And Then She Was Gone by Noonan Rosalind

Author:Noonan, Rosalind [Noonan, Rosalind]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781617730269
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2013-12-31T07:00:00+00:00

Lauren had never imagined that you could do therapy outside. On rainy days, she and Wynonna sat in the gazebo with lit candles and talked as rain dripped quietly onto the grass around them. Sunny days found them out on the ranch working with the horses, mirrors of the soul, Wynonna called them. She had learned that from a wise teacher she once had, a man named Buck.

“Horses are sensitive creatures. They pick up on what is bothering us through our body language. I find them really effective as therapists because they don’t hear our lies. If you say something is fine and it’s not, I might accept your answer, but a horse senses the anxiety or depression inside you.”

“Does Yoda know what I’m feeling right now?” Lauren stroked the gray horse’s neck, wondering if that kind, serene eye could really see inside her.

“I think so.”

Lauren gave the horse a good rub, loving him up, as Wynonna called it. With his dappled gray hair, so thin that his skin could sometimes be sunburned, Yoda was not the prettiest horse at Spirit Ranch. Still, Lauren felt a special bond with him. He stood out like a sore thumb among all the other majestic brown horses, just the way she felt that she stood out in a group of normal people. He had been patient and calm when she’d struggled to climb onto him for the first time. And he was so enormous! A giant draft horse with the tenderness of a little mouse.

Yoda was content now, but Wynonna explained that his life had not always been peaceful. As a colt, he had been turned loose down in Arizona, abandoned by an owner who could no longer afford to feed his horses. When a rancher found him wandering the desert with a few other stragglers, he had been thin, dehydrated, and suffering from a rattlesnake bite. The veterinarian had wanted to put him down. Instead, Wynonna, who had been visiting her cousin in Arizona, took him home.

“Even after we got him physically healed, he was always bucking and whinnying,” Wynonna said. “He would let me get close, but he reared up when someone else came near him.”

“Why did he do that?”

“He was afraid. He didn’t understand that we weren’t going to abandon him and make him suffer. He was afraid to trust anyone.”

“But he’s so calm now. I think he trusts me.”

“He does. He understands how it feels to hurt inside. He’s been there himself.”

Lauren let her hands drop away. How could a horse understand what she’d been through? She folded her arms, closing herself up. If she wanted to, she could clamp shut the door to her soul and keep her own experiences inside. She could keep the misery to herself—and the brief moments of joy, too.

Wynonna turned to her and laughed. “Even I can read that body language. Are you having second thoughts?”

As if he were teaming up with Wynonna, Yoda swung his head toward Lauren and pressed his muzzle against her.

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