Maybe it was inevitable; maybe if tragedy hadn’t struck with Sienna, something else would have pushed the Chases and Riverside over a new horizon. But he isn’t sure; the timing was all so critical. It had to happen before Danny went to school, before Johnny went on adventures; it took the three of them, together, to make it happen. So, maybe without Sienna—without her terrible sacrifice—it wouldn’t have happened at all.

It’s easier, somehow, to believe that. He likes to think that something good came out of her suffering…something that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

But maybe he’s just taught himself to look for every silver lining, even if he has to make them up. It’s a habit born from necessity.

He can’t see Lance now. What if his ride doesn’t show up? Or what if it does, and Robbie misses a chance to know who he’s with? That last thought makes him feel a moment’s shame, but knowing he has no right to every detail of Lance’s life doesn’t lessen the desire. He pushes open the door, rushes down the stairs, and jogs down the driveway toward the road.

He imagines Lance waiting alone. He had his hood lowered; the glare off the snow made his dark curls silver-tipped, like they’d been touched by the same frost as the bare branches of the trees. Robbie isn’t a runner, but he speeds up anyway, until his breath comes short.

When the point where the driveway meets the road comes into view, there’s no tall, boyish young man shivering on the roadside. Just fresh tire tracks carved through the thin layer of snow that accumulated since the last pass by the snowplow, and still winter air.

Robbie pushes his hands down into his coat pockets and starts back the way he just came. He ran out without stopping for gloves. Still, he doesn’t hurry as he treks back to the house. Sometimes, he likes the cold; it can feel cleansing. Or like a justified punishment.

He’s always liked to take a long ride when he has decisions to make, but with Ed heading over now, he doesn’t have time for that. So, he turns over the questions he has to solve sooner rather than later, starting with the most pressing one. The calf in the barn—the one he and Lance brought back from the brink of a snowy death together. He tries to recall the value of the average orphaned calf, and imagines it doesn’t much exceed the cost of the vet call that Megan made—not that she’ll bill him for that, no matter how many times he asks. Robbie can make Ed an offer he won’t refuse, and that’ll be that.

Or will it? Ed is a strange guy. Maybe he’ll decide he isn’t selling. There’s only a very small chance of that, and yet, the possibility makes Robbie uneasy. He’s still mulling it over when Ed’s familiar pickup appears down the driveway, towing a small, rusty stock trailer, its gates rattling like gunfire as it lurches over the banked snow on the curve. The noise flushes the horses out of the run-in shed, even Dusty. They dance around excitedly, tails flagged high, snorting out visible clouds of steam. Despite his anxiousness, Robbie finds himself smiling at their antics. Riverside has become a pretty sleepy place if an unfamiliar trailer can rile them up this much. Back when he was training, they were used to people—and other horses—coming and going almost daily. They’d barely raise their heads at the sight of a rig. Now, it’s a novelty.