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‘Sounded like a yes to me,’ Stevie observed.

Andrea sighed. ‘This is so stupid.’

‘I’ll check in with my location every night,’ Skye promised. ‘And send you my destination and ETA before I leave each morning.’

When the horse put her big head over Skye’s shoulder, Skye leaned back, drawing strength from that solid contact, that warmth.

Andrea refocused on Skye and the horse and then immediately softened. She let her head fall back and said, ‘Shit,’ on a long-suffering sigh.

‘What?’ Skye asked, confused.

Stevie snapped a picture of Skye and the mare on her phone and then passed it over.

Skye knew what Andrea had seen instantly: a battered girl and a battered horse, both bruised by the world through no fault of their own, recognizing one another, leaning into one another.

Skye didn’t believe in fate or fairy tales. Life had never given her that luxury. But for the first time ever, she felt like she had a purpose. And it wasn’t grand or laudable. If anything, it was embarrassingly simple: learn how to care for a horse.

Jim opened the barn door and stepped inside. He glanced at where Skye stood with the horse, smiled. ‘So? What do you think?’

‘I think I got the better end of this deal, Jim.’

‘Glad you think so.’ He handed her a piece of scrap paper. ‘I’m going to give you my number. If you need to take the truck into a shop, you call me. Put me on the phone with the mechanic so I can check he’s not taking you for a ride.’

Skye’s eyes burned. It still took her by surprise to know that strangers could be kind. ‘Thank you. I really appreciate it.’

At her side, the mare snorted.

‘Almost forgot.’ Jim fished around in his pocket for a second piece of paper. He handed it to her. ‘Horse’s registration with the American Quarter Horse Association.’

Skye opened it. She traced the mare’s bloodlines, and even though it meant nothing to her, she promised she’d research every horse in the lineage. When she came to the mare’s registered name, she laughed aloud.

‘What?’ Stevie demanded.

Skye passed the registration to Stevie. But as her friends looked over the paper, she turned to the mare. ‘I don’t know if the fact that your name’s Smoking Barrel bodes well for me.’ She grinned. ‘But I like it.’

Chapter 3

Scottsdale, Arizona – March 4, 2025

Over the three months she’d travelled, Skye had started a list she’d titled ‘A Girl’s Guide to Not Getting Murdered’.

Rule Number One: Never Overnight Alone, she’d learned in the first week when she’d pulled into a vacant parking lot to sleep in the cab of her truck and had woken up to a man scratching on her windows. He’d had a too-wide grin and eyes that told her his exact intention. Her only saving grace had been that she’d locked herself and Smokey in before falling asleep.

She’d managed to crawl through to the front seat and start the truck before things had escalated. But she’d driven the rest of the night, struggling to see in the dark through her tears, too afraid to pull over again.

Rule Number Two: Don’t Get Naked on Publicly Owned Land, she’d also learned the hard way, when she’d stopped overnight in Lake Eufaula State Park, Oklahoma. She’d taken one look at the pristine lake water and promptly stripped her clothes, desperate to wash the travel grime off her skin. If she’d been paying attention, she would have noticed the trail running right alongside her swimming spot. Instead, she’d given a group of college-aged hikers a full-on show. Despite their raucous whistles and Skye’s theatre-worthy twirl, she’d gotten a stern talking-to by a dour-faced park ranger.

As the weeks passed and she moseyed west, driven to get to Hunt Ranch only by her dwindling finances, she added rules.

Some were simple. Rule Seven: Never Say No to Travelling in Convoy. Rule Twelve: Accept Hospitality from Strangers – But Only When There’s at Least One Woman. Rule Twenty: Stick to Small Towns.

Some rules were more obvious. Rule Eight: Don’t Go to Bars Alone at Night.

But her best discovery, which promptly became Rule Three, was: Find the Rodeos First – not just because there were like-minded people travelling and competing in events that she found fascinating, but because nobody blinked an eye when a single woman pulled up in her ancient truck, towing a horse in a trailer.

Instead, they smiled at her and asked her if she was competing, and when she told them that she was just learning the ropes, they took her in. They explained the rules of the eight pro rodeo events, which fell into two categories: Rough Stock and Timed Events. They passed on their cell phone numbers and told her where they’d be going next, in case she wanted to meet up again. They asked her what route she was taking and then shared safe places, private farms and barns that rented horse stalls by the night.

They gave her the first safe community she’d ever known outside of Andrea and Stevie.