Stevie dug her phone out of her pocket and dialed Angie. Emilia listened to their conversation with half an ear. She felt light and heavy all at the same time, like she might drift away in slow motion if she wasn’t careful.

Stevie hung up with a dazed expression.

“What did she say?” Emilia asked.

“She said yes.”

She hadn’t expected Angie to say no. Stevie, however, appeared stunned. Taking on an animal was always a big decision, and horses were a thousand pounds of responsibility with legs and bodies that seemed designed to fail. This could beggar Stevie, but Emilia did not point out what Stevie knew.

Morgan turned back to them as the resolve in Stevie’s face hardened.

“Stevie, I need you to—”

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“Ask Abby if she’ll sign her over to me.”

“To you?”

“Yes.”

“Stevie—”

“I’ve decided to get into mounted archery.”

Morgan looked at Emilia, who shrugged.

“Mounted archery?”

“Yep.”

“With Olive?”

“Yep.”

Morgan rubbed the back of her neck and looked over her shoulder at Abby, who stood with the air of someone going to their execution.

“She can’t afford this, and she feels guilty,” Stevie said in a rush before Abby could enter hearing distance. “I can stable her at the house.”

“Or Olive could die, leaving you in debt.”

“I don’t care.”

“Stevie—”

“Please, Morgan.”

Morgan searched Stevie’s face and then shifted her gaze to Emilia, who felt a shadow pass over her. She didn’t want Morgan thinking she’d pressured her friend into a rash decision. More than that, however, she didn’t want this animal to die for the same reasons that had shadowed her work in shelters: finances. It wasn’t the animal’s fault she’d been discarded by one owner and dumped on another who had never asked for a horse and could not afford to take her to surgery. Neither was it Abby’s fault. Sometimes, though, the right person was in the right place at the right time, and if she could help Stevie save a life, she would.

Saving Olive would not bring back her father.

It would be a tribute to his memory.

“I’ll talk to her,” said Morgan.

By the time they got Olive on the trailer, the sun had long since set and the lights of distant fireworks lit their faces with reds, blues, whites, and greens. Stevie’s laughter buoyed them, and Emilia couldn’t help joining in.

•   •   •