“He’s got spirit.”
“You sound like you admire that.”
“I do.” Her eyes creased around the edges as her hands tightened on the fence rail. “I know a lot, but I feel like I’m floundering at times.”
“I don’t know anyone who has more of a way with horses.”
“Ramsey Bishop.”
My eyes flared. “He may have a way with horses, but he’s paid for it with his way with people.” Rumors swirled far and wide about the reclusive horse whisperer. He rarely let anyone onto his property and was known to brawl at the slightest provocation.
Shy shrugged. “Horse
s are better than people anyway.”
I studied my sister. Ever since the kidnapping, she’d preferred the company of animals to people, taking refuge in the barn or the fields on our property. I didn’t think it was the trauma of the kidnapping itself, but how people treated her afterwards—the stares and whispers, the rude questions.
Shiloh’s hands clenched and flexed around the rail. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to figure out if I’m broken.”
“I’m not—”
My sister cut me off with a glare. “You are.”
“Sorry.”
“What do you want, Beckett?”
I swallowed against the burn in my throat. What did I want? Shy had a way of cutting through the bullshit and getting to the heart of things. “To atone.”
She blinked a few times. “For what?”
“I pawned you off on Hayes that day. If I hadn’t—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Are you serious right now?”
I blinked a few times. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Shiloh yell, not that I could remember. “I need to say it.”
“You don’t,” she growled.
“Please.”
Her jaw worked back and forth, but she stayed silent.
“I should’ve stayed with you. Kept an eye on you.”
“Then he would’ve taken me some other time.” Her hands kept making that clenching motion by her sides.
“I know it’s not my fault that he took you.”
“Good, then you can shut up about it.” Shy’s fingers made a tapping motion against her leg, almost as if she were counting something off.
“It was my fault that I left after.”
Her fingers stilled, and she looked up at me.