Angel’s pulse hammered at her to get out of there, for an entirely new reason this time. “Well, I’ll leave y’all to get settled. We are having dinner tonight, Henry. In the barn dining room.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and Angel slipped past his momma and out of the house. She held her head high as she went down the steps and past the trucks, her goal anywhere she could get where no one could see her.
The stable ahead was her best option, and Angel made her strides as long as possible without breaking into a run. When she entered the shadiness of the stable and darted around the corner, her breath came in quick pants.
She pressed the folder to her chest with both arms crossed over it, trying to breathe, and breathe, andbreathe.
Her momma’s illness didn’t affect her too badly most days, but sometimes—like right now—Angel could feel how sick she was, and the hurt and grief and worry of that slapped at her until she couldn’t ignore it.
Tears ran out of her closed eyes, and Angel couldn’t stop them. She’d be horrified and humiliated if anyone saw her like this, and yet, she couldn’t move away from the wall which only provided the barest of protections.
Lord, she thought, but her prayer couldn’t continue. She simply didn’t have the mental resources to put her plea to the Lord in words. It didn’t matter. He knew what she was going through, and He already knew what she needed.
The soft huff of a horse’s breath touched her neck and shoulder, and Angel opened her eyes. She hiccuped as she breathed in, everything that had gone rigid inside her starting to loosen as the equine dipped her head and pressed the long length of her nose against Angel’s shoulder and upper arm.
She turned into the horse, one hand coming up to hold onto her mane. “Hey, girl,” she whispered. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
She wasn’t, and both of them knew it, but if she could just stand here for while, she could wipe her face of any teary evidence and get back to her house for a few minutes before she had to go give the paperwork to Daddy.
Then she wouldn’t have to see Henry until that evening, and he’d be with a lot of other cowboys. Surely he wouldn’t affect her as strongly as he had today every time she ran into him, and she took a long breath in asshe reminded herself she hadn’t completely broken down over Henry.
But his mother…. She sniffled again, wishing she didn’t have such pinching unfairness streaming through her. Wishing she wasn’t quite so angry at literally everyone and everything for her family situation. A sick, now almost absent mother. An aging, grumpy father who loved her dearly but sometimes didn’t know how to show it. A disabled brother who she loved with her whole soul, but who required someone to look after him pretty much all the time.
Everything felt too heavy for her to carry alone—Lone Star itself housed over two hundred horses that required around-the-clock care. They—She—employed almost two dozen men to do that job, and they all reported to her.
Her.
“I’m too small to do this,” she whispered to the horse, really trying to tell God she needed help.
At the same time, she was also pretty angry with God for putting her in this situation in the first place. Even as she called on Him, and believed in Him, and loved Him, she desperately wanted Him to make things right.
For He’d let them go wrong, and He expected her to pick up the pieces. It sure seemed wildly unfair to Angel, but she didn’t know what to do about it.
Daddy had taught her to square her shoulders, lift her head, take a breath, employ her faith, and go to work.
So Angel stayed with the horse for several more long minutes, until she felt like she could breathe and talk and face anyone on the ranch, and then she did those things.
She squared her shoulders and scrubbed her face clean. She lifted her head and tightened her ponytail, putting everything back together. She took in a breath until her lungs felt like they’d explode, held it, then let it all out. Let it all go.
“I love Thee, Lord,” she said. “I love my momma and daddy and brother. I love this ranch. I love this life You have given me, and bless me to be grateful for it. Bless me to be able to shoulder all the burdens You have placed upon me, for I know Thou wouldn’t give me anything I can’t handle.”
With her faith properly stitched in place, Angel faced the bright square of sunlight coming in through the open stable door.
And she went to work.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Caroline put another swimming suit in her suitcase, then took it back out. “Do I even need one suit?”
She paced away from her bed, so many neurons firing through her. She hadn’t taken a road trip in years, and certainly not with her boyfriend.
The thought of Dawson calmed her, and she looked in the mirror above her bureau. “Lord,” she said. “This is make-or-break for me.”
It had been three weeks since she’d made her night-drive to Dawson’s cabin, cried in front of him, confessed several things, and eaten ice cream until he was yawning every other second.
They’d been texting and talking as normal since then, but they both knew this trip would set a definingline for both of them. She wasn’t sure what it was for him, and to be honest, Caroline had no idea what this road trip would do for her either.
She only knew it would do something.