Fifteen years earlier
Daniel
My head was in my hands, but I could hear everything. Every beep. Every squeak of a wheel. Even the squishy sound of the nurses as they came and went silently.
That’s what I would always remember.
But most of all I could hear her breathing. My sweet Savanah. Every single breath brought a rush of relief. Every single exhale a rush of panic. How more breaths did she have left?
Savanah was dying.
Sixteen years old. Bright and beautiful. Full of life, of gratitude for each moment… or she had been before the leukemia came back. Even that she had taken in stride, smiling and laughing, not wanting anyone to worry about her or be down.
She was quite simply, perfect. The most perfect girl in the world. My girl. I’d known from the start I had found her too young. Too early. I was seventeen. And she was leaving me.
I had the rest of my life ahead of me. And she had… only breaths. No one knew how many more.
The unfairness of it all was staggering.
I pulled my seat closer and gently took her hand, kneeling to pray once again. Praying to the good lord that he take some of my years and give them to her. Take all of them. Anything to keep her here, even if I wasn’t. She was a better person. She deserved to live.
But I didn’t. I didn’t want to go on without her anyway. I told her so, in a broken whisper. I felt her squeeze my hand in rebuke. She was barely alive, but I knew what she was saying. I always knew, from the moment we’d crossed paths in high school. Those sparkling blue eyes of hers had shown everything.
I held her hand all night. It was close to dawn when I noticed her breaths getting further apart. The beeping of her heart monitor had slowed. Her hand was a little cooler. I looked up, locking eyes with her mother, the same realization in her achingly familiar, but older, blue eyes. She send Savanah’s dad racing to get the doctor. We huddled around her bed, urgently telling her that we loved her.
I begged her not to go.
Her mother said something different.
She told her to leave. She told her she had fought long enough. That we would be okay. She looked at me, urging me to say the same.
I shook my head wildly, squeezing her limp hand. I couldn’t say the words. I wouldn’t.
The doctor rushed in, several nurses at her heels. He examined her quickly, then stepped back to let us back in.
“It won’t be long now.”
“Can’t you do something?” I begged.
“Son, we signed a DNR,” her father said gently, laying a hand on my shoulder.
“What?”
“It means ‘do not resuscitate,” her mother answered, staring at me as understanding dawned.
“Why would you do that? Why?” I asked, getting to my feet, but not letting go of her hand.
“She asked us to. She told us…” her mother’s voice caught and her father took over.
“Savanah told us to take care of you. As if you two had married. I know that’s what you both wanted. You are our son now, too,” he added. “I am so sorry, son…”
The machine by her bed made an awful sound. The sound that meant it was all over. A long, unrelenting, continuous beep.
While I’d been arguing, Savanah had left us. Left me. I stared at her heartbreakingly beautiful face. She was gone. I could see it instantly.
And they could have stopped it.
Blazing hatred filled my heart, momentarily washing away my grief and despair. Forever washing away the hope to love again. Why should I? If you loved someone, they could be stolen from you in an instant.
I ran from the room, unable to look at them another moment. And after the funeral, I never saw her parents again.
Chapter One
Daniel
I pushed Black Jack to his limits, riding the stallion over the entire course. I did this nearly every morning now before his afternoon training session. Ever since the wild young horse had arrived.
It kept him from injuring himself or the trainers.
I was the only one the damned horse would listen to. Usually Jake had a way with the wild ones, being a wild one himself. But one look at me and the stallion had calmed. Jake teased me about it mercilessly. Now that he was settled down, I was the wild one.
I snorted to myself at that thought. I wasn’t the settling down type, that was true. But I kept my passions under tight control– good and bad.
I wasn’t the sort to throw a punch first and ask questions later. I also wasn’t the sort to jump into bed with a lady at first glance. I left all of that foolishness to my brothers. The younger one, and the older one.
I rode into the paddock and dismounted, tossing the reins to McDermott, the head stable master.