Chapter 17: Day Thirty-One

Leandra's POV

Conal had told me himself, the night before, in the dark kitchen, before Priscilla could climb the stairs.

The fire was set, he had suspected it for years, and he had said nothing.

I had not forgiven that either.

But he had said it to my face and not to a stranger, and the next morning the kitchen smelled of coffee instead of ashes.

On the thirty-first day, Maisie was on a horse.

She sat on a fat brown mare called Tuesday, in a saddle that had been my own once, with her chin up and both hands in the mane.

"She's lazy," Maisie said happily.

"She's patient," Conal said.

"Same thing."

He walked at the mare's head with the lead rope loose in his fist.

Bea rode the dappled pony behind her, bolt upright, with her sketchbook strapped to her back in a feed sack.

She had drawn the barn, the black ribs of it, and then she had turned the page and drawn a fence.

She had not said a word about it.

I leaned on the corral rail with my cane hooked on the top bar.

The sun was out, and the girls' laughter carried across the whole field.

Conal looked back at me over the mare's neck.

He was smiling, and for a moment he forgot to be careful.

I felt it in my ribs.

When the ride was over, he lifted Maisie down, and then Bea.

The foreman took the horses away and the foreman's wife called the girls in for biscuits.

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