Time For Love. Melinda Curtis

course it was. Everyone in Harmony Valley was embracing the winery and its attempts to revitalize the town. But hello, people, should her son be wearing a shirt advertising alcohol?

      It doesn’t say Harmony Valley Vineyards, said the voice of reason.

      It promotes underage drinking, said the fearful side of her, the one that had been riding shotgun on her shoulder since rehab.

      “It’s just a shirt,” Kathy said defensively, bringing her internal argument into the open.

      Truman gave her the my-mom-has-lost-it look. He lost his patience and raised his voice. “Abby. Come here. Now.”

      Abby jumped from Kathy’s lap and trotted to Truman, circling him and nudging him inside the bedroom. Her herding instincts were to unite, not divide.

      “I don’t have time for games,” Truman grumbled, making his escape. “It’s time for lessons.”

      Kathy listened to their footsteps move into the kitchen, made immobile by the fact that that was the most successful interaction she’d had with Truman since she’d come home a few weeks ago.

      Grandpa Ed used to say, “First the battle, then the war.”

      She stood and did a battle victory dance.

      “Smooth moves.” Flynn stood in the doorway with that older-brother grin that little sisters hated. “A bit ‘Put a Ring on It’ and a bit ‘Harlem Shake.’ What are we celebrating?”

      “Shh.” Kathy yanked him inside and closed the door. “Truman talked to me.”

      They high-fived.

      “How’re you feeling today, Kathy?” His grin faded. His gaze took inventory.

      “Stop. You aren’t my sponsor.” She widened her eyes and breathed on him. “I’m sober.” No bloodshot eyes. No fire-starting breath.

      “You’d tell me if you were tempted, right?” He asked her that every morning, but there was an urgency to his question that hadn’t been there in the weeks since she’d come home.

      Had she sleepwalked to a liquor store? She thought not. “Of course I’d tell you if I was tempted.” Nope. If she was tempted, she wouldn’t tell him. Not in a thousand years. He’d try to lock her up in rehab quicker than you could say, “Reboot my computer,” and she’d lose what little ground she’d gained with Truman.

      “I was thinking of hiring someone to find Mom,” Flynn said out of the blue.

      There must have been a bomb blast, because Kathy couldn’t feel her limbs and it was quiet. Deathly quiet. Not even the bird alarm clock made a sound.

      “I made peace with my dad.” Flynn’s voice cut through the aftershock. “Maybe it’s time we made peace with Mom. I could get her into rehab. Truman needs you to have a strong support system and...”

      “Don’t you dare bring her around me or Truman.” Kathy’s lips felt numb. The words she had to say formed too slowly until she felt robbed of what little power she had left. “I mean it.”

      Flynn spoke in his brother-knows-best voice. “It’s been nearly two years since I’ve heard from her. I just thought...”

      “She doesn’t deserve your compassion.” She deserves to rot in hell.

      * * *

      THE TROUBLE WITH selling your soul to the devil was that there was a debt to be repaid. Or, in Dylan’s case, several.

      He had thirty days. Thirty days to deliver the semen orders he’d sold for Phantom. Thirty days until his next mortgage and child-support payments were due. Thirty days to make progress with Kathy and the injured colt.

      Dylan leaned on the porch railing at Redemption Ranch. Wisps of mist clung to the brown grass in his pastures as the first rays of daylight crested the Sonoma Mountains. Steam rose from the cup of coffee cradled in his hands. In the distance, tall, sturdy eucalyptus trees created a natural border to his property. Whoever had planted those trees had wanted a visual marker, a boundary, that said, This is mine. If Dylan couldn’t keep up with the payments, he’d have to sell off a parcel of the land to a developer. The trees would go. Cookie-cutter houses would fill the pasture. Noise would invade his borders.

      As a kid, he’d longed for peace. He’d longed for silence. He’d longed for a place where his father’s belligerence and words and fists couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t hurt him. At his mother’s church, they’d talked about forgiveness and redemption. Those concepts were as unreachable back then as the stars. But today?

      Does Phantom deserve redemption? He’d thought so once. But one shot was all he’d have.

      Put him down. His father’s command, chilling and frozen in his memory.

      “What’s wrong, Dylan? Knee bothering you?” Barry came down the outdoor steps from his garage apartment. With his shoulder-length, snowy hair and diminutive height, the former jockey could pass himself off as one of Santa’s elves.

      Dylan let his gaze drift back to the tree-lined horizon. “My knee’s fine.” Aching in the brisk morning, but that was his new normal.

      “Then let’s work Phantom.”

      Dylan’s grip on the coffee mug tightened. He gazed out over the pasture, but he saw a different scene now, one from long ago. A boy wearing pajamas shut in a stall with a crippled horse and a gun.

      “We need to make a withdrawal.” Barry gestured toward Phantom’s stall, the only one that had an outdoor paddock attached. “We can’t keep taking orders if there’s no product to sell. Lots of breeders are anxious for Phantom’s genes.”

      Because they expected Dylan to destroy the champion. “Maybe tomorrow. Or next week.” Dylan forced himself to set the coffee cup down. “Maggie Mae should be in heat soon. We can’t collect the goods from Phantom without a mare in her cycle.”

      “Excuses.” Barry’s hands swung Dylan’s reasoning aside. He probably waved off flies with less vigor. “It’s been six months, son. It’s time to get back in the saddle.”

      “Maybe I’m the wrong person for the job. Maybe I’ve lost my touch.”

      “The only thing you’ve lost is your nerve.” Barry propped a foot on the front porch step. “If I had quit riding races after one fall, I would have never won the Kentucky Derby. I had a gift for the ride. I’m too old now to compete, but if my body was able, I’d still be out there every week.”

      “You’d have to give up beer and chili-cheese fries.”

      “After twenty years of racing, I earned every extra pound.” Barry patted his still-svelte gut. He was only fifteen pounds over his racing weight. “But don’t go changing the subject. You’ve let that horse get into your head.”

      Dylan didn’t argue that point. Everyone thought he’d lost his nerve after the accident, that he was afraid of Phantom and others like him.

      Damn right he was afraid. But not of the stallion. He was afraid of what would happen if he couldn’t complete the collection procedure this time.

      Barry took his silence for cowardly fear. “If you think he’s so dangerous, why did you buy him?”

      “Because they were going to put him down.” Because Dylan felt partly to blame for Phantom’s attack, seeing as how he’d held the lead rope. “Because they were practically giving him away and his stud fees can save us.” On its own, his idea to run a ranch where unwanted horses could be rehabilitated and recovering alcoholics could build confidence wasn’t a profit-making proposition. “We barely make ends meet.”

      “There you go again. Money,” Barry grumbled, pausing to face Dylan. “Money doesn’t make you a good man. Or a good father.”

      “The bank and the family-court