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She nods.
“How do you know we can trust him?”
A smile tugs on her lips. “Hunter is nothing like his father. If he were, I would have turned him away when he came to me eighteen months ago and told me about Nash. He and Nash were working together to find you all. They found the other girls first because I gave them to families who couldn’t have babies.”
“Why didn’t you give me to someone like that?” I ask, rubbing my hand on my aching chest.
“We made a mistake. We thought you would be safe, but we were wrong. Come on. Let’s go feed the horses.”
I follow her back into the barn with still so many questions burning on the tip of my tongue. Instead of asking them, we scoop oats and some new hay into the stalls of five horses, including Snowflake’s. May watches me as I work and guides me in what I should be doing.
“So you want to know about your father?” she asks, and I pause mid-shovel as I muck out the stall. I glance up at her and nod. “Your father, Arthur Redmont. He wasn’t always the evil man he is today. Each time one of his kids went missing, he lost trust with the families of the underworld. They all thought he had hidden his family so that his daughters wouldn’t be brought up in this world. Little did they know that two grannies were the ones saving those girls. If Hunter’s parents had girls, we would have done the same thing. I never wanted any of my grandchildren living through the dangers I did as a girl in this type of business.”
This causes me to pause. “Did you have an arranged marriage?”
Her features turn soft. “I did, but thankfully, my husband was a good man, and I knew that for a long time. Sadly, he passed away five years ago from a heart attack.” She clears the emotion out of her throat before continuing. “I’m not telling you to marry Hunter, but he’s a good man too.”
“Good man, my ass,” I mutter under my breath. “So my father went into hiding after people began not to trust him?”
“Yes. When Nash was old enough, he stepped in and started to make your family name trustworthy again with the families of the underworld.”
A heaviness sits in the pit of my stomach. “And that still got him killed,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
Silence falls between us as I return to my work and finish Snowflake’s stall. I’m sure May was wrong when she said Snowflake is skittish because she seems calm to me. She comes up behind me, nudging me with her nose. I laugh and turn to face her, running my hand along her smooth coat. They say if you’re calm, the animal will sense it, and as nervous as I am being around a large animal, I feel safe.
“Here.” May hands me a carrot and an apple, and I feed them both to Snowflake, giving her a good brush down before leaving.
I’m enjoying this farm-life type of work. Perhaps it’s something I was supposed to do in my life.
“Thanks for your help today,” May says as she packs away the last of the tools. “I have to go to town later. Will you be all right on your own for a few hours?”
A prickling sensation crawls up my neck. My father could know where I am.
“May, do you know where my father is? Does he come here at all?”
May comes up to me and takes my hand. “No, dear, I don’t know, and he hasn’t come in a while. Don’t worry, Hunter will be back just after I leave, so you won’t be alone for long. I just have to get some things from the grocer.”
“Okay.”
* * *
The day drifts by, and the letter from Nash plays on my mind. I can’t bring myself to read it yet. So many emotions surge within me.
Confusion.
Hurt.
Hate.
How do I move past this? My life has been and always will be one of survival. Only now, it’s a different kind of survival.
I need to outlive my father, for one.
Then find my siblings.
And possibly trust Hunter.
