Chapter 3 - The Horse Farm Sanctuary
The sun was a pale, bruised smear behind the low-hanging gray clouds by the time I limped up the long, gravel driveway of Clara’s horse farm. The white wooden fences were weathered and peeling, framing sprawling pastures where three chestnut mares stood head-to-tail against the morning chill.
Clara was already out by the main barn, bucketing grain into a heavy iron feeder. When she heard the crunch of gravel under my sneakers, she spun around with a pitchfork half-raised, her eyes wide behind her wire-rimmed glasses. As she recognized me through the morning mist, the pitchfork slipped from her hands, clattering harmlessly into the straw.
"Hannah?" she breathed, running across the yard and grabbing me by the shoulders. She took in my disheveled hair, still stiff with dried river silt, and the oversized flannel shirt I had fished from a scarecrow near the orchard. "What in God's name happened to you? You look like you crawled out of a grave."
"I pretty much did," I murmured, letting her pull me into the warm, sweet-smelling gloom of the barn.
Inside, away from the biting wind, my knees finally gave out. Clara caught me before I hit the concrete floor, guiding me onto an old canvas cot she kept in the tack room for late foaling nights. She didn't ask a million questions right away. Instead, she bustled around with the quiet efficiency of a woman who had lived through her own share of hard winters, handing me a steaming mug of black coffee and wrapping a heavy wool horse blanket around my shoulders.
"Drink it," she ordered softly, sitting on an overturned feed bucket opposite me. "Then tell me how much trouble we're in."
"Gideon knows I'm back," I said, wrapping my hands around the hot ceramic mug just to feel the pain of the heat against my numb fingers. "He was at the river last night. He took Noah."
Clara’s face tightened, her jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched in her cheek. "Gideon Mercer doesn't let go of anything he claims. You know that, Hannah. The courts, the police, the press—he owns the board."
"He doesn't own the truth," I said, though my voice lacked conviction even to my own ears.
"Truth doesn't buy you out of a contempt charge or a kidnapping indictment," Clara countered gently, leaning forward to touch my knee. "Sterling called ten minutes ago. He said Mercer's security team found your abandoned car near the diner. They're sweeping this direction. If they check my property records, they'll find my name linked to your old college registration within the hour."
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I stared down at the dark surface of the coffee. My reflection stared back—haggard, circles bruised deep beneath my eyes, but with a stubborn fire burning in the pupils that no court order could extinguish.
"Then I won't wait for them to find me," I said, setting the mug down with a sharp clink. "I'm going to call him."
