The horse did not move or look away.

“You think because you outweigh me that I can’t take you? Think I won’t haul off and deck you if you bite me again?”

The horse cocked her head as if bored.

Mitch sighed. “Shit, I’m out in a damn corral having a conversation with a stupid horse.” And again for the fifth time today he wondered why he’d taken this job. He had his Marine pay to tide him over. A buddy of his had told him he could get a job on the oil rigs in a matter of hours. But here he was with a bitch of a horse, making crap wages and sweating his ass off in the afternoon heat.

The rumble of an old engine had him turning toward the cloud of dust kicked up by Greer’s old black truck. She’d said she’d go into town today for feed, and he was glad she’d returned. Beauty was cranky on a full stomach but when she thought she was going to miss a meal she was hell on wheels. Not that he blamed her. It was clear she’d not been fed too well the last year. She was pushy for her food because she was a survivor.

Buttercup’s tail twitched as she too spotted Greer’s truck. She was more laid back than Beauty, but she stuck close to her when she pushed for the next meal. Buttercup knew enough to know she’d get her fed.

The old nags had been at Bonneville merely days and already the animals knew Greer would somehow make their lives right.

And somehow he’d had the same sense when she’d walked into that bar and offered him this job. He’d been suspicious and wary of all other forms of help, but in Greer he’d sensed a survivor and a fighter. He’d seen it in her eyes when she’d sat across from him. And she hadn’t begged or pleaded with him. In fact, he had the sense she didn’t want to do him the favor. But she’d offered, and he’d realized she was his lifeline.

Greer’s truck came to a stop by the storage shed and she got out, cradling a small creature close to her belly. She was also talking real soft and slow. Beauty and Buttercup’s ears perked as Greer approached.

Mitch didn’t say a word as she approached, her ball cap covering her hair and her dark mirrored sunglasses tossing back his reflection. When she was several feet from him a small head popped up from under her arm and barked at him.

He shook his head. “If that’s a dog, it’s the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen.”

Greer covered the pup’s ears. “He’s smart, and he knows when you are making fun of him.”

He couldn’t help a smile. “He does?”

“I kidded with him about his mug on the ride home and that annoyed him.”

“Really?” He waited for the punch line.

Her expression remained serious. “Honest. He’s smart.”

The dog opened his eyes, well, eye, and yawned. He sniffed the air and glared up at Mitch as if he were some kind of squatter. “What’s his name?”

“Right now it’s Dog. That’s what they called him at the feed store.”

“That’s not a name. It’s a noun.” Shit, the animal deserved a name.

“I know. I’ve been trying out names all the way here but none fit. A cute name really doesn’t work with that face.”

“He was born without the eye?”

She stroked the dog between the ears. “From what I hear.”

“He’s lucky his mamma nursed him. Most will nudge out the offspring that ain’t right.” The boss had found herself another outcast.

“Guess if he wasn’t so smart he’d not have survived.”

He scratched his head. “You have an attraction for the broken. Me, the horses, this dog. What’s it with you?”

She scratched Dog between the ears. “Takes one to know one, I suppose. Someone helped me once. Now I’m paying it back or forward, I guess.”

“I read about you on the Internet.” When Tec had tossed a couple of warnings his way about Greer he’d done some digging. Tec was a man of few words and when he spoke, Mitch listened. “You’ve been through it.”

Her fingers stilled. “So have you. So have the horses and so has this little guy. None of us has a corner on pain and suffering.”

The counselors had tried to talk to him over the last month or two, but he’d never wanted to talk to them. They were good, well-intentioned people but their questions made him mad. Greer never asked questions. As long as he was working, she left him alone. If she saw him sitting, she found a task for him to do.

“So how did you do it?” he asked.

She tilted her head back and his reflection caught in her mirrored sunglasses. “Do what?”

Emotion threatened to break his voice and he paused until he had his voice under control. “Pull yourself up?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. I came out here to live with my aunt and she told me to put one foot in front of the other. But those first days, the idea of one or two steps exhausted me. But she kept giving me chores, forcing me to keep moving.”

“You do that to me.”

“I know.”

“So when did you turn the corner?”

“Honestly, Mitch, I think I’m still searching for that corner. I still don’t think beyond one step at a time.”

“But you plan ahead for the vineyard. I heard you talking about the harvest. You are going to build that winery. You are living.”

“I still believe I’m living for Jeff and Sydney. To squander my life would be an insult to them.” She drew in a breath. “And I’ve fallen for the vineyard. I didn’t expect to but I did. The grapes are like Beauty. They don’t care about my sob story. My emotions. All that matters is to keep working so that the vineyard doesn’t turn on me.”

The pain in his shoulder had been Beauty’s reminder for attention. He was silent for a moment watching as she scratched the pup between its ears. “So the pain never goes away?”

“Not totally. But it lessens a little bit every day. At first it feels like a boulder on your shoulders. And then one day it feels like a handful of rocks. And then pebbles. Always there, but it becomes manageable.”

She wasn’t feeding him rainbows and happy endings. Just honesty. “I’m not sure I want it to go away completely.”

“Me, either. I never want to forget the people I loved.”

A heavy silence settled and for a moment neither spoke. Then he studied Dog. “Shit, that’s an ugly dog.”

She covered the dog’s ears and nodded. “Shh.”

The one-eyed dog stared at him as if challenging his right to be here. “It wouldn’t have lasted a day in the shelter. People want cute and easy.”

“I know.”

“Folks were kind of like that with me when I came home from Iraq. Everyone wanted the war stories. They wanted the glory. But when I tried to tell them it was dirty and ugly and painful, folks just walked away.”

She was silent for a moment. “I have a knack for scaring people off, too. No one knows what to say to me. Hell, I don’t know what I want to say to me.”

Greer wasn’t afraid of scars. Maybe because she was brave or maybe she had so many of her own she didn’t notice them too much anymore.

But he did know she hadn’t walked away from him, those damn horses, or the ugliest dog in Texas. And that counted for something.

“I don’t know why you don’t kill her now. I’m so tired of waiting.”

Jackson hated her voice’s constant buzzing in his ear.

Kill her. Kill her. Buzz. Buzz.

With eyes still pressed to the binoculars’ eyecups, he watched as she handed a mangy dog to her new farmhand. “I just took care of one.”

“But she wasn’t her.”

“It’s not time for her.”

“How do you know it’s not time? My God, all you done is talk about Greer. Elizabeth. Greer. I get sick of hearing about her.”

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

It was getting harder and harder to ignore her. With an effort, he kept his focus on Greer.

He knew a lot about Greer Templeton.

And not simply the information anyone could read about on the Internet. He knew her current daily routine as if it were his own, and he also knew her hopes, fears, and dreams.