“I’ll be right over,” Stevie said and took down directions to his house, and then she remembered that she didn’t have a vehicle. She held the phone out from her face and asked Mia, “You reckon we could use the work truck for an hour or so? Raymond Green has a horse with a problem.”

“I’m sure we can,” Mia answered as she dried her tears. “Does that mean I can go with you?”

“Of course,” Stevie said. “You can even drive if you want to. We just need to get some supplies out of the van and put them in a duffel bag. We’re going to have to untangle some barbed wire from a horse’s leg and stitch up a gash.”

Mia took her phone from her hip pocket and called her mother. “Mama, Stevie has to go check on Raymond Green’s horse. Can we use the work truck, and is it okay if I go with her?” She listened for a few seconds and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Then she hopped up, picked up her coat, and said, “Mama says we can use the truck anytime we need it and if it hadn’t been close by, we could have used her SUV. I’ll jog up to the house, drive the truck to the barn, and pick you up.” She was putting on her coat as she dashed outside.

Stevie dumped what was left in her go bag onto the bed, put a few things in it, and then threw an apple into the bag before she left the bunkhouse and jogged to the barn. By the time Mia drove up, Stevie had loaded what supplies she thought she would need out of the van and was waiting at the door.

“I know where Raymond lives,” Mia said. “It’s just a couple of miles toward town from here. We can be there in a few minutes. That poor horse has to be in a lot of pain. I’ve always wanted a horse, but Poppa says no. Daddy says that when he was a little boy Poppa had to put his horse to sleep, and that he’d had him for more than twenty years, even before they adopted Daddy and Uncle Cody and Uncle Lucas. Having to do that hurt him so badly that he wouldn’t have another horse on the place.” Mia rambled on and on the entire distance.

When Mia turned in to the lane leading up to the ranch house, Stevie interrupted her and said, “Keep following the path toward the barn over to the west. The horse is in the corral out back of that.”

Mia nodded and kept talking. “It would break my heart to lose Maggie. She was my first hembra, and she’s produced a cria every year for me. We’re here.” She braked and turned the engine off. “Can I help carry anything?”