Free All the King's Horses by Lauren Gallagher

man on a horse that made me weak in the knees. Especially a horse that was moving at a beautifully slow jog, one that made the rider’s hips tilt to one side, pause, the other, pause.
    Good God. Drool.
    I made myself look elsewhere and went back to my list of tasks. As the morning turned into afternoon, I turned horses out and brought them in. Fed them, cleaned their stalls, fed them again.
    Interacting with the horses was beyond weird. And alarming. If Dustin was keeping me at arm’s length, I was keeping the horses ten times as far from myself. So I wasn’t just burned out on the horses I’d worked with at my own facility. I couldn’t connect with any of them. No matter what they did—whether it was infuriating bad manners or an adorable display of playfulness—I felt absolutely nothing, and every time I knew I should have felt something but didn’t, my heart sank a little deeper in my chest. What if my attachment to horses was gone forever?
    No. It wasn’t. It was still there. It had to be, and I was desperate to bring it back. Somehow, I would, and that was all there was to it. That was part of why I was here. That, and trying to cope with Sam’s death, and I wasn’t sure which of those two things seemed less promising right now.
     
     
    In between my various tasks on the farm, I took advantage of every chance I had to interact with every horse I could. Even if I was just turning them out or bringing them back in, I petted them. Talked to them. Gave them the odd treat just to see their expressions. When a yearling grabbed his own lead rope and tried to play tug-of-war, I tugged back. When I took a mare and weanling toward the gate leading from their pasture, I’d let the mare jog because then her baby would get excited, trot ahead, and then buck a few times while he waited for us to catch up.
    And still I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. More than once, I wondered if I’d have better luck waking up Sam so we could talk our issues through.
    I buried my frustration and kept working. Horses in, horses out. Fed, stalls cleaned, fed again. Fences fixed, boards replaced. Horses in, horses out. As mechanical as my last job had become, and I wasn’t getting any less detached.
    Halfway between the morning and evening feedings, I brought a pair of two-year-olds in from their pasture and put them into their respective stalls.
    Dustin had Star, the filly he’d brought in the day we met, out on the cross-ties. He attached a pair of long, coiled lines to either side of her snaffle bit, and then put them through the brass rings on the weathered old surcingle cinched snugly around her middle. Star chomped her bit nervously and fidgeted, but all the while, Dustin spoke softly to her and stroked or patted her whenever his hands were free.
    That horse had been mistreated. Even if I hadn’t known about Star’s history, there were no two ways about it. Everything scared her, from a shadow on the ground to Dustin coiling the lead rope’s slack in his hands. It didn’t just startle her like it would a flighty baby or a hyper, nervous horse; the slightest stimulus made her jerk away from Dustin and try to get away, and even when she stopped, she was a shaking mess. Eye whites showing, nostrils flaring, legs shaking.
    I watched from the barn as Dustin led Star out to the outside arena. When the gate opened, it squeaked on its hinges, and Star came unglued: she balked, jerking back on the lead. She hit the end of the lead rope and freaked out even more, and when she threw her head, she just about knocked him off his feet. As his hat landed in the dirt at their feet, I cringed on her behalf, expecting her to get a face full of closed fist for her trouble.
    But Dustin didn’t smack her. He tugged hard enough on the lead to get Star’s attention, and she stopped. Immediately, she pulled her head away and cowered, her legs still shaking and her eye whites visible from here.
    Dustin spoke softly to her, offering his hand palm up.