Page 62 of In Full Bloom

“Good. We’ll do that, then we can get to therealhard part.” He smirks at me, then steps around me to help Sadie while I’m left spluttering over my laugh.

Once we’re donewith Scout, Sadie and Dallas head off to do something else, leaving me to work with Aurora for a few hours before dinner.

She’s making such good progress, letting me lay the saddle across her back for the first time. I leave it at that, not wanting to push the horse too far, especially when my head is so scattered.

It was easy to push aside my thoughts and feelings about spilling my guts to Dallas when he was here with me and we had Sadie between us, acting as a buffer.

But now that it’s just me and Aurora, all the things I said come hurtling back.

I never talk about the miscarriage. Olivia and Toby are the only ones who ever knew I was pregnant. I’m assuming Toby didn’t tell anyone, not even after the devastating loss. It wasn’t so devastating for him, considering he hadn’t wanted to be a father yet.

Losing the baby had been the first blow to our relationship. My grief was vast and while he tried to support me through it, he could never fully understand why I wasn’t more relieved.

The months that followed, we tried to regain the relationship we had before we left Kauri Creek, but we never quite managed it.

Two years after we left town, I’d lost hope of ever getting it back. I knew our relationship was over. I just didn’t realise his life would be that same day too.

I sigh and lean into Aurora, pressing my face into her warm neck.

This is why I didn’t talk about these things—Toby, Max, my lost baby—it brings everything back.

“Katie,” Olivia’s soft voice calls from the yard fence.

“Yeah?” I pull away from Aurora and slip her halter free. I’m done with working for the day, even if it is with the horses. I trudge towards Olivia, knowing I’m going to have to do even more talking.

“You good?” Olivia reaches out and rubs my arm as we settle onto the top railing.

“I don’t really know,” I say, avoiding eye contact.

“Is that because you’ve got a thing for Dallas and are refusing to admit it?”

I shoot my best friend a look and she’s grinning at me like the cat who got the cream. “That statement is incorrect.”

“So, youdon’thave a thing for Dallas?”

“Oh, no, that part’s correct. The refusing to admit it part is what’s not correct.”

“Shit.” Olivia’s staring at me with wide eyes. “I really wasn’t expecting you to just come out with it like that. Are you feeling okay?”

“Not really.” I sigh. “We have totalkabout things.”

Olivia laughs at my disgust. “Honey, that’s what people in relationships do.”

“I don’t know that this is a relationship exactly.”

“Why don’t you tell me exactly what it is then?”

I climb down from the railing. “Want to walk?”

She jumps down beside me and loops her arm through mine. We head around the corner of the barn, into the paddock and up the hill.

“So the first night I got here, I went into town.” I chew on my bottom lip while I fiddle with the gate latch letting us into the paddock. “I met Dallas. And I took him home with me.”

I thought Olivia’s eyes couldn’t get wider than when I admitted I have a thing for Dallas.

I was wrong. They just about bug out of her head.

“It was … incredible,” I continue. “I had no idea he worked here. We didn’t find out until that morning in the arena when I had Sadie on Scout.” I wince, remembering what he told me earlier today about Sadie’s accident. God, what that must have done to him. “So things didn’t start out well, but …” I shrug. “They’ve improved.”

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