Morgan

I was in the barn a week later.

I wanted to check on the horses because they weren’t getting brushed down or washed at the end of their long days. The staff wasn’t taking appropriate care of them, so I got into the habit of sneaking in at night and doing it myself.

Four days ago, Brody woke alone and came looking for me, and since then, he had helped me when they weren’t shooting late into the night. So as I was finishing putting Butter into her stall, I didn’t react when I heard the barn door rolling open.

The thought that it was Brody settled me, but then I froze.

An alarm went off.

He was working tonight and said he wouldn’t be back till four in the morning. Plus, he never used the big door. He jumped the fence and came in through the back.

“The horse handler thanked me for brushing down the horses, or having someone do it. I didn’t know what she was talking about, and then it hit me yesterday.”

My frozen state didn’t thaw.

Matthew had been gone on a business trip, and while I knew Finn told him what happened, he hadn’t been back since.

Seeing him a few feet away—he was back now.

His arm rested on the barn door like he would block me if I tried to run out that way.

Seeing I didn’t bolt, he nodded to himself, his hand dropping from the doorway and sliding into his pocket. He was dressed like he’d come straight from a meeting, but his collar was pulled out and the top few buttons of his shirt were undone. His hair wasn’t slicked back like it normally was. It was messy.

He looked tired. There were bags under his eyes.

“You’re almost becoming normal again, a regular tenant of the Kellerman estate.”

Was that true?

Since the night Brody destroyed his hard drive, I hadn’t been able to pull myself from his arms. I slept in his bed every night, left to go see the herd when he was working, and timed it so I was always back around the same time he was.

It gave me a thrill every time I walked in to find him already waiting for me, knowing I’d be in his arms within moments. He always showered before coming to bed, and I showered with him those times. I no longer smelled like one of the herd, and the stallion hadn’t liked it. He had taken to rearing back when I approached, but Shiloh never left my side. Shoal didn’t either. After a while, he accepted my new scent, but I knew he was unsettled by it.

“What do you want, Matthew?”

His head lifted, resignation weighing on his shoulders. He swallowed once and then murmured, “I’m told you destroyed my computer.”

I lifted my head. “Not your computer. Your hard drive.”

“And what gave you the impression you could touch my computer, much less destroy it?” His eyes were narrowed to slits. His anger just underneath his surface.

It struck me then how much we had both changed.

A month ago, Matthew would’ve just been happy to be talking to me. That was gone.

“You violated my privacy, and the evidence was on that computer. You’re goddamn right I destroyed it.” I narrowed my eyes to slits. “I’d do it again too.”

His head bobbed back a centimeter. I had surprised him.

“You saw?”

Sensing my unease, Butter popped her head back over the stall door and began nuzzling my cheek. She was not only trying to soothe me but also seeing if I had an extra treat for her. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small apple. I palmed it as she leaned forward, nibbling gently.

“I know what was on that hard drive. I saw where you paused it.” I was lying, but I didn’t care. I wished I had been the one to destroy it. I would’ve had the entire herd run over it.

He jerked back, his eyes rounding.

“You are here because I allow you to be here. You continue to be here because I allow it.”

I turned back to Butter, sliding my hand up her neck, my fingers running through her mane. “I won’t be spied on. By you or anyone else.” I faced him again in time to see him flinch.

“We were so happy to have you and Karen in our lives,” he said in an almost hoarse voice. As if that could excuse what he’d done.

I turned back to Butter, but he kept talking. “We lost our own mom, and our dad.” He exhaled sharply. “You know how he is.”

I heard the snap of the straw under his feet as he took a step closer. Only one.

I jerked, but I was remembering.

Peter Kellerman scared me. He always had.

“She softened him, somehow. And for a moment, I thought we could have a family. We all did. Us. Karen. And you. You were our littlest sister, and we all adored you.”

He was right. She made Peter Kellerman happy, but she made all of us happy.

Then she was gone, and I was back there that day.

I heard the pounding on the door.

I was running for the door until that sound, and then she screamed my name.

And like then, ice ran through my veins.

It was taking me away, pulling me back to memories I didn’t want to remember.

His voice drifted to me again, softer. “I can’t imagine what you must feel—”

He kept talking, but a buzzing sound drowned him out. It was growing louder and louder.

“Morgan,” she whispered, kneeling before me.

I saw the terror in her eyes, and that pounding kept going.

I gasped, silently, but Matthew didn’t notice. I slammed back to the present day, but feeling faint, I grabbed on to Butter’s stall. I was going to fall. Pressure pushed down on my chest. I felt my lungs shrinking in size, and I gasped silently, struggling to draw air in.

I couldn’t.

I was choking.

I was going to die.

I could hear his voice, a blast of bass sounding from the distance, but it was as if there were thick walls separating us and his words couldn’t penetrate them.

Then, while I clutched on to Butter’s stall, the pressure started to dissipate. I felt my lungs growing back to their normal size, and suddenly, I could breathe like normal again. My mouth opened wide, and I gasped in large mouthfuls of oxygen.

I grew light-headed and dizzy from the abrupt change.

My arm was shaking hard enough that Butter looked to see what was rattling her door. She began sniffing at my hand. My other had fallen, dropping the last little bit of apple onto the ground. She was searching for more.

I couldn’t move. My arm was too unsteady. I would fall completely.

“—that had always been my hope growing up, and you’ve grown into a beautiful woman. You’re smart. You’re strong. I know how much strength you have—”

My head felt as if it weighed five tons as I lifted it enough to look at my stepbrother.

He’d been watching me, talking, giving me his pitch, and he hadn’t noticed a thing.

Relief knocked my knees together, almost sweeping me down from the movement. I called for Shiloh. I had to. I let out a high-pitched whistle.

Then another.

“—can do so many things. You don’t have to waste your heart on this man. He’ll break your heart. I know this. I know guys like him. You might not believe me now, but I want the best for you.”

What?

I opened my eyes wider, trying to see Matthew more clearly, but my vision was swimming. He was going in and out of focus. He just kept talking. He just kept saying things, not seeing that I was struggling.

Was that a good thing?

When we were kids, he was always the one to protect me. He would have seen that I was struggling, that I couldn’t breathe, and he would have helped me.

He wasn’t that Matthew anymore. He changed over the years. I sensed the shift the night he had me sign the papers to approve this movie. He was desperate, hungry, and motivated. And angry . . . so, so angry.

It was there when they began the movie too.

Except his desperation switched. He had gotten what he wanted. He wanted the movie. He was going to use it for something, I didn’t know what. Fame? Power? Money? I had no idea. I didn’t care, but the movie was underway, and I stayed away. But Brody brought me in, made me feel safe and protected. Yet, there I was in the barn, experiencing an attack worse than any I’d had since I was ten years old, and Brody wasn’t around and Matthew didn’t care.

A whinny.

A lifeline.

I whipped around, almost drunkenly, and my shoulder slammed into the other side of Butter’s stall door. She was nibbling at my shoulder, only her lips. I managed to lift one of my hands to pat her on the nose, to reassure her I was fine and that I wasn’t hurt. She nudged me again before shifting and stomping and moving her body in the stall.

“What was that?”

Finally.

Matthew stopped talking. He strode toward me. I tensed, flattening myself against Butter’s door completely.

Matthew went right to the back door, bypassing me, and throwing it open. He paused on the threshold, squinting out into the darkness.

A second whinny, closer this time.

It was Shiloh. She never came this close, but I knew without having to see her that she had breached the fence. She was coming up the field.

She was coming to me.

God.

Matthew was in front of her. If he was angry, she might react. I couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t hurt him. I shuddered, not wanting to think what he would do in retaliation.

“Matthew,” I croaked.

He turned to me and finally saw I was struggling for breath. “Oh my God.” He rushed to me, but I waved him away as Shiloh came running through the open back door. Her eyes were wild and panicked as she tossed her head back and forth, searching. When she found me, she bucked up onto her hind legs, preparing to kick at Matthew. She thought he was hurting me.

“NO!” I shoved him as far away from me as I could.

He fell to the ground, frozen with his eyes fixed on Shiloh.

“ROLL!” I screamed, hoping to get him moving.

He did, rolling right into an open stall. Her hooves just missed him as they landed hard on the wooded floor.

“No, Shiloh.” The screams had taken everything out of me. I waved my arms to get her attention. Her one eye turned to me, seeing me. She didn’t know what was going on, she just wanted to help, so I reached up, grabbed her hair and a section of her coat and tried to heft myself onto her. I couldn’t get up in one jump, so I tried again, scrambling until I was lying safely on her back.

I didn’t have it in me to sit upright, so I nudged her back.

She resisted. She wanted to go after Matthew.

“No, Shiloh. Home.”

Her head swung back to me.

“Home.”

Her nostrils flared before she wheeled around and took off at a gallop.

I grabbed her mane and tried to keep from falling.