Page 7 of Back in the Saddle

Forget about her, you damn fool.

‘It’s OK, Dallas. Almost done. You’re doing great, as always.’ Hunter stroked the mane of the beautiful black horse and smiled fondly at him.

The horse nickered in response.

Hunter picked up Dallas’s front right hoof and gently removed the debris that had got stuck there during their latest training sessions. He repeated the process with the other legs, checking for any signs of cuts or swelling as he did. Everything looked in order. Hunter picked up the curry-comb and brushed in a sweeping motion, working his way across Dallas’s body from behind his ear to the top of his tail. Dallas snorted a few times as he got too close to his head and when he went over his spine. As he combed through the mane and tail, he heard slow, heavy footsteps behind him.

‘Almost done,’ he said without looking to see who it was.

‘Good. Mama sent me to tell you that dinner’s going to be ready soon.’

Hunter didn’t need to turn round to know his sister had her arms crossed. Every member of the Jackson family hadfound their own way of dealing with the recent uncertainty. They were all sidestepping the impending grief, hoping there would be no reason to turn back and fall into it.

‘I didn’t say I was staying for dinner,’ he said.

Megan snorted. ‘She thought you’d say that and said she knows you won’t cook anything yourself and that she’s starting to worry you’re not getting enough hot meals.’

He put the brush away and turned round to face his sister. ‘I guess I have no choice then.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Megan said.

Hunter untied Dallas’s rope. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

Megan didn’t respond. The sound of her boots told Hunter she’d gone outside.

He led Dallas into his stall and closed the gate. When he walked out, he found Megan leaning against the barn’s entrance.

‘I’m gonna convince Daddy to let me have a glass of red with my steak.’ she announced, peeling her back from the red-painted wood.

Hunter laughed. ‘Like that’s going to happen.’

Megan shrugged. ‘I’m eighteen. It isn’t like I’ve never had alcohol before.’

‘Maybe don’t say that to Dad.’ He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. ‘It’s hard to remember at times how old you are, Meg. Because the older you get, the older I get. I don’t know, I just thought that by the time I was twenty-six, I’d have done something with my life. Yet here I am.’

‘Don’t worry, Buck’s practically ancient. You’re still a spring chicken compared to him.’ She grinned and hugged him back.

Buck was their older brother who lived in Tulsa with his wife, Lorna, and their two children, Morgan and Cody.

‘You have time, Hunt. Besides, it’s not like you’ve been stuck here all the time. You’ve been to college,’ Megan added.

‘And then I came back …’

‘Nothing wrong with that. I was over the moon when you moved back home. I’m not sure how Mama and I would’ve coped if you hadn’t been here for us. And for Daddy. It was the right thing to do,’ she said in a slow, comforting voice.

His jaw tensed. She was right. It was the only thing to do. As much as he was angry at the universe for the circumstances that had brought him home, he wasn’t angry at his father. He could never put even a morsel of blame at his feet.

Megan hit him in the shoulder, snapping him out of his trance. ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Dad.’

His simple response wiped her smile away.

Shit.He shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have worried her.

She looked into the distance, where the sun was setting above the treeline.

Hunter followed her gaze. The silhouettes of cattle grazing in the pasture completed the picture imprinted in his memory. Cicadas disturbed the humid July air, the smell of which he doubted he could ever rid himself. Soil, horses, manure and hay. The sturdy fence surrounding the western paddock was only finished last week. A devastating tornado, EF-3 grade, had wiped it off in April. Other structures were higher on the priority list. Hunter assessed the work from where he stood, his eyes moving in a practised fashion to look for any possible escape routes for the horses or weak spots. He found none. Satisfied, he pushed his hands deeper inside his pockets.