Isobel eased her car down the long, oak-shadowed lane, sunlight breaking through in honeyed shards that dappled the hood. She rolled to a stop outside the barn, the air thick with the scent of hay, leather, and the faint tang of last night’s rain.
She stepped inside, boots clicking softly on the worn planks—but the stalls stood empty, shadows swaying with the loft’s rafters.
Then she heard it—the muffled rhythm of hooves working sand, the sound pulling her toward the round pen like a thread.
She stopped short when it came into view.
Ryder was in the center, shoulders broad beneath a faded pearl-snap, moving in sync with the restless bay colt circling him. On the rail, a young girl—no more than ten—watched intently, her hands flying in delicate shapes. Ryder responded in kind, his signs
