Free Forty Candles by Virginia Nelson Page B

splash.
    The pond remained, looking just as it had yesterday and the day before, nature apparently not changed because her father left. Maybe it didn’t change her, either. Maybe none of it mattered. She sucked in a breath and it turned to a hiccup.
    “Did I ever tell you the story about the ghost that haunts this pond?”
    Jack’s question had so little to do with her worries, she snapped her head up to look at him as he joined her, feet rocking above the water.
    She didn’t answer him, but he didn’t seem bothered, continuing speaking as if she’d responded. “According to town legend, a long time ago, during one of the wars, I think—not that I remember which one. History isn’t my strong suit. Anyway, this soldier ran away from the battle. They call that deserting, when you walk away from the fight. He came back here to find his love, a girl probably not a lot older than us. They were dating, or whatever they called it back in the day. Before he went to war, he got her pregnant, but he enlisted and they didn’t get married. He didn’t know it but she’d killed herself because she couldn’t live with the baby and not be married. It was a bigger deal, I guess, back then. So, he came home and found out she’d died and since we’re a small town, people were talking about why. You know how rumors go. He came here, to the pond, where she died and jumped in even though he couldn’t swim—”
    “Wait.” She put out a hand and touched his arm. His gaze, suddenly mysterious, dropped to her hand and she snapped it back quickly, heat flooding her face. “If he was older than us, how come he couldn’t swim?”
    Jack’s grin was fast and a little crooked. “I’m telling you a ghost story and the part you find unbelievable is that he didn’t know how to swim?”
    She shrugged, returning to looking out at the water. Her hiccups seemed to be slowing down. She could almost breathe normal again.
    “Anyway, so he killed himself in the pond. I guess she died here, too, but I’m not sure how. But it’s him who haunts the pond, walking night after night in a circle around the water. They say he marches, ever waiting for his ladylove who he left behind but didn’t forget.”
    “That story is stupid, Jack. And if he’s been here since one of the wars, hasn’t he figured out that she’s not? And why isn’t she, if she died here, too?”
    “I don’t have all the answers, Chloe. I just know that, sometimes, a man will wait forever for his love.”
    Even as a kid, she knew those words meant something to Jack. Then again, Jack didn’t understand that sometimes love ended. That sometimes it didn’t matter.
    And she realized, right then and there, that if her parents couldn’t love her enough to stay, to be with her…
    Chances were good no one else ever could either.

Chapter Eight
    Jack wiped sweat off his brow with the back of his wrist before pushing the shovel into the horse shit and hefting a hay-filled lump of it into the wheelbarrow. The guy who was interested in buying one of his Arabians planned on being here in about an hour. He hated to let horses go, hated the goodbye, but it was all part of the cycle. Animals were born. They lived out their days. Some lived, some died, some were sold, and some were unforgettable.
    This particular mare had a rough go of it, foaling in the dead of winter, struggling through more challenges than she should have faced and keeping her sweet nature through it all. Jim, the guy interested in buying her, had a couple of other horses and teenage girls.
    Sally, the mare, would like the girls. Seemed most girls went through a horse phase, and Jim’s kids all rode competitive trail, meaning they understood the animals and would lavish Sally in love and probably braid her mane…
    Stuff Jack didn’t really have time for, not with work and the other horses to tend to and train. Breathing hard, he leaned on the shovel, considering the now empty stall. He needed to grab a bale of