Early morning again. He’d spent the past month helping Milly with her horses. Even Gary and Ewan accepted that’s what he did now. They’d given up giving him shit about it. Milly took Karim’s reins from him and led both horses to the edge of the clearing beside the river. She draped the reins over a branch; the way she had the first time they were here. She came back to him.

“Let’s just talk. I’ve got something to tell you.”

Something to tell you usually meant bad news, and she’d been distracted for the last couple of days. Everything went on alert.

He’d been expecting this. He knew this thing with Milly had to be too good to last. “Are you giving me the flick?”

She shook her head.

A relief, because when they weren’t in the riding arena, he really liked her.

She sat down on the edge of the river bank.

“The grass is wet,” he said. Bloody damp with dew again. But it always was this early in the morning.

“You don’t usually mind,” she said.

He sat down beside her, their boots dangled over the side of the bank. The water meandered in the weeds below.

“What do you have to tell me?” Might as well hear the worst.

“Mother skyped last night.” That happens in some families. “She still wants me to stay with her this year.”

Milly hadn’t mentioned that since before Christmas. He looked at her, shocked. She was leaving?

She studied the river and trees on the other side.

“Mum suggested I bring Karim and Tobias. She says she and Joe could help me train them and I would get experience.”

“Did you say you’d go?” He’d just found her. After a few stops and starts they’d finally got things sorted.

Milly nodded.

“For how long?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. A year maybe.”

“Fuck,” he said slowly. He hadn’t expected that. He was the one who finished things. Not the girl. And he didn’t want things to finish with this girl anyway, even though she’d turned out to be bloody bossy.

“When do you leave?”

“Next week.”

“Next week?” No time.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” Milly added. “If I want to be a top rider, this is what I should do.”

“Yeah.” He turned enough to see her face.

She looked sad and anxious and excited all at the same time. But like she worried about how he would react.

He wasn’t going to spoil this for her.

He put his hand behind her head, pulled her closer and kissed her. A kiss tinged with sadness. He wanted her to stay. But if he had a chance to do something he loved, would he stay to be with her?

Probably not.

A sadness hung over them. They made love slowly and carefully.

When they got back to the house, Tom came out to meet them.

“Did Milly tell you her news,” he asked.

“Yeah.” Cole dismounted. Even though he’d decided to be happy for her and not spoil it, he could feel anger at her bubbling up. Ewan and Gary had been right. He was just something to play with until she was ready to get on with her life.

She’d already proved she could just walk away from things she didn’t have any use for anymore. She barely mentioned Wildfire now and she didn’t bother with Hunter much either. He exercised Hunter and groomed him and kept his stall clean. When he couldn’t do it, Fred did it. Never Milly. She’d said she wouldn’t take Hunter to England with her either. Even if he hadn’t got injured he would have been too old.

Now she was treating him like she treated that horse.

But he loved her.

How could she even think about going away for a year?

The week went by. The early start in the morning, the ride along the river bank to stretch and warm the horses up. The long rest in the clearing, and then back to the house for more training.

Only two days to go before Milly left, and she still had them doing dressage, and he was bloody sick of it. As usual, as soon as they were in the arena, she started ordering him about.

He still needed the job, and it was interesting most of the time even though Milly had turned out to be bloody bossy. Over the last few days when he couldn’t be bothered with her any more, he used Fred as an excuse to get away, but if she kept this up he’d tell her where she could stick her horse training.

“No, keep a steady, consistent rhythm. The horse shouldn't speed up or slow down during a dressage test.” He tried to do it. But Karim seemed to have a mind of his own this morning.

“How am I going to take him with me if he doesn’t know what to do, Cole?” she snapped. “Warm him up at all three gaits, then ride him at the trot. On the short sides, sit the trot or take your two-point position,” she ordered.

He tried to follow the instructions, but the bloody horse wasn’t obeying.

Milly sat on Tobias bellowing out orders, and criticising.

“No, on the long sides you pick up a posting trot. Bend him around your inside leg and turn his nose towards the centre of the circle. Ride half circles and progress into the serpentine.”

He tried to get the horse to bend around his inner leg on the circle, the way she wanted him to, but nothing he did was right.

“No, Cole, keep changing direction. You have to ride in equal amounts counter clockwise and clockwise, so you don't strain the horse's muscles on one side of the body.”

Orders, orders, orders! She really thought he was some sort of mechanical riding toy. He’d had enough of this.

He turned Karim to leave the arena and rode away from her. “I quit! I can’t do a bloody thing right this morning,” he said over his shoulder. She could bloody do it herself. He’d go and find Fred and see if he had any work for him.

“You can’t quit. I’ve only got two days.”

“Your problem, not mine. I’m going back to mucking out the stables. At least I get that right occasionally.”

He rode out of the arena and headed for the stables.

“Get back here,” she ordered.

“Fuck you.” He could do without Miss Gaisford if she could do without him.

Fred must have seen the argument. He walked a horse along the water bath. Backwards and forwards patiently. His old crinkled face didn’t look surprised when Cole came over to him.

“Lovers’ tiff?” Fred asked.

Cole nodded.

“Okay,” said Fred. “Keep him going up and down. I’ll keep an eye on Milly for you.”

For the rest of the day Fred found him jobs. Cole did them while the old trainer watched Milly work with the horses. She kept going until late afternoon.

At knocking off time, Cole sat in the ute and watched Milly. Now she’d taken Tobias out to the jumps.

He couldn’t leave her on her own, especially if she was jumping. That would be a sackable offence, even if she didn’t come off.

Everyone else had left. Fred was ready to go too. He was just doing the final checks around the stalls.

He watched for another few minutes.

She rode Tobias harder and harder now and started taking risks. He knew enough to be able to see that.

He got out of the ute. He’d go and tell her he was headed for home and that she had to stop riding for the day.

Milly cantered over. She’d finished the course before she bothered to take any notice of him. He’d been leaning on the fence trying to get her attention for a couple of minutes.

“I thought you’d quit,” she said.

“I have, and I’m going home now, so you have to stop.”

“Pffft.” She turned the horse around to start the course again. “You can go if you want to. I’m going to keep riding.”

Bitch.

“Get off, so I can go home.”

“I’m not stopping you.” She cantered away and did the loop that would set Tobias up for the next jump.

“Milly, get back here!” He would never know if that shout caused it, or the way Milly dug her heels in did. Or if Tobias had just had enough for the day. But instead of galloping at the jump and flying over it effortlessly, the way he should have, he got the approach wrong, and was on the wrong foot at the jump.

He refused.

And came to a dead stop.

Milly flew over his head.

She seemed to land hard and just lie there.

It looked like Tobias wheeled off to the side and didn’t stand on her, but she still didn’t move.

Cole ducked under the arena fence. He shouldn’t have upset her. She was leaving the day after tomorrow. He ran across the paddock. He should have just done what she said, and not made her angry enough to keep riding just to show him.

Now she was hurt.

He didn’t dare guess how badly hurt. It seemed to take an eternity to get to her and she still hadn’t moved.

He crouched down beside her.

“Milly?” He touched her face, but no response.

She lay on her stomach. Her eyes were closed. There was a mark on the side of her face where she must have hit the dirt.

“Milly, talk to me.” Still no response.

She had one arm out to the side. That looked all right. The other tucked under her and he couldn’t see it. He didn’t want to try and turn her over until he knew he wouldn’t do any damage.

“Come on, Milly. Wake up. Move.” He could hear the desperation in his voice.

Her legs looked all right, stretched out behind her, one straight, one bent at the knee, but no strange angles, and she was breathing. He could hear the little panting breaths.

“Milly, come on.” He touched her face again, undid the strap of the helmet and took it off.