before the injury, I bet she was worth a lot. And I’m guessing the reason why her owners were going to put her down was because the injury meant she wasn’t.”
Beth hugged herself tighter. Had the temperature changed? Why was she so cold?
Eli raised a hand gently toward her but let it fall. She could tell he wanted to touch her, to wrap his arms around her and fix whatever was happening here. She both wanted him to try and was also afraid she’d push him away. But it didn’t matter because he stayed where he was, on his side of the porch steps, and somehow that made her gut twist even more.
Fury was a rare breed, and someone had tried to take her.
Midnight was the exact same breed, and even if Eli’s physical evidence was almost nonexistent, if Beth were in his shoes, she’d suspect the same.
“Fine,” she finally said. “If we’re going to catch these horse bandits or whatever…” Ha. Whatever. They’d still never figured out what that word meant. “Then I’m coming too,” Beth declared.
A muscle twitched in Eli’s jaw. “The hell you are,” he practically growled.
Beth scoffed. “You’re kidding, right? Did you just hear yourself? You sound like the day you told me I couldn’t ride Midnight. Are we back there again?”
“Maybe,” he admitted, his own arms crossed now. “You didn’t let me protect you then, and look where it got us. Now I can, Beth. So call me an asshole or hate me more than you already do for trying to find her a good home when the only human she truly cares about is going to eventually leave her anyway.”
Beth flinched. “That’s not fair, Eli.” But it was, wasn’t it? She was going to leave Midnight—and him.
He let out a mirthless laugh. “Fair? You want to talk to me about fair?” He shook his head, then pinched the bridge of his nose, the gesture she now knew meant that Eli Murphy had taken all that he could take. He would shut down soon, which meant he would also shut her out. “You’re not setting foot on the Murphy property tonight. It’s the only way I can keep you safe. Don’t you get that?”
Beth clamped her jaw shut. She couldn’t believe they were back where they started after all this time.
“Yeah,” she replied, her tone clipped. “I got it, Dr. Murphy.”
Then she spun on her heel, pushed through Sam and Delaney’s door, and slammed it behind her.
Somewhere in the recesses of the house, a toddler shrieked, and her baby-making parents—even behind closed doors—audibly swore.