Nate’s focus turned to the horse she was riding. “Young?”
“Yep, just started under saddle a few weeks ago, so she’s doing pretty well,” she told him. “I’ve had her since she was a baby, and now it’s time to see if she’s too much of a handful for me or not.”
Nate pushed his foot into the stirrup on her side. She imagined he did the same on the other side or tried to from the grimace on his face, but he didn’t say anything. Pushing his heel down would no doubt be painful, but until he was ready to talk, she wasn’t going to ask. Anything. He’d tell her what had happened to his leg when he was good and ready.
“Tell me what you’ve been up to?” Nate was obviously trying to make an effort.
Sarah didn’t want to talk about herself, had liked the neutral territory of horses. “Oh, you know, nothing out of the ordinary.”
Nate looked sideways but his focus was clearly on the horse now.
“Have you ridden since you left?”
“Nope.” Nate stroked one hand down the animal’s neck. “I guess it’s one of those things that you never forget how to do, though, right?”
“So I hear you’re—”
“What do you—”
They both laughed. “Sorry,” Sarah said with a laugh as they spoke at the same time. “You go first.”
Nate looked like he was about to object, to tell her to go first, when his face visibly softened. Almost looked pained before he spoke.
“I hear you’re no longer with Todd.”
Sarah focused on the inhale and exhale of air as it whooshed through her lungs. She hadn’t expected him to know. “You found that out between us talking earlier and now?” She had no idea who would have told him. “And here I was thinking you’d been sitting under that tree minding your own business all morning.”
Nate’s body visibly stiffened and he looked off into the distance. “It’s none of my business, Sarah, you’re right. I just wanted to tell you I was sorry.”
Sorry that her marriage was over or sorry that he’d walked off and left her to marry Todd in the first place?
“It’s fine,” she lied, fixing a sunny smile on her face, not wanting to be drawn back into the past. “Todd and I weren’t meant to be, that’s all.” She omitted the part about him running off with another woman who was already carrying his baby, about how he’d ripped her heart out with his lies and left her without a backward glance as if their marriage had meant nothing.
“So nothing else happening around here I should know about?” Nate asked her, clearly trying to change the subject.
“Other than the Fall Festival?” she mused. “Well, there’s a few new people in town, but other than that, we’re just the same as usual here in Larkville, I guess.”
They rode side by side, far enough apart that there was no danger of them bumping knees, but close enough that it made talking easy. She noticed his foot was dangling from the stirrups now and she wondered if he’d done the same on the other side.
“Who knows about my twin siblings?”
Sarah bit down on the inside of her mouth, needing a moment to consider her reply. Jess, Nate’s sister, had told her about the secret Calhoun children and what had happened, but she hadn’t expected Nate to bring it up out of the blue.
“You haven’t long found out, have you?” she asked him gently.
Nate glanced her way, made brief eye contact before fixing his stare forward again. “I wasn’t contactable for a while, so I won’t lie and say the news didn’t come as a shock when they finally tracked me down and told me.”
Sarah swallowed, uncomfortable. “Not everyone knows, but I’ve seen a lot of your family lately, and Ellie and I have become great friends. She’s wonderful, Nate. I think if you gave her a chance you’d really enjoy her company. Maybe not as your sister straightaway, but as a nice friend at least.”
He laughed. A cruel laugh that she didn’t recognize. “Right now I can’t even spend time with the siblings I grew up with, so what makes you think I’d do any better with a stranger?”
“Don’t talk like that, Nate. Just don’t.” Tears flooded Sarah’s eyes but she refused to let them spill over. She’d promised herself years ago that she’d never shed a tear over Nate Calhoun ever again, and just because the circumstances were different didn’t change anything.
“I think we should head back,” he announced, turning his horse in the direction they’d come in.
Sarah halted her horse and paused a moment before following him, whistled to her dog to call him over. This wasn’t the Nate she’d known, and it sure as hell wasn’t a Nate she could ever have imagined returning home. Sarah tried to quell the anger rising within her, anger toward Nate that she’d long held in check.
If she wasn’t on a newly broken horse she would have cantered off with her head held high and left him, but with the way her mount was starting to dance on the spot beneath her, she wasn’t going to push her luck. Not on her first ride.
Sarah trotted after Nate’s retreating figure and contemplated pushing him clean out of the saddle. A smile played across her lips. Returned wounded soldier or not, a slap across the cheek and a shove off his horse was probably exactly what Nate needed. Not that she’d ever be that game.
“Nate, wait up!” she called.
He didn’t stop, but she could see the slight turn of his head telling her he’d heard her.
“This is stupid,” she told him.
“What is?” he asked, a scowl crossing his face. A face that even with a more weathered appearance, with soft crinkles alongside his eyes and faint dark marks beneath his bottom lashes, was still ridiculously handsome.
“You behaving like this, us acting like nothing has happened one minute, then you clamming up the next.”
She could see the tautness in his jaw, that he was probably grinding down on his teeth, a hollowness in his eyes that she wished wasn’t there. “I’m not the man I used to be, Sarah. That’s the truth of it, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.”
Sarah shook her head, sadness flooding her again. “I don’t believe you, Nate,” she told him. “I know you’ve seen awful things, that you’re struggling with something right now and that you’ve been injured, but I believe the old Nate is still in there. Somewhere.” She sighed, forcing herself to continue. “I don’t know what happened to you over there, Nate, but don’t give up on yourself yet. Okay?”
Nate didn’t respond and she was too choked up to say anything else. So they rode in silence. Him on his borrowed mount, her trying to keep up, and her dog running along beside them without a care in the world.
Nate knew he’d been rude to Sarah, and she didn’t deserve it. But he was all out of apologies, of trying to figure out the right thing to say. When all he wanted was to be left the hell alone.
He cleared his throat, knowing he needed to say something before he lost his chance and she walked from the barn and out of his life again for good. He’d already pushed her away once, and he didn’t need another black mark on his conscience.
“Sarah,” he started, running a hand through his longer than usual hair.
She stopped and turned to him, her face tilted up to look him in the eye. Next to him she seemed tiny, fragile. In reality she was tall and willowy, but in flat boots she seemed much shorter than he remembered.
“I, well, I’m not myself right now, Sarah. I didn’t mean to snap at you before, but I can’t deal with any