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“You feeling okay, girl?” Beth asked, making sure her section of floor was clean enough before lowering herself to the ground. “Maybe we both overdid it yesterday.”

She nestled against the mare’s side so that the two of them made a T, Beth’s feet extending into the opened doorway of the stall. They were a carbon copy of the first day they met, yet so much had already changed in four short weeks.

“Is it weird if I ask for your advice?” Beth began. “I know you can’t answer me,” she added. “Not with words at least. But maybe what I need is someone to listen while I figure it out on my own, you know?”

Midnight sighed, and she probably would have sighed whether Beth was there or not. It didn’t stop Beth from insisting to herself that if anyone understood her, Midnight did.

So she told her about the Rockettes and her first pair of tap shoes, about never missing the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, about her fear of failing at her dream.

“Okay,” she told the mare when she finally finished spewing her entire history. “What do you think? Am I up for this one final try, or should I take what the doctor says at face value and throw in the towel before I injure myself worse? I’m just warning you, though, that if you go with option B, I don’t actually have a plan B, so I’m kinda lost.”

Her throat tightened, and she felt the horse shift beneath her. A second later, Midnight’s chin rested on her shoulder. Beth couldn’t help but laugh.

“Fine,” she relented as Midnight nuzzled even closer to Beth’s cheek. “I found you. But you can’t be my dream.” She wrapped her arm around the mare’s face and gave her a pet between the eyes, right on her white star. “Will friends do for now?”

Midnight puffed a burst of air from her nostrils, making Beth’s cheek slightly damp.

“Ew, girl!” she cried out as she laughed at the result of asking a horse for advice. “You ever heard the phrase ‘say it, don’t spray it’?”

Her equine friend whinnied, and Beth supposed the closest she might ever get to the mare speaking back to her was a cheek peppered with horse snot.

Beth wiped away the barely there mess with the hem of her T-shirt, then soon found her eyelids growing heavy. She tilted her head forward, allowing her sunglasses to fall over her eyes, then let out a long sigh before settling in for a Sunday afternoon catnap.

“No matter where I end up, I can always come back here and see you. And do stuff like this, right?”

And Eli… Would he be here for her too once she figured out the mess that was her life? Did she want him to be?

Out of all her questions, that was the only one she could answer.

Yes. Whatever my future is, I want Eli Murphy to somehow be in it.

Because the possibility of a future without dance, without Midnight, and without him? That was something Beth couldn’t fathom, even if she had no idea how it could work.

As she drifted off, she heard a voice mention something about rehabbing Midnight and placing her in a good home. Was it Eli? She couldn’t remember. All she knew was that Midnight had already found a good home, which meant placing her should be a nonissue by now.

Yes. Perfect. If and when she ever returned to Meadow Valley, she’d find it exactly as she’d left it—and the people she loved exactly where she’d left them.

And then she was out, the only sound a hushed whisper in the distance, a sound she was sure existed only in a dream.

Chapter 21

“I think someone was snooping around the property,” Eli said to anyone at the table who would listen.

Sam and Boone both looked up from their sorry excuses for scarves, and he took their identical wide-eyed stares as proof of their envy at only his second attempt at knitting stripes.

“You’re jealous, right?” he added. “That I’m this good on only my second Saturday?”

“You know what?” Sam responded. “I don’t think I give as much of a shit about your snooping issue as I thought.” He turned his gaze back to his own pile of yarn.

Boone laughed. “Who knew you had such a competitive streak?” he replied. “And I’ll ask about the snooping while Callahan pouts.”

“I’m not pouting,” Sam grumbled.

He was totally pouting.

“I don’t know,” Eli continued. “Last Sunday, I woke up to Lucy staring at me through my bedroom window, and I always make sure the coop is locked at night.”

“I’m not entirely convinced there isn’t some sort of sorcery at play with that hen,” Sam added, still grumbling.