Her head tilted and her eyes filled with anger. “You got my sealed records?”

Shit. “Yes.” What else could he say?

“Let me guess, so you can use it against me in court to take my kids from me. You want to make my whole life about something I did when I was just a hopeless kid.”

No, he didn’t. He wanted to know the truth. “Why did you do it? What would make you do something so drastic?” He demanded the answer with the same urgency of his questions.

“Because I was in a rage!” Her whole body vibrated with anger and resentment that he’d insist on an answer and that he’d violated her privacy based on an unsubstantiated claim from Margaret. “I couldn’t take one more thing being snatched away from me.”

“What did your uncle take from you?”

“The only good thing I had left.”

“The horses,” he guessed, sadness tightening his gut and clenching his heart, because if that’s all she’d had in her life without school, friends, or a family who loved her, then yes, she’d been hopeless.

The pain in her eyes ran deep. “He stood in front of the barn talking to a wealthy rancher about selling the last of the horses. My uncle had either drunk or gambled away the last of the money. He needed the quick cash the ten horses provided. They didn’t know I was listening from inside one of the stalls, but I heard everything they said.” She fought back tears. “I couldn’t lose them.” She sucked in a breath to wash away the desperation he saw in her eyes and heard in her voice. The anger came raging back. “Turns out the guy wanted to buy more than the horses, and my uncle was only too happy to take the extra five hundred to get rid of the smart-ass mouth he couldn’t afford to feed. Not that he did a good job of that to begin with.”

Aghast and overwhelmingly furious, he blurted out, “Your uncle tried to sell you for five hundred dollars?” Luke seethed. Everything inside him screamed to protect her. From what? It was done, and he was left helpless. Not a good feeling. He ran both hands through his hair and let them drop to his sides, balled into tight fists.

Sarah let out a half-hearted laugh. “No, Luke. Not tried. He did sell me.” She shrugged, but it didn’t erase any of the turmoil in her eyes. “The guy loaded up the horses he got on the cheap and the girl he couldn’t wait to get home into the trailer. Locked me in so I couldn’t run.”

“What happened?” He didn’t really want to know.

“I picked the lock on the room the guy put me in at his place and hitchhiked back to the ranch. And for that final act of cruelty my uncle inflicted on me, I burned his ranch to the ground. I stood in the middle of the front yard and watched the barn and the house go up in flames.