Cain rounded the corner into the dark barn. Two lanterns still sat at the far end near the birthing paddock. Even steps carried him down the dark aisle between the horse stalls. An occasional snort or whinny came from the dozing animals, as well as the brush of shifting bulks against the wood slats that made up the stalls. At the far end Ginny still stood, but he didn’t see the foal or Ella. Mo chreach.

Meow. Boudica caught at his side, her tiny nails piercing his shirt to his skin, and made him realize he was squeezing her. He let her jump from his hands.

“Ella?” Cain said, his voice stark in the silent stables. He crouched down and saw her on the other side of Ginny. The air left him, and his shoulders relaxed. Joshua was wrong, and he was right.

Ella leaned against a fence post, holding the bladder of mother’s milk with both hands as the foal suckled it. She turned her smile on him, and his gut contracted with…something, something he’d never felt before. Want? Desire? Aye, but something warmer, something more solid than the urgent need that came with lust.

“She was suckling from her mother,” Ella whispered. “But came over to me as if she were curious. So I gave her the first milk we saved.” The small horse nudged at the bladder as if demanding more, and Ella turned back to her, holding it over her head. “Yes, little one, drink all you can of it.”

Cain couldn’t look away. Ella was the Celtic goddess of horses, Epona, as she held the bladder so the foal could feed as if suckling from under its mother. She had found a clean tunic, tying the bulk of it in a knot at her waist. Her braid lay over one shoulder, curls framing her face as she watched the foal drink. With her gaze lowered, her dark lashes seemed to lay against the creamy skin of her cheeks. She was completely at ease standing among the muck and hay, caring for a new life that she had brought into the world with her hands and breath.

The kitten wove between Ginny’s hooves to find her mistress. The foal stopped drinking to blink large brown eyes at Boudica. “You found her,” Ella said, balancing the half-empty bladder on her knee and bending to run a hand through the kitten’s fur.

“She was keeping watch for your return on the woodpile,” Cain said, stroking his hands down Ginny’s neck. She was tired but looked well. He cleared his throat. “Did she birth the sack?” He went around to the mare’s tail.

“Yes. I put it in a bucket to be checked.”