Chapter 3

A weight like a boulder pressed on my chest, and the suffocation spread through my whole body.

The family alliance he claimed he'd been forced into had, all along, been something both of them wanted.

That post he'd deleted in a hurry was no confession. It was just a passing sentiment on a whim.

And I, the wild mare he'd brought down from the prairie, had lost my homeland and my freedom. I'd become a past that needed to be tidily put away.

All at once I understood. It wasn't me he missed.

It was the girl from years ago, the one without a single tie, galloping free across the grasslands.

I took out my phone and called back the business card I'd kept all this time.

"I'll sign. I'll take the experimental drug trial too. I want to ride again."

Out on our prairie there's an old saying. If a wild horse loses the pasture where it rests, then it goes and finds another patch of earth to stand on.

The pasture that belonged to Douglas Sanchez had already withered.

The next afternoon I got a call from an unfamiliar number.

The caller said she was the secretary for a brand partnered with Douglas, her voice gentle and polite.

"Good afternoon, Miss Colton. Mr. Sanchez has arranged a folk-style photoshoot and would like you to be the featured model."

"We'll need you in the plainest traditional dress. We're sending a lamb over. Please bring it with you to the shoot. The more natural and rustic, the better."

My fingertips trembled slightly. A long, long time ago,

I really had been the only model in front of Douglas's camera.

He'd photographed me chasing the wind on horseback, photographed me kneeling in a sea of flowers.

Back then he said I was one of a kind, a view the city could never replace.

Foolish as I was, I thought he'd finally decided to look back at me. After all, I had nothing left now.

If I could be of use to Douglas, then maybe I didn't only have to stay hidden behind him.

The caller added one more gentle instruction.

"Mr. Sanchez is very busy today, and phones are on silent at the shoot. Just come straight over. He'll be waiting for you there."

I called Douglas again and again. All I got was that cold, endless busy signal.

I dug out the plainest coarse-cloth dress, gathered up the lamb they'd sent, and arrived right on time.

At the venue someone came up to touch up my makeup, said it was the brand's unified look, and I let her do it without a shred of suspicion.

The foundation was a ghastly white smeared over my face, my brows drawn thick and stiff and black, my cheeks slapped with a garish red blush.

The person in the mirror looked crude and countrified, a complete mess.

Something uneasy stirred in me, but the thought of helping Douglas made me grit my teeth and bear it.

Then I led the lamb into the hall, and the deafening laughter died in an instant.

There was no photoshoot. This was an elite Sanchez family gala.

Everyone in suits and evening gowns, dripping with jewels.

Only me, standing helpless in that gilded ballroom with a ridiculous face full of makeup and a lamb in my arms.

Out of place. Ugly. A joke.

Every eye in the room fixed on me at once, and the mocking snickers rose one after another, not even hidden.

"Who is that? Was Douglas's taste really that bad before?"

"No wonder he kept her hidden and never dared bring her out. Cheap to the bone."

"Daphne Henson and her, one's a pearl and one's a weed. It's painful to look at."

In the center of the crowd, Douglas went rigid.

His pupils shrank, and almost at once he started toward me.