“Maybe he was.” I handed the end of the rope to Cam and took a cautious step towards the horse. “You will hold this while I push, but it may not end well.”
“Story of my fucking life.”
“Shh now.”
Cam sent an abrasive grunt my way, but fell quiet, gifting me silence to approach the trapped horse. A grey-brown slender thing, though the colour might have been the mud, the horse had the darkest eyes, and I spoke words Ranger had uttered some semblance of once upon a time.
“We will be okay,” I said in soft Russian. “If you do not kick me.”
The horse shied.
I made myself smaller and tried again, edging closer with every attempt to comfort the trapped animal until I had the reach to wind the rope around its middle. “There you go. We will not leave until you are free.”
The horse was unimpressed, jerking its head to nip at my ear.
It missed, but Cam chuckled anyway. “You’re a shit horse whisperer.”
“It is true,” I agreed. “But we are all terrible at so many things the first time we try.” I moved to the rear of the horse, keeping a sharp eye on the kicking range of its trapped legs. “Apply some tension, butdo not pull.”
Cam and I, we shared a unique dynamic. He had little authority over me and I none over him. But our tentative friendship had grown from the values we shared, and the unspoken agreement to defer to each when a situation demanded such things.
He obeyed the order, stretching the line taut while I massaged the horse’s legs and applied pressure to her rump, encouraging her to move, a suggestion she did not appreciate but I took as a positive.
She?I was not sure when my mind had made the switch, but I let it happen, trying over and over to persuade the animal to save herself, a mission that seemed fruitless until it wasn’t.
The horse took a wheezy breath I feared could be her last. Then everything changed. Her muscles bunched with intent and she drove forward, leaning on the momentum I gave from behind and chasing the tension Cam offered from the front.
She thrashed and charged, her progress slow, but I felt her determination as the same resolve Ranger had brought to my island home so long ago, when he would not let me die.
I pushed as she fought, and she took an incremental step out of the ditch. “Now,” I instructed Cam. “Pull, but not too hard.”
“What’s too hard?”
I did not know, and truly, as strong as I knew Cam O’Brian to be, he was not superhuman enough to bear the weight of an adult horse. But we had got lucky. Or perhaps the horse had. As her body emerged from the mud, I realised how juvenile she was, and the more steps she took, the more traction Cam found to propel her forward.
The young mare found a final surge of energy and burst from the ditch, sending me sprawling into the mud behind her and Cam to his ass in a puddle at her front. She kicked out, relishing her freedom, and I wondered if she would charge away with the rope still attached.
But she did not. She shook herself, waiting while I scrambled to my feet to untie her.
I released the rope and glanced around, surveying the land around us. “I do not think this is her field.”
Cam poured water from his boot, mud splattered on his clothes and face. “I don’t think it is either. Bloke who owns this place is a scrappy. If he has got hold of a horse, it’s not for anything good.”
“Then we cannot leave her here.” I checked the mare’s eyes while she seemed so calm. Her long lashes crusted with mud, but her gaze was bright. “Where can we take her?”
Cam sighed, pulling out his phone. “A few places, but the best person to ask about that isn’t my biggest fan.”
“Business?”
“Nah. I banged his missus a thousand years ago and he still ain’t happy about it.”
“That sounds like a fun call.”
Cam grunted and stomped away to endure it.
I checked the horse again. She had no obvious injuries and apparently no urgency to escape. She stood beside me, stoic and still, her tail giving a lazy swish in time with her steady pulse. Backed into a corner, I had thought her wild, but this version of her was a different beast. A tranquil one, as if all she needed was the air and the grass.
Ranger was like that when our lives were peaceful enough to allow it. The sun on his face and the wind in his hair. My arms around him and the food of his childhood. Most days he did not long for much more.