Erin closed her eyes and let her head thump against the carved wood that supported her back. She was so screwed up, and her mind was swimming with revelations she’d never been able to see until now. Oh, God. Unlike the mare, she didn’t threaten people and prance around to show off her muscle, but she did push herself to perform beyond her ability to impress the men around her. And just like during her childhood, she hadn’t gotten the reward she always wanted: praise. Instead she’d gotten advice and criticism, and everyone began setting a new goal for her: to work smarter. No wonder she’d reacted badly to that suggestion. All her life, she’d needed to push herself physically in order to feel good about herself.

Erin finally slipped back down on the bed to lie on her side with her knees drawn to her chest. There truly was a little girl within her who’d been made to feel broken and in need of fixing. And no wonder. She kept remembering what Jonas had said to her last night about her screwed-up parents, her father doing everything he could to turn her into a son and her mother striving to make her into a perfect little lady. Talk about a child getting mixed signals.

Erin drifted off to sleep with that realization circling in her mind.

* * *

The next morning, Erin was allowed to work with the mare again. By lunchtime, she felt that she and the mare had made a lot of progress, and that was a heady feeling. After quickly making a sandwich at the bunkhouse, she went out to sit by the mare’s paddock fence to eat. The horse nuzzled her ball cap and sniffed her hair, sending a shivery sensation down Erin’s spine. When the equine nudged her shoulder, Erin finally gave her the rest of her sandwich bread and ate only what was left of the lunch meat.

After wiping her hands clean on her jeans, she drew out her cell phone and called Julie, who answered on the second ring, bypassing hello to say, “It’s been forever since you’ve been in touch. Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”

“I’m okay,” Erin assured her. She gave Julie a quick rundown of what had happened the night she quit her job and how she’d been working on her uncle’s ranch ever since. “I’m sorry I ignored your calls and let them go to voicemail. I was too upset to answer questions. It’s been a difficult time.”

“I imagine it has,” Julie said. “I heard about the Johnson girl. What a tragedy. It set everybody in town on their ears, including me. The word is that you turned in your badge because the Sorensen boy threatened to rape that girl and no one at the sheriff’s department did a thing to stop him.”

Erin sighed. “I’m sad to hear that Sheriff Adams is taking heat over my decision to quit. It really wasn’t his fault that nothing was done. The boy was in his father’s custody and scheduled to stand before a judge. The sheriff’s department couldn’t interfere with that process.”