it up before he left. That was one thing always ground into the circus kids: keep your living area tidy. When it’s small, and on wheels, you had to be as tidy and deferential to everyone else as you could be. And you had to be okay with making things work, even if that meant taking a shower with the garden hose behind the RV because you were on a schedule and all the other showers were occupied. You learned to make the best of things. He could control the physical mess he left behind, and the only speculation he could offer to the emotional devastation he knew he’d leave in his wake? He could only hope that they could make the best of it.
It was their nature. It was her nature.
Three years age difference between them, but circus kids grew up fast. Especially Jolie. When they’d gotten her back, she’d never really been a normal little kid. Always looking over her shoulder. Always afraid something would go wrong. Children learned behavior, like worrying, and she’d learned it then and learned it well.
He’d spent the last ten years trying not to think about what she’d learned by him leaving.
He still didn’t want to think about that, even with it staring him in the face.
His worry for Jolie could cripple him. It certainly would’ve had him running back home to her that first week away at school if he’d so much as let his mother mention her name. It had been his only survival tactic. The only way for him to stay in school had been to quit Jolie cold turkey.
She might be the same size, but she’d changed in other discouraging ways. He’d probably played a part in that. Thirty minutes in her presence had dredged up more questions than just how she was going to handle him closing down the circus.
The show music had stopped a while ago, so Mom was either at her RV or the mess tent. She always liked to eat with everyone. Keightly Circus really did band together as a family, which was the hardest part of shutting it down. They ate together. Off-seasoned together. Raised their children together. The elderly performers even tended to retire to the same places...
He flipped the lock on the doorknob and stepped out, giving it a good pull. Locked up. As requested. Now to find Mom and get more information.
* * *
An hour later, having received the lecture from his mother that Reece had been dodging for a decade, he walked into the stables with two plates and bottles of water.
He found Jolie alone with Gordy, who was now utterly unconscious. A simple cot had been slid into the remaining space in Gordy’s stall and Jolie sat on it, her back to the wall and her legs dangling, eyes fixed on the small white stallion. Though by her glazed look, she wasn’t really looking at Gordy.
Reece knew only too well that you could stare right into your past if left to your own thoughts long enough. Usually at the memories you least needed to focus on. The ones you’d probably be better off forgetting entirely.
Since he’d stepped foot onto the lot, when he’d had any time alone with his thoughts, he got images of his father’s blood, muddying the sawdust and sand in the ring...
‘What are you doing? You look sick. Is the food really that bad?’ Jolie’s voice cut through his haze. Thinking too hard was contagious too...
‘It’s fine. I’m fine. Brought dinner. Thought you might be hungry and I’d like to know what the vet said.’ He nodded toward the cot—it was big enough for both of them to sit on without touching each other, provided it stood the weight. ‘You mind?’
A suspicious squint answered him, but that was better than the panic earlier. Her green eyes still had that glassy look, like emotion wasn’t too far beneath the surface. She was the first to look away, but she held up her good hand for the plate, freeing one of his so he could fish the water bottles from his pockets before he sat. ‘So?’
‘He said front-leg breaks are worse than back, which aside from his circulation issues... I don’t really understand.’ She rested the plate on her thigh, freeing her hands to shuffle the water bottle off to the other side. It must still be hurting. ‘Not sure if he means that they happen more frequently or if they are harder to splint, harder to heal, harder on the horse, or if it’s Gordy-specific...’ She gestured to the new harness on Gordy with the toe of her boot. ‘But that sling is more comfy and it’s not bound by notches. They got it perfectly seated. Mack said it’s possible he twisted something inside when he fell, so it was good that we got him on his feet so fast. They couldn’t feel anything when palpating his belly, but he was out of it by then and couldn’t have told them it hurt even if the pain was blistering.’
‘Prognosis?’ He looked at the food, not able to bring himself to take a bite yet. She hadn’t either, even if she was using her feet to gesture so her hands could keep hold of her dinner. Well, hand. She wasn’t using the injured arm for anything but keeping her water tucked against her thigh.
‘Oh...’ She breathed the word, her tone confirming the worst, and that she wouldn’t agree with it until forced to. ‘He said it’s rough... We would try...’
But.
She didn’t actually say it but he still heard it.
He put his bottle down, fished the pills from his pocket and placed them beside her leg. ‘Anti-inflammatories,’ he murmured, leaving her to take them or not, and went back to the conversation about Gordy. ‘So what’s the next step?’
‘Sit with him. Keep him comfortable. Watch for signs of colic.’ She took the pills. ‘And I have both pain medicine and tranquilizers to inject if he gets worse.’
‘You did really well with the tranquilizer earlier. Hit the vein the first time. Did you take courses on animal care too?’
‘No, I learned to care for people, but I’ve given injections and done blood draws on the horses before. And I read. A lot.’
He remembered that. She read anything zoological in nature, didn’t matter if it dealt with the horses and dogs that were in the show or wild animals, which had not been in the show since her twice great-grandfather had been mauled by a lion during an act. The circus was always dangerous, but it had got a little less dangerous when they’d got back to their roots and away from the exotic-animal fad popular from the Victorian era.
‘Thank you for dinner.’
He kept his eyes on the food, but not looking at her didn’t keep memories at bay. He made himself eat. It would be a long night, as he had every intention of spending it here at her side. ‘You’re welcome.’ He looked at her again. Dammit.
The wild auburn curls had been worked into some kind of fancy braid so he could see her clearly even in the dim light of the stable. Still the prettiest girl he’d ever seen in the flesh. Even prettier than when he’d left. She might have cried again since she’d left her trailer—her wide-set green eyes looked bigger, glassy, and heartbroken. There was a little crease between her brows that said she frowned more than she should, and even now, with her expression mostly blank, the shadow of that unhappy crease remained.
‘I know it’s not the right time for this, but I wanted to apologize,’ Reece said, feeling his way through the words as he went.
‘For leaving us?’
NO. HE COULDN’T apologize for that. ‘For...’ He looked at her again and drew a deep breath. ‘I mean about the circus. About what I’m here to do. I know it’s not what you want, but I want to help you get settled wherever you want to go after Keightly.’
‘I don’t want to go anywhere else,’ she said.
None of them did. He was the bad guy in this, but for the right reasons. One day she’d see that. ‘I know you don’t.’
She put the untouched plate aside and turned on the cot to face him. ‘Listen. I didn’t expect to see you tonight. Actually, I didn’t think I’d see you at all until Ginny and Mack’s