Chapter 14: Not a Match, a Return

Tiernan spent the whole drive to the farm saying nothing about the share transfer, and I knew exactly what it cost him.

"She signed it," I said at the gate.

"I know."

"It's her real signature. I'd know, because I'm the only person who can fake it."

"I know that too."

He parked by the barn and got out.

He went straight to the mare's stall with a bucket, because that is what he does with a feeling.

I stood in the aisle, in the smell of hay and leather and warm horse.

I had a speech.

I had written it on the plane, on the back of the granola bar wrapper.

It began with the words "Tiernan, for the record."

I dropped the wrapper in the bucket.

"Ask me what I want," I said.

He stopped with the scoop in his hand.

"I've asked you that for two years."

"Ask me now."

He leaned the scoop against the stall and turned around.

"What do you want, Gwendolyn?"

"You."

I said it fast, before the rule could get a word in.

It came out of me flat and loud.

The paper-eating mare lifted her head over the door to look.

"I thought you loved her," I said. "I thought that was why you never asked which of us was which."

"Gwendolyn."

"I thought wanting you was the one thing I could never copy, because it was hers.

"Then I wanted you anyway.

"I sat in a truck and checked whether I was doing it for her, and I wasn't."

My voice was shaking.

"Nobody had it first. Nobody ever will. It's mine, and I don't care what it costs."

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