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Chapter 18

Sera

For the past few nights, I’ve had little sleep and too much business to deal with during the day. Staying focused on work is the only plan I have for keeping Fionn out of my head.

Now I’m in Fury’s stable with a shovel in my hands and the wheelbarrow backed up to the door.

His rug is gone, and his feed bucket is washed and stacked outside the tack room, but his leather headcollar still hangs from the hook outside his stall.

I drive the shovel into the damp bedding and lift another heavy clump into the barrow.

Footsteps shuffle along the aisle, but I keep working.

“If you’re gonna tell me there’s another horse going in here, I’ll hit ya in the face with my shovel.”

A second later, Ma steps into the stall wearing an old coat over her house clothes, her hair pinned back from her face, her boots already muddy.

Without looking at me, she drives her own shovel into the corner where the shavings are packed tight.

“You didn’t have to do this alone,” she says.

“I’m fine.”

“You always say you are, but Fury heard the truth.”

I shove another load into the wheelbarrow. “Yeah, well, he was good at keepin’ secrets.”

“You got any secrets ya wanna talk about?”

“Have you?” I counter. “The older I get, the less I understand about your hatred for the Harringtons.”

“What do ya want me to say?” She keeps her eyes low. “They stole our land days after I buried your da. That family thinks they’re above everyone.”

We work in silence after that. Shovels scrape. Horses snuffle in the neighboring stalls. The wheelbarrow fills with the last of Fury’s bed, and every inch we clear removes years of comfort.

I fucking hate it.

“He was a good horse,” Ma says after a while.

My grip tightens around the handle. “Yeah.”

“He was a bolshy wee bastard when your da first brought him home.”

She keeps working, eyes on the bedding. “Gray as smoke, mane all over the place, belly on him like he’d robbed a bakery. Your da led him off the trailer with you standing there in Rafe’s old rain boots, shaking with excitement.”

“His boots were like buckets on me.”

“You wore them to bed the first night in case Fury needed ya.”

Memories flood back—Da laughing when I told him I’d carry a full water bucket into the stable and ended up soaking myself instead. Fury tossing his head because he wouldn’t let me near him with a headcollar. Me sleeping in his stable for weeks after Da’s funeral because the house felt too empty without him.

I shake it off. “He sure was wild.”

“Aye,” Ma agrees. “And your da was never any good at telling his little girl no.”

The ache behind my ribs pulls tight.

Ma drops another shovelful into the barrow. “He said you had Tallon hands. Said ya were smart and just as reckless as your brothers.”