Page 124 of All We Carry Home

“It does matter,” I said. “After all we’ve been through these past few months, I think I deserve to know.” I didn’t want to imply that she owed me anything. She didn’t. I hoped we’d built some level of trust. Of friendship. Even if it couldn’t go beyond that.

Her expression contorted, and I regretted my words—again. I just wanted to understand. I thought I’d at least get to keep a line to Birkstrom despite her reservations.

What was more, Birkstrom was the best place for Phantom, whose progress was still fragile. Eva might not admit it, but I saw the wildness in his eyes from time to time. What if everything came undone when the wrong person pushed Phantom too far?

“I can’t.” Her voice cut off. “I just know that it’s the best thing for you, your campaign, your career in the Senate.”

“What does that mean? Why does that even matter?”

She got the same terrified look on her face as she’d had the other morning. The journalist’s question popped into my head, then Reid’s comment about Eva and the information I should know. Her cryptic comments about the tragic childhood she’d left buried.

What was it about her life before Bill adopted her that could impact me, right now, in a Senate race? Phantom and his well-being were the only arguments she might entertain.

“I don’t trust anyone else with our horse,” I said.

She pressed her lips together and looked up with a small smile. “Our horse?”

“Well.” I lowered my voice, trying to salvage this conversation and get her to reconsider. “We did bring him into this world together.”

Her chin trembled slightly. “We did.”

“Please, let’s talk about this after nationals,” I said. Perhaps the distance and time would help my case.

But her gaze revealed no yielding from her steadfast conviction.

From behind the airport building, the sound of engines starting echoed.

A stewardess opened the door and called to me, “Sir, are you traveling to Portland? Your flight is leaving in five minutes!”

My pulse raced. This conversation wasn’t over, but if I missed the flight, Kenneth would kill me.

As if she saw the conflict in my face, she stepped up, kissed my cheek, and whispered, “Goodbye, Warren.”

The nearness of her, the lavender and hay scent of her, hovered around me and blinded me to anything other than her. The warmth of her lips against my cheek, and then—gone.

She strode away without looking back. My mind raced. Everything I’d planned on, uprooted in just a few words.

I might be out of time right now, but in another three weeks, I’d plead my case when I saw her in California for the national competition. I couldn’t accept defeat. I couldn’t just be another client on the wall of ribbons, another soldier she’d served with on the front lines.

Not when she was so much more to me.

Thirty-Three

Eva

AUGUST 15

The weeks after Warren’s departure were the hottest we’d seen in the high desert in decades. It drained the animals and staff and slowed the final progress on the last cabin.

I carried on as I always had, grateful that the heat and utter exhaustion drove me into a deep sleep each night. The nightmares still raged, but I was too physically exhausted to fight them. If I worked hard enough, crashed hard enough, I sometimes didn’t see Warren’s face in the flashes of dreams that haunted me.

Eddie, Lucky, and I drove into Baker a few days before we needed to leave for California to buy the final supplies for the trip and enough feed for all the animals we’d leave in the care of Bennett and Junior.

I’d been asking the soldiers still left in Warren’s employ to find other jobs locally. They could live in the cabins rent-free in recognition of all they’d done for me and the farm, but I couldn’t be indebted to Warren Hayes beyond the show in Pomona.

They all refused. I brought it up again to Lucky on the drive.

“All due respect, Eva,” Lucky said as we turned into the feed store parking lot at the end of Main. “I’ll take my orders from the captain. And my orders are to stay put.”