Over the Moon at the Big Lizard Diner by Lisa Wingate

Author:Lisa Wingate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.

FOURTEEN

ISQUEALED LIKE A GIDDY ADOLESCENT AS I WATCHED SLEEPY TROT off into the pasture to join the horse herd. Standing there with the halter in my hand, I experienced a burst of triumph that was ridiculously out of proportion to the event. I felt like I’d just climbed Mount Everest, or rowed across the ocean on a homemade raft, or trekked to the North Pole with nothing but snowshoes and a sack lunch. It seemed as if the moment should have a headline: Woman Leads Imprisoned Horse to Freedom.

Trotting off to his companions, Sleepy jumped into the air and bucked like a rodeo horse, kicking his hind legs and farting all the way.

“Hi-ho, Silver!” I called after him, which was a completely dorky thing to say. If Sydney had been there, she would have rolled her eyes to let me know I was being terribly uncool.

Zach chuckled. He had one arm looped over the gate and his legs crossed comfortably, as if he had nothing more important to do than watch my moment.

It felt good. I had a sense of friendship that had nothing to do with the way his eyes twinkled in the light, soft against his tanned skin like circles of frosty green glass cast ashore by some invisible tide. Quiet waves of thought moved in and out as his gaze flicked from me to the galloping horse and back.

He was trying to figure me out. Right then he looked very much like Jocelyn, mapping those wounded parts of me, penciling in a landscape of despair and broken promises, self-defense mechanisms and control issues, where Trust was a tiny place with no access roads.

But Sleepy had found the way in, blazed a trail where there hadn’t been one since Geoff left.

Sleepy and I had traveled across the barren space together—a simple, dusty corral, but metaphorically something larger. He had stood patiently with his head resting on my shoulder as I loosened the halter to set him free. Then he lingered a moment longer, unbridled as I stroked his nose, his ears, his long white forelock. His whiskers tickled my skin as he sniffed my arm, my shoulder, and blew softly in my ear.

I didn’t pull away, just rested my cheek against his muzzle and closed my eyes for the barest of moments.

Trust.

It was possible to trust that which you could not predict, or plan, or control.

In fact, it was essential. It was the only way to really live.

I realized it all in an instant, and Zach’s expression said that he’d seen every naked bit of it. I should have felt overexposed, vulnerable, but instead I felt grateful not to have experienced the moment alone. There was an inexplicable level of comfort in being there with him. As Sleepy trotted off to the pasture, Zach and I stood smiling at each other, the experience so perfect that no words were needed.

The squeal of brakes and the grinding of tires shattered the moment, and I turned to catch the approach of my SUV, followed by a pickup truck with a dealer tag in the window.

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