Free HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado by Lisa T. Bergren Page B

stable doorway. They were already bored, seeking to leave the close confines of the small stalls they shared with their mothers, but Odessa knew it would be some time before Bryce risked their tender lungs. As it was, he only allowed the hands to take them out once a day, to the farthest corral, for exercise.
    She looked about, wondering at her nervousness at the thought of encountering her husband. Odessa didn’t know what to make of this new mood in him. And she alternated between frustration and fear. Was this to be their relationship from here on out? Why could they not draw together to fight this new battle? Why did it seem to divide them when they needed each other most?
    Odessa smiled as she spied the first foal, a lovely chestnut colored imp that tossed his head when he saw her, as if in greeting. She lifted Samuel up to get a better look, and the baby gurgled and kicked excited fat legs in pleasure. She moved on to the next stall, glimpsing Bryce approaching them, but ignored him. She felt too angry, too hurt to speak to him. He’d left without waiting for her to retrieve Samuel, left without even trying to find resolution. The ranch hands all appeared to be elsewhere this morning; at least none were inside at the moment.
    “Odessa,” he said, from over her left shoulder.
    “Bryce,” she said, not turning.
    She stiffened as he wrapped his strong arms around her waist and leaned his head in to kiss her shoulder and then her neck. They stood there for a minute in silence. To Odessa, it felt strange, almost as if she were getting to know her husband again. “I need to tell you what is on my mind,” he said.
    “I’ve been waiting for that …” She turned to him and he took Samuel from her, bouncing him in his arms for a moment. “Is this about why you seem so … distant?”
    “Most likely,” he said grimly. He lifted his free hand up to pinch his forehead, as if massaging away pain there again. Together, they walked to an open window, one that gave them a view of an empty corral and beyond it, the wide fields and towering mountains that bordered their ranch. “I was already worried, before the strangles. We were late in breeding.”
    She nodded. She knew there was always pressure to breed sooner rather than later. The earlier a future racehorse was born in the spring, the better chance he had in his age group. The better he performed, the better his breeder did in future sales. While none of the ranch’s horses had gone to racehorse buyers recently, in years past up to a third had. And that third was so valuable; it doubled their annual income. This year the yearlings, having been born late, would not be as highly sought after, and they’d lost half of them in the storm. Another two were now quarantined for strangles. And they were already a month behind in breeding for the next year’s sales due to the blizzard.
    She wrapped her hand around his waist. “We are not God, Bryce. Only the Lord controls the weather. The light. The mares will not begin their cycle until there is enough light.”
    He swallowed hard and stared out. “Last fall Robert suggested I build the snowbreaks, and also three new barns and stable units, dividing the men to care for subgroups of the horses through the winter. He asked me to do it, outright. He’d read about breeding operations that bring their breeding dams in early, and light many lanterns throughout, day and night, so the horse thinks it’s later in the spring than it really is.”
    “You thought it foolish,” she said quietly.
    “I thought it meddlesome. I told him to mind his own business, to pay attention to his ships rather than my horses. I thought, Why do mechanically what God does naturally? We’ve done well in the last decade on this ranch. The expense of those new barns and stables, let alone the increased number of hands we would’ve had to hire, feeding them—and you with a new baby—I thought it ludicrous. Greedy. And the new land … we’d