to follow the plan she had to drive past the main entrance to Brock’s development, Falcon Ridge. Yes, Falcon Ridge, when there wasn’t a falcon or a ridge anywhere in sight and hadn’t been for a hundred years, if ever.
It might have been the very first or just one of the first, but soon there were bound to be more of these stupid monstrosities springing up like weeds all over the farm- and ranchland of north Texas. She hated them.
And here it was now, looming ahead on her right, somehow reminding her of an enormous medieval castle and its keep somewhere out on a moor in the middle of nowhere. But no, it was a shining new, self-sufficient small town with its own specialty food shops and spa and convenience store selling gasoline. With its very own gym, coffee shop and guarded gate.
With its fake variety of townhouses, one-story houses, two-story houses, houses with yards and houses without. Fake community. Fake closeness. Well, what could be more natural for Brock to build?
The reckless need to defy her ex-husband drove her. Her arms turned the wheel with no direction whatsoever from her brain and she drove in past the gatehouse where the guard sat fast asleep. He didn’t even hear the loud purr of her diesel motor.
She followed her instincts on the streets that wound around for no reason and finally found the last one on the north side, where one of the houses backed up on the acreage she’d just crossed and the barn she’d just burgled. A bitter chuckle rang out, loud in the truck. It didn’t sound like hers but it must have been.
Her hand ached to hit the horn and summon Brock-the-Builder and his new wife, both of whom belonged here so un-equivocably—he with his fake hair and she with her fake breasts—into the yard or at least to the window so she could wave at them while she drove past. Then, in the morning, when the guys went to feed and discovered Ari was missing, Brock would know who took her.
He would never, ever, in a million years think Clea had done it herself. He might suspect she’d hired someone, but she wanted him to know she hadn’t needed to hire to get it done.
She wanted him to know her real spirit was coming back to life. She was stronger now, strong enough to confront him.
But not strong enough to let go of Ariel, now that I just got her. Better be careful.
She slowed more and idled in front of the house—ugly fake Southern mansion, with even the proportions of the pillars all wrong. Just as she’d expected. He had a new wife with fake breasts and bad taste.
Clea’s foot tapped the accelerator to make the motor growl, a noise she liked to think of as threatening.
Take that, Brock. You’d better not come after my mare.
He would, though. She knew him too well—as opposed to her realization, when she’d finally gathered the courage to leave him, that he had never known her at all.
Well, honestly, how could he? She hadn’t known herself. She’d been afraid to face her real feelings and afraid to assert her own will—when it went up against Daddy’s or Brock’s. Well, no more.
Get out. You have miles and miles and hours and hours to think about this.
She stepped on the accelerator, laid the gas to her truck and roared her way along the empty street toward the exit of the pretend-town and the still-sleeping man in the guardhouse. A frisson of new excitement mixed with relief zigzagged its way down her spine where the sweat was drying. It carried her to I-20 and kept her wits and her reflexes sharp as she merged into the traffic. She forgot about everything except reminding herself to allow for the length of her new trailer when she changed lanes and keeping her foot light on the accelerator so she could stay within the speed limit.
Of course, that was probably the best way to get noticed by a highway patrolman. She seemed to be the only person on the road traveling at a speed less than ninety miles an hour; the huge trucks whipping past made her dizzy. She’d have to get tough—only 1,499 more miles to go, or something like that. Maybe more.
Clea still couldn’t believe that she was here, in the driver’s seat, for the long haul all the way to Montana. Just like the old cattle drives—Texas to Montana. Well, Charles Goodnight had been one of her ancestors so surely she could do this.
She’d hauled her own horse a few times before on short trips to ride with friends. Also, she’d taken turns driving during the thousands of miles she’d traveled during the serious horse-showing days of her high school and college years, but it was her trainer or his assistant who did most of it. Many times she’d flown while they drove.
However, for this job she couldn’t exactly pay her trainer or hire a horse-transport company, could she?
No, she could not. For the first time ever she was on her own.
She gave herself a tight little smile in the rear-view mirror as she checked her surroundings and settled firmly into the slow lane at a solid seventy miles per hour, which she pretty much had to maintain or get hit from behind. The look of that smile lingered in her mind. She’d meant it to be a show of courage and not the scared grimace she’d glimpsed.
Clea lifted her chin and smiled again. This one was better. Scared or not, she wasn’t giving up or giving in or giving back. No way.
Free at last. Freedom. Free. I’m free. Free.
“Free.” She said it out loud. After a lifetime of being Daddy’s girl and Brock’s girl. Wife hadn’t applied to her because she’d had no more decision-making power married to Brock than she’d had with Daddy. Well, she was growing up now. She would show them she could take care of herself.
The most exciting thing about freedom was that she could do whatever she wanted. She could train Ariel herself and she could buy a trail horse or two to keep Ari company and she could go exploring. She could please herself and not worry about pleasing any man.
She could take all the pictures she wanted and work around the clock at becoming a professional photographer instead of a hobbyist, if that was what felt like the right thing to do. She could do anything, just as long as she had enough money to pay for her keep and Ari’s.
And maybe in the process she’d find whatever she was meant to do in her life.
But for now, she wouldn’t think that far ahead. She had secretly scrimped and saved for months. Selling possessions, lying about some uses of her horse money, writing checks forty dollars over the total for groceries and taking photos at horse shows for cash. Now she had enough money hidden to get her through a year at the place she’d leased and some things she could sell if necessary.
In two years, when she turned thirty, she’d have access to the trust fund from her mother. Until then, she could get a job of some kind. In the long run, if she couldn’t break into photography, which was a tough, tough field to make it in, she’d go into interior design or something that would give her a decent lifestyle. For one thing, she was determined to prove to Brock and Daddy that she could take care of herself.
Not in the style to which she was accustomed, that was for sure. She’d be living a lot differently this next year. Her new life would be stark in comparison to the old one. However, being able to breathe free and become her own real self would be worth any sacrifice.
But right now, her really most challenging goal was to hide this horse from Brock. He would be livid when he found out she had taken
