“Are you free tomorrow night?” he asks, and I nod. “Good. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

My heart skips a beat. Is this really happening? “Do you need my address?”

He shakes his head. “Claire will figure it all out.”

“Claire?”

He looks over his shoulder for the woman he was with before. “My assistant. She does everything for me.”

“Must be nice.”

“She’s all right.” He shrugs. “Dinner tomorrow. And if you can handle it, drinks after.”

“Deal.” I’m smiling again.

With my hand still in his, we turn and walk out of the ER. We exchange numbers and pause in the parking lot.

“Have a good night,” he says, and he lets his eyes do one last sweep over my body.

“You too,” I tell him. He’s still holding my hand, and I don’t want him to let go. An ambulance speeds to the hospital, and I get a flash of my ride in one. I yank my hand back and shiver. “Good night, Aiden.”

“I’ve tried everyone else,” Dr. Wells says. I bite the inside of my cheek. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency. The clinic is full. I have literally nowhere for her to go.”

I close my eyes and get out of bed that next morning. Lori is passed out next to me, and Chrissy is sprawled out at the foot of the bed. I cut myself off after one drink, finding it hard to keep the visions away with alcohol sloshing around in my mind.

“I don’t know,” I say as I pad out into the hall, softly closing the door behind me. “I don’t know if I’m…if I’m ready.”

“I know, honey,” Dr. Wells says, and the empathy in her voice breaks me. She’s been our vet for years. An older woman who’s seen it all, Dr. Wells sometimes feels like my grandmother instead of my vet. “And I also know your mother wouldn’t want you to lock yourself away in that house. She wouldn’t want you to close your heart or your barn.”

I take a minute, tears filling my eyes. “You’re right.” I can only whisper, too close to crying. “I’ll take her.”

“Thank you. I’ll have someone drop her off later this morning.” I can hear the smile on Dr. Wells’ face. “I’m proud of you, honey. And your mom was too. She still is.”

And now I’m a blubbering idiot. I sob a goodbye and hang up. I go down the stairs; they empty into the living room. I cross the room and enter into the kitchen, looking out the window above the sink. The sight of the barn calms me. I stare at it for a few beats, then turn and make a cup of coffee.

A pile of bills sits on the island counter. I’ve put off opening them for the last two days. There is nothing I can do about them, after all. I can’t avoid it forever. I open my laptop, going to the Excel spreadsheet Dad set up for me, and cringe when I enter the negative numbers. How the hell was I going to afford the farm? I always knew horses were expensive—especially sick horses—but I had no idea how many thousands of dollars it took to keep this place open month after month.

“How did you do it, Mom?” I ask, and I put my head in my hands. My grandmother—Mom’s mom—offered to give me money but I turned it down, knowing she didn’t get much living off of social security. But damn, I could use all the help I could get right now.

“Hay?” Lori calls from upstairs. “You down there?”

“Yeah.”

She slowly comes down the stairs, the wooden boards creaking under each foot. “Who were you talking to? I heard you crying. You okay?”

“Dr. Wells.”

“The vet?”

“Yeah. She has a newborn foal that needs a home.”

Lori squints in the morning light. “You’re taking her, right?”

I nod and get a second coffee mug out for Lori. “I didn’t want to,” I confess. I turn to my best friend. Lori likes horses but isn’t as passionate as I used to be. Sometimes I think it is odd I am best friends with someone who doesn’t eat, sleep, and breathe horses like I did, especially when we were younger.  “I’ve never not wanted to before.”

She sips her coffee. “It’s the first time you’re doing this alone,” she says softly.

“I know. Phoenix…we set out to get her together. But this foal…I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t.”

“You should. Haley,” she starts, and I know she’s serious. “I’m worried about you. I know it takes a long time to heal, but you’re shutting everything out—even the horses—and that scares me so much. I don’t want you to shut down completely.”

I can’t argue, can’t tell her she’s wrong. She’s not. I want to tell her about the visions, about the horrible, nightmarish flashbacks that suck me into hell, repeating the last horrible moments of that night over and over and over until I’m sure I’m nothing more than a pile of ash and bone.

But I don’t.

“I’ll be okay,” I tell her. “This foal will be a lot of work. It’s the perfect distraction.”

Lori smiles before her brow furrows. “Yeah, a newborn is going to be a lot of work. What are you going to do?”

“I have today and tomorrow, then I’ll call in sick Monday if I have to. So that’s three days to try to get her to drink from a bucket or a hanging bottle. If I need to take the day off Tuesday, I will too.”

Lori doesn’t say anything. She sips her coffee, looking concerned. “You have a date with Aiden tonight.”

“I’ll cancel,” I say.

She spits out her coffee. “You can’t cancel on Aiden!”

“The horse is more important to me. Someone has to be with her tonight to make sure she settles in, to make sure she’s not missing her mother, and someone needs to bottle-feed her.”

“Okay,” Lori says after a minute’s consideration. “I’ll stay and watch the baby for a few hours so you can go out. Kit owes me anyway.”

“I can’t make you do that.”

“You’re not making me. I volunteered. And it’s a baby horse. I love baby animals! Just show me how to feed the poor thing, and you and Aiden can go out for a few hours.”

Fuck, she is the best of the best when it comes to friends.

Chapter 8

If I’m not playing a character, I’m drinking. The character doesn’t always have to be a role in a movie. It can be the role of how Aiden Shepherd should be, the role of what’s expected of me. I’m a twenty-four-year-old multimillionaire, after all. I have fame, fortune, and friends who emulate the same. It’s the fucking dream, isn’t it?

It’s not, and it will never be enough. Playing the role of how Aiden Shepherd should be is fucking exhausting, though over the years I’ve gotten good at shutting everything out, keeping the darkness that lives inside me at bay, keeping it distracted, and keeping me from feeling. Aiden Shepherd never feels numb, he never feels hopeless or lies awake for hours at night, unable to sleep and contemplating if life is even worth living. No, Aiden fucking Shepherd wouldn’t feel those things. He’s got everything, remember?

I reach for the Scotch on the nightstand next to my bed in the hotel. Ice clinks against the glass. It’s pitch black, and I got home from the hospital a few hours ago. My ankle is swollen and a little painful, and it annoys me more than anything. I chug the rest of my drink, taking comfort in the way it burns as it goes down.

The empty glass drops to the floor, ice spilling on the white carpet. I don’t care. I close my eyes and put my arm over my face, thinking of Haley. She looked good in that skimpy little dress. The night was still hot, and her sweater was odd. I saw a flash of a scar the first time we met. Did she get that in the fire?

I asked Claire to find a good place for us to go out to dinner tomorrow. She also arranged a car for me, picked out my clothes, and programmed Haley’s address into the GPS. Which was good, because that meant less shit for me to do in the morning, which really meant I could get plastered tonight and pass out, not waking until after noon. It would give me enough time to sober up, shower, and be good to go.