She appreciated many things about Cord, including the concern and responsibility he’d shown when he’d checked with her about birth control.

He dressed and went downstairs with a final kiss and she put her clothes back on, too, then phoned Emma. Couldn’t reach her but left a vague message saying, “It finally happened,” leaving her friend to intuit the rest.

Time to get some coffee and breakfast, then go out to meet the Lewises and Carly. A morning session today, since Mary Jean had a dental appointment in their hometown that afternoon. As things turned out, Cord wasn’t able to join them. Just before they arrived, he got an urgent call from a woman named Kelly who worked with a rescue group and had saved Annie, the shaggy little horse now in his barn. She had another horse, also neglected, that she’d found wandering down a nearby road a week ago. Could he come and get her as soon as possible? Kelly had limited space and resources. He and Mitch were setting out to pick up the horse immediately; Mitch was busy attaching the trailer to Cord’s SUV.

Carly told him he’d better not come home without the horse, an opinion seconded by Shallie and the Lewises.

They spent the next two hours working with Chief, the formerly abused racehorse. He’d lost much of his fear, and Mary Jean said she could see him as a therapy horse, partly because he’d have needs in common with his “clients.”

Afterward, they took Carly to visit Holly, inviting Shallie, too. At the vet’s they learned that “the little girl” could be released in another two days, which coincided with the Lewises’ planned trip home on Thursday. Carly gave Holly a kiss on the nose and rubbed those long silky ears. “You’ll always be welcome to see her,” Mary Jean said. “In fact, we’d love it if you both came to our place. It’s only about two hours away.”

“Absolutely,” Len agreed. “And if you need a ride, we can work something out.”

THAT AFTERNOON, SHALLIE kept obsessing over her fear that her father had killed her mother. She was descended from a corrupt and murderous man and… And when she wasn’t focused on that, she continued to think about her feelings for Cord.

She found some release from the intensity of her thoughts in emails and texts—to her disappointment, nothing from Emma yet—and by spending half an hour reading. She sank, once again, into the comfort of The Black Stallion, which she understood in a whole different way now. Eventually, she dozed off with her cell phone playing blues on low volume.