Morgan and Abby conferred for a while. Stevie talked to Olive, and Emilia braided her long mane for something to do with her hands. The coarse texture of mane brought up childhood memories of horseback riding lessons, and she remembered the farm her father would take her to in the summer, with its old lesson horses and the grizzled instructor. Her father had watched her ride around and around in circles with pride filling his eyes.

Forgiveness savaged her, ripping into her body with a pain that made her gasp. Stevie looked up in alarm, and Emilia shook her head, unable to speak as her hand tightened around Olive’s mane.

Her father had loved her. His drinking had stolen him away from her, but he had loved her, and he had been proud of her, and that was what she had now: the memory of his love.

“Emilia?”

“I’m . . .” she started to say she was fine, but stopped herself. “My dad. He liked horses.” An idiotic statement, and yet, here in the mud with a dying mare, she could not find any other words. His love scorched her. Missed opportunities sparked, flared, and burned out, along with some of her anger and resentment, charred pieces landing on the exposed parts of her heart. Her father had loved her, and now he was gone.

“I’ll pay for half her treatment,” Emilia found herself saying to Stevie.

Stevie’s mouth fell open.

“Get Abby to sign her over to you.”

“Emilia—”

“You two belong together if you want it.”

Furrows sprung up on Stevie’s brow. “I could talk to Ange. We could fence off part of the orchard, and there’s an old hoop house we could use as a run-in.” She held Emilia’s eyes. “I can’t ask you to pay for her treatment, though.”

“Can you pay for it yourself?”

“No, but—”

“Then let me help. Please.”

“Why?”

Because I can’t bear to lose anything else. It wasn’t a professional thought. It wasn’t even a rational thought, but she could not take the feeling that death followed her everywhere and it seemed crucial suddenly that this horse live. She felt the way she had when she was a child begging fate for favors: If the next car that passes is blue, my parents will get back together. If this horse lives, everything will turn out okay.

“Because I want to feel like I’ve done something good.”

Light blue eyes, so different from Morgan’s, held hers, and Emilia understood as she held them why that friendship had lasted over the years. Stevie might prank and clown, but beneath that veneer she sensed the same intensity and sensitivity that drove Morgan. Stevie nodded once as if she’d heard the words Emilia had not said aloud.

“If you change your mind, I can always open up a payment plan. You’re not bound to this.”

“Fair enough.”