“Let’s go home,” Jenn called. “I can’t stand the smell.”

For the rest of the weekend, Tessa was haunted by the lifeless mass in the street. Every wind gust reeked of burnt horseflesh. In every siren, the man in the top hat howled. Even as she laughed with Jenn over cupcakes and coffees, loneliness coiled in the pit of her stomach. Turning her face upward, she searched for more than a sliver of sky. She craved dewy green fields and sweet summer air. She missed home.

Late Sunday evening, Jenn followed her onto the bus platform, even though the posted sign decreed only ticketed passengers were permitted. Those rules were for other people—not her irrepressible roomie.

Adam’s roomie now.

She wedged into a front seat and waved, feeling the motor vibrate her thighs through the velveteen cushion.

Jenn jumped up and down and waved back. “I’ll miss you!”

“I’ll miss you, too,” she mouthed.

Jenn whipped out her phone. Her fingers flew across the screen as the bus belched a cloud of exhaust.

—When are you coming to stay?—

With a shrug and a smile, she pocketed her phone and blew Jenn a kiss.

The bus pulled away.

But in her heart, she knew the answer.

Never. For better or worse, Tessa was going home.

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

“I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking about that horse.” Tessa slumped in the seat of Richard’s SUV the following evening. He picked her up well after his shift ended, and the huge expanse of sky was speckled with bright stars.

“How much electricity would you need to kill a horse?” Richard popped a mint and shook his head. “A tremendous amount.”

She rested an elbow on the door and pressed her cheek into her hand. “That’s exactly what Adam said. But it was just so pathetic. Those stiff legs sticking out from under the tarp and that awful smell. I’ll never forget it.”

“What did it smell like?”

“It was like…execution. And beef jerky.”

Richard exploded into laughter.

The tears that inexplicably surfaced whenever she thought about the horse threatened again. “It isn’t funny!”

“But it is.” He thumped his hands on the wheel. “Freakish and damn funny. Any number of humans probably stepped on that manhole and nothing—their rubber-soled shoes protected them. But it was a horse’s worst nightmare. What are the odds?”

She tipped her forehead against the glass. “Standing there with all those people gawking I just thought, what am I doing here? Everything is backward in this city. As great as Central Park is, trees and nature are supposed to surround us, not the other way around.” With a sigh, she shifted and stared into the night. Breath came easier, away from so much concrete. “I guess I’m just a Pennsylvania farm girl after all.”

He let out a soft chuckle. “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”