Miracle Beach by Erin Celello Read Free Book Online Page A

they both were. But never about the important things. Never about all that he so desperately wanted to know now.
    Jack thought back, trying hard to remember why he hadn’t come out here more often. There were whole months, whole years, when he had convinced himself that they were too busy to get away, but now he couldn’t remember one single thing that was so important it should have kept him tethered to Green Bay.
    He thought back to Ms. 7D’s question, “Business or pleasure?”
    Why did everything always have to be either/or? Both , he decided, before reconsidering. Because there was also neither , and that was just as good an option.

Chapter Four

    EVERY DAMN YEAR MACY FORGOT WHAT HARD WORK THIS WAS.
    By the end of a week of tamping dirt and pulling wires taut and hammering nails into errant boards, her muscles would start to get used to the foreign motions. Then fence-mending would be done for another year, during which time Macy’s muscles would go back to their old familiar patterns, and next year this time, they’d hurt like hell all over again.
    “You don’t use barbed wire?” Jack asked. He tipped at the waist, resting an elbow on a bent knee, a hammer dangling from one hand. His face glistened strawberry red, and rivulets of sweat ran from his brow line downward, dripping off the cliff of his chin.
    Macy shook her head and turned briefly away from Jack to wipe her face with the bottom part of her T-shirt. “No barbed wire,” she said. “Not for horses. People who use that are either too cheap or lazy to do it right. Usually both.”
    Jack raised an eyebrow at her.
    “Cows and other animals only need a couple strands of barbed wire or a single rail to keep them from wandering. But not horses,” Macy explained. “They’re stupid enough and they don’t see well enough to not tangle themselves up in it. And God forbid they do.” Macy paused to line up a nail against the post she was working on. With three deft strikes, it slid firmly into place. “You don’t want to see what happens when a horse goes through barbed wire. A leg or windpipe ripped straight open by that stuff is not something you want to happen to a horse that’s worth more than your car, or your house, if you can help it.”
    Macy saw Jack suck in a gulp of air. “House?” he asked, wide-eyed.
    “Well, maybe cottage or cabin,” Macy compromised. “At least, most of the horses here,” she said, waving her arm to indicate the span of her farm. “You’ll get to see a few that are worth a lot more than that if you come to the show with me.”
    Macy had designed her pastures carefully. Even though she was still a teenager when her grandfather bought this place to pass along to her when she turned eighteen, she’d had clear ideas of what she wanted it to look like. Both for aesthetic and safety reasons, her fences consisted of four board “rails” tacked at even, one-foot intervals to posts secured with cement footings, with two strands of electric wire on the the pasture side to help the horses respect their boundaries. Yet somehow, every year, posts leaned and electric wire came unfastened and boards fell or were kicked down by horses arguing across pasture lines.
    They had started that morning with the small paddocks nearest the barn intended for individual turnout, mostly for Macy’s show horses that could handle only a few hours outside because of the bugs or sun—enough to stretch their legs and “get the boogies out.” Most of the horses spent the remainder of their day in their stalls or in the indoor riding arena if it wasn’t in use, so as to protect their sleek coats from fading and changing color.
    Jack and Macy had moved through those smaller paddocks quickly, mostly pounding nails into boards that had been loosened by chewing, kicking, or leaning. Once in a while they’d tighten the electric wire in places. Only a few of the boards actually needed replacing this year.
    But Macy rarely got out to walk the