Take Me Home
Authors: Nancy Herkness
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 Nancy Herkness
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612186030
ISBN-10: 1612186033
To Jo.
You are missed
.
I
WOULD LIKE TO
thank the following people who have helped make
Take Me Home
the book it is:
My agent Jane Dystel, who found this book the perfect home at Montlake Romance.
The discerning Miriam Goderich, who saw my novel’s potential and plucked it from the slush pile.
My editor, Kelli Martin, who believes in my work and gives it the kind of attention an author usually only dreams of.
My developmental editor, Andrea Hurst, who understands how to strengthen both story and emotion with the subtlest of touches.
My copy editors, Tara Doernberg and Ashley McDonald, who keep me on the straight and narrow when it comes to the all-important details.
The whole dream team at Montlake, for all they do to make this author happy.
My brilliant critique group: Miriam Allenson, Cathy Greenfeder, and Lisa Verge Higgins, who know where I was when I joined them and where I am now. Enough said.
My pony Papoose, who was my original whisper horse.
As always, my family: Jeff, Rebecca, and Loukas, who celebrate and commiserate with me with equal love.
B
REATHING IN THE
scent of fresh hay and saddle soap, Claire felt the knots of tension loosen their grip on her shoulders. She stood just outside the stable door, her face tilted up to let the early summer sunshine stroke her cheeks and forehead, its warmth suffusing the cotton of her T-shirt and the denim of her jeans.
The stable had become her refuge in the past few weeks. The well-kept brick buildings, the bluish-green mountains rising behind them, and the constant motion of powerful, glossy horses pushed her problems away for an hour or so.
“Hey, Claire, over here.” Sharon, the owner of Healing Springs Stables, waved to her from halfway down the stable’s central aisle. “Got a horse I want you to meet before you go riding.”
“Another candidate for my whisper horse?” Claire called, smiling. Her friendship with the horsewoman was another reason Claire came here. Sharon had become the rock she clung to in her sea of failure.
Thick pine bark muffled the fall of her boots, but the barn was far from silent as the clank of halters against water buckets and the affectionate banter of stable hands with their charges drifted around her. She took another deep, grateful breath before she joined her friend.
“I’ll make a believer out of you yet,” Sharon said, her flyaway copper hair a blazing halo around her face.
Claire fell into step beside her, almost jogging to keep up with her six-foot-tall companion’s athletic stride. “Is the horse one of your rescues?”
“Yup. Just came in this morning. She’s a Thoroughbred, a former racehorse. Ought to be a sympathetic listener for your troubles.”
“If you say so.” Claire wasn’t clear on why a former racehorse would understand her problems with her ex-husband or her younger sister, but she humored Sharon.
“Here she is,” Sharon said, stopping in front of the stall door and easily looking over the top. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Oh, hey, Dr. Tim. You sure got here fast.”
“You said the horse was in bad shape, so I made time for her.” The voice emanating from within the stall was deep, with a touch of the local West Virginia drawl.
The stall door swung open, and a man the size of a small mountain stepped out. Backlit by a slanting shaft of afternoon sun, the ends of his straight hair glowed deep red while the edges of his plaid shirt blazed blue and gold. In one large fist, he hefted an oversized tan duffel bag with
Sanctuary Veterinary Hospital
embroidered on it in dark-green letters.
Claire had heard about the new veterinarian in Sanctuary, but she hadn’t encountered him in the few weeks she’d been back in her hometown. No one had mentioned he wouldn’t look out of place on a football team’s defensive line. Yet something about the calm, deliberate way he moved inspired a sense of security rather than a threat of physical dominance. She could picture him holding up the world if Atlas got tired.
“Dr. Tim, this is my friend Claire Parker,” Sharon said. “She works at Davis Honaker’s art gallery in town. She just relocated here from up north of the Mason-Dixon Line last month. Worked in a fancy gallery before, so Davis feels real lucky to have her.”
“Nice to meet you,” Claire said, blushing slightly at Sharon’s praise, as she stepped forward with her hand extended. The vet’s duffel hit the ground with a thud and a puff of pine bark dust. For an awkward moment, Claire stood with her hand out, while Dr. Tim seemed frozen.
“Sorry, ma’am, it’s a pleasure,” he said, finally moving to wrap his strong, callused fingers around hers. “For a minute there, I thought I’d met you before.”
As Claire Parker stepped out of Sharon’s shadow, Tim saw Anais. He knew his mind was playing tricks on him, but something about the dramatic lighting and the way the woman moved evoked the image of his wife as she had looked onstage, maybe because that was how he kept dreaming about her.
He looked desperately for the differences there must be between this woman and his dead wife. Yes, Claire had shining dark hair smoothed back into a sleek bun, the way his wife had often worn hers, and they shared a certain husky timbre to their voices. But Anais’s eyes were blue, while Claire’s were velvet brown, and under her T-shirt and jeans, Claire had more curves than the slender actress would ever allow herself.
Yet he, the rational scientist, was blindsided by the resemblance. He thought leaving New York would save him from the constant reminders, yet even here in the wilds of West Virginia, he got yanked back into the nightmare.
Claire looked up at him with a question in her eyes, and he realized he was still holding her hand. He gave her an apologetic smile as he released his grip.
Her gaze became intent, as though she was trying to read something in his face. With a sense of disquiet, he wondered what
his expression revealed. Most people had given up on offering sympathy that thinly disguised their curiosity about his wife’s death, but Claire Parker was new here. She might not know he preferred to avoid the subject.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, giving Claire a polite nod before he turned away to face Sharon. He pulled a prescription pad and pen from his pocket and began to write, covering three sheets before he tore them off and held them out. As he refocused on the condition of the mare he’d just examined, clean, strong anger boiled up again. “Whoever owned this horse should be prosecuted for criminal negligence.”
“You won’t hear any argument from me.” Sharon took the papers with a sigh. “Add this visit to my monthly bill.”
“This one’s on me,” Tim said. “I can’t charge you in good conscience when you’ll never get any useful work out of this horse. She’ll just eat your feed and take up a stall.”
“She’ll help Claire. That makes her worth the room and board.”
He caught Claire’s little gesture of embarrassment from the corner of his eye and turned back to her. “Is Sharon trying to match you up with a whisper horse?”
“Oh, so you know about Sharon’s theory,” she said, looking relieved. Then her eyes lit with a gleam of mischief. “Do you have a whisper horse yourself?”
“Not yet,” Sharon interjected.
He shook his head. “I figure the animals I treat have enough problems of their own without adding mine.” Even his worst enemy didn’t deserve to listen to what he’d have to say.
“At least there’s no danger they’ll post your true confessions on Facebook,” Claire said.