Chapter sixteen

Sweetheart rode fast, over moor and fen, and Bryan did nothing to slow her down, he thought he needed the speed, thought he needed the wind that caressed his hair that needed a trim, that blew against his face. His smiled, in spite of himself, his babygirl that ran beneath knew him, knew that he needed that which she offered, she just had to have known.

She did a jump over a fence, and Bryan let out a laugh, and realised with a jolt that he’d really never given Aine a ride with Sweetheart, he would have to fix that.

He made her come to a stop by a stream. They had ridden thick into the woods , much farther away than the place where he and Aine had been the day he had seen her picking berries with her dog, kenell. The day they had met.

He looked around, and breathed in the sweetness of the air, and for the first time, in a very long time, he thought. He thought about the day he met Rhoda.