I had a lot of time to calm down during my long drive home. There was a camera mounted inside my trailer, and I was able to monitor the horses on a small screen in the cab of my pickup the whole way. Sultan and River panicked slightly when the trailer first began to drive, but they soon calmed down and crowded together at the front in an effort to balance themselves. Completely normal behavior for wild horses. The stallion, however, was a different story.

He spent almost the entire ride with his eyes level with the vents in the trailer, looking out. He didn't seem worried in any way, even when an eighteen wheeler truck blew past us and blared its horn, causing the other two Mustangs to panic again. Several times, I caught him pressing his nose to the trailer door, almost as if he was testing to be sure it was secured. By the time I pulled into the driveway to my ranch, and drove under the archway with the name Changing Fate painted on it, I was sure that the buckskin stallion was not a wild horse.

I decided that he must have escaped from some ranch a while ago, and reverted to his wild instincts to survive. "I'd bet someone is missing you," I said to his image on the screen as I pulled the trailer around and backed it up to the gate closest to the barn. That gate led to a corral that was inside of my Mustang pasture. I always unloaded the Mustangs into the smaller enclosure first, so they could rest and I could get a good look at them before turning them loose.

As far as why he had been scheduled to be put down, I was still completely baffled by that mystery. He'd exhibited no signs of lameness as far as I could see. There had to have been some mistake. Just to be safe, I would mention the possible laminitis to my vet when she came by later. I always scheduled for her to swing by and take a look at any new horses before I turned them free on the ranch.

Changing Fate was nearly five thousand acres, and it was now a sanctuary for Mustangs. The ranch had been in my family for generations, and three years ago, it became mine. My grandfather, one of only two men in my life who had proven to be trustworthy, had willed me the entire property, much to the fury of my cousins. Colby and Rex had just assumed that the ranch would be theirs, they were the boys, after all. But Grandpa had felt that I would take the land and try to use it for something good.

Suddenly finding myself the owner of a substantial piece of property, right on the heels of losing the most supportive person in my life, had been a surreal experience. It had been just the kick in the pants that I had needed to make some changes. First, I had finally decided it was time to say goodbye to Jaxon, my boyfriend of six years. For so long, I had felt like I couldn't leave him. Where would I go? But then I suddenly had a place to call my own for the first time. Grandpa had never liked Jaxon. In hindsight, that should have been a red flag way back when I was a star struck nineteen year old, giddy because the cute boy said he liked me. I liked to imagine that Grandpa would be thrilled that he had had something to do with my finally leaving.

I had quit my dead end job that I couldn't stand, but kept for years because Jaxon said that I should. I had loaded up all of my important possessions, there wasn't that much to be honest, into the back of my ancient car. I did it while Jaxon was out with his friends, which may have been the cowardly way out, but I was taking the credit anyway. Confrontation made me feel like I was going to vomit. I had loaded myself and my tabby cat into that car, and I had driven away.

I didn't stop driving until my eyes were so heavy that I couldn't keep them open any longer, some time the following day. The increasingly angry texts that had been pinging my phone had started as soon as Jaxon came home and found me gone. Apparently, he had decided to ignore the note that I had left for him on the dining room table. The one where I asked him to please let me leave in peace. Instead, he blew up my phone with gems like 'Where r u? I'm hungry.' Or, my personal favorite, 'I didn't tell you you could have the cat. Bring her back.'

I snorted at the memory as I put the truck into park. Gabby had been a present from my mom the year before I met Jaxon. She was my cat, not his, and I would have never even considered leaving her behind.

I sighed. Jaxon had never mistreated Gabby. In fact, he'd never laid a hand on me, either. But there were other ways to hurt a person. To break them down until they were a shell of their former selves. And he had been a master of that particular skill. Small men liked to make themselves feel better by stepping on the people around them. I could see that now, but it had taken me a while to begin to understand that he had been the problem, not me.

I slid out of the truck. The trailer rattled as the horses inside jostled around. Going to the back, I reached through the high wooden fence and unlatched the trailer door, flinging it wide open. All three horses bolted through the door and into the corral. Two of the three immediately ran to the far side of the enclosure and milled around nervously. The stallion had scrambled off of the trailer along with them, but he didn't retreat all of the way to the other side of the pen.

Stopping about thirty feet away, he turned around to face me and snorted loudly. His head tossed and his ears swiveled back and forth. "It's going to be ok, boy," I repeated my promise to him from earlier. "We're just going to let Ash take a quick look at you all, and then you can be free." The horse snorted and stomped one front foot. We were staring at each other intently. Both trying to figure the other out, I thought, when the sound of boots crunching along the gravel driveway caught my attention.

"Hey Ben," I called out. "How'd everything go here while I was gone?"

The short, bow legged old man who had been my Grandpa's best friend for fifty years walked up to join me at the railing. "Everything is fine," he told me. "How was your trip?"

"Well..." I hedged, "I may have brought home three horses, instead of two." I looked over at him sheepishly.

"I can see that, girl. What did you do that for? I thought that you had decided on only two this time." He glanced at me and smiled, smoothing over the sting of his words.

I laughed lightly. Ben had known me for my entire life. Every summer of my childhood, my mom had shipped me off to spend a full month at the ranch, and Ben had been there for me nearly as much as Grandpa had. Now that Grandpa was gone, and I was living and working full time on the ranch, Ben had stepped in to help me with the never ending work that came with owning the ranch. I didn't know what I would have done without him.

"You know me," I told him with a smile. "I can't say no to a horse in need."

Ben made an affirmative noise as he turned his attention to the horses. He studied them silently for a few seconds. "Nice looking bunch of horses," he finally told me.

I nodded in agreement, studying the horses myself. The stallion had moved further away, and was dancing around nervously, tossing his head and snorting.

"I already fed all of the horses," Ben told me, referring to the eleven riding horses that I kept at the ranch for guest trail rides. "Didn't turn them out yet, though. It's still too hot."

I nodded in agreement, still focused on the stallion. I had been keeping the riding horses inside their stalls, under running fans to help with the intense heat, during daylight hours. After the sun went down each day, they were turned out in the fifty acre pasture that was fenced off separately from the Mustang's pasture. "I'll let them out in a bit, after it starts to cool down," I told Ben.

He made the affirmative noise in his throat again. "Ok," he slapped his hands at the legs of his dusty pants. "If you don't need me any more today, I'm going to head on home."

"Thanks, Ben. You're a lifesaver," I told him.

"You know I'm always here to help," he told me gruffly and hurried to turn away. He always seemed a little bit uncomfortable with even the most mild of praise. Ben had moved into one of the guest cabins on the ranch about a year before Grandpa had died. Both of them had been widowers by that point, and both had welcomed the companionship of not having to live alone any more. His gate was a little stiff as he started to walk down the gravel driveway, reminding me that Ben wasn't young any more either.

Some day, he would be gone too. And then I really would be alone on the ranch.

My phone picked that moment to chirp that I had a new text, and I cringed. It could be perfectly fine. The message could be from Ash, telling me that she was on her way. Or it could be something else entirely. Better to know than to not know, I told myself as I slid my phone out of my back pocket.

It's time to come home.

The message had been sent from an unfamiliar number, but I know who had sent it. Jaxon. He had never stopped sending me messages, no matter what I tried. New phone number? Within a week the messages would start again. I blocked his number, and the messages would just come from a new number. For three long years.

But the texts had become more alarming recently. For the last two weeks, it had been the same message, over and over. I jabbed at my phone screen with an unsteady finger, blocking this number too. Not that it would do much good, but I didn't know what else to do. Even from one thousand miles away, Jaxon had the power to throw me off balance.

A loud snort made me look at the nearby horses. The stallion was looking steadily in my direction, ears pricked forward. "Everything is fine," I told him and shoved the phone back into my pocket. I talked to my tame horses all of the time, but not usually the Mustangs. For some reason, talking to this horse just felt right, so I decided to go with it. "My stupid ex," I said quietly. "He is a problem that I don't know what to do about. Good this he's clear on the other side of the country."

The stallion snorted again and pawed at the ground. I knew he couldn't understand what I was saying, but it felt good to say the words out loud anyhow. I talked so much around my horses because they wouldn't judge me, and that felt nice. "Anyway, it's hot out here. Let's get you three some water," I forced a note of cheerfulness into my voice, determined not to let Jaxon ruin my day.

Lugging around large buckets of water was not my favorite thing to do, but I was sure the horses were thirsty by that point. So I went to the barn and got them a bucket of water. I had no sooner set the bucket down inside their gate, and stepped back, when the stallion rushed to the bucket and dropped his head down to sniff the water. He sniffed experimentally at the surface, blowing out air hard, before dipping his head and drinking the water in greedy gulps.

My horror grew as he steadily drank until the bucket was almost empty. "Easy there, boy. Don't drink too fast," I warned him, worried. "Geez, how long has it been since you had any water?" The stallion finally raised his head, a few drops of water falling from his nose. "Better now?" I asked him.

He didn't answer me, of course, just stood there and watched me steadily. That was when I heard the sound of gravel crunching under tires that signaled the arrival of the vet. "Ash is here," I told him as I turned to watch her truck come up the driveway.

"Hey!" she greeted me as she slid out of the driver's seat. "How was the trip home?"

Ashley, or Ash, as she preferred to be called, had been one of the first people I had met when I moved to the ranch. She had only recently graduated from veterinary school, and was looking for new clients. I was planning to sell the small herd of beef cows and calves that my Grandpa had kept on the ranch, and needed a vet's inspection done on the herd. From the second we met, we had been fast friends. She was a calm and steady person, completely non threatening physically at only five feet two, and extremely compassionate. She had been exactly the kind of person I felt compelled to surround myself with.

"Hey!" I called back to her. "Everything went smoothly, no issues on the ride back."

"Great!" She walked over to meet me next to the gate. "Oh, he's pretty," she told me as she caught sight of the stallion, who had retreated back to the center of the pen.

"Yeah," I agreed with her. "The thing is, he's supposed to have laminitis. But I haven't seen any signs of lameness at all."

Ash frowned slightly as she tried to get a look at him through the fence, which was taller than she was.

"I think we could go in and get a clearer view of him," I suddenly told her on a whim. When she turned to look at me sharply, I explained. "I don't thinks he's actually a wild horse. I mean, obviously he was running free and rounded up, but he doesn't really act like a wild Mustang. He was completely unphased by the trailer ride, and he knew what a bucket of water was right away." I gestured to the nearly empty bucket nearby.

"Ok," she said carefully and nodded. "If you think he's not wild, lets give it a try. But let me grab my microchip reader first. If he's really someone's escaped horse, he may be chipped." She turned around and jogged back to her truck.

Now it was my turn to frown. If the stallion had a microchip, the right thing to do would be to return him to his owner. I found that I didn't like that idea.

I noticed that the sun was just beginning to approach the western horizon as I held the gate open just far enough for Ash and I to slip inside. All three horses immediately became restless now that we were inside their enclosure. Sultan and River began to pace back and forth at the far fence, looking for an escape. In the center of the corral, the stallion tossed his head and pawed with a front hoof, but he didn't retreat.

"Let me go first," Ash ordered in her calm voice, and I dropped back a few steps to let her take the lead. Logically, it made sense for only one of us to approach the horse first. Hopefully he would feel less threatened.

"Easy boy," Ash crooned to him in her most soothing tone, as she walked slowly forward. "No one wants to hurt you. I just want to take a little look at your feet. It's ok."

The stallion danced nervously and tossed his head, turning his ears back and forth rapidly.  When Ash was only ten feet away from him, he had enough. He pinned his ears and half reared, coming back down to the ground hard and striking out with a front hoof.

The message was clear.

Ash backed up a few paces until the stallion calmed down again. "Ok. That's not going to work. He might have been someone's horse at one time, but he's feral now," she turned to look at me briefly. "You might be able to tame him again, but it's going to take some work. I do think you are right, though. If he was completely wild, I think he would have just run from us."

I nodded in agreement with her, only half paying attention to her words. The sunlight had developed a golden cast, and it was shining off of the stallion's coat, making him look almost like he was glowing. Tossing his head lightly and swishing his tail, he looked almost magical.

"I don't see any obvious signs of lameness," Ash told me, studying his feet intently. I can't be sure without putting my hands on him, but I think he's probably fine."

Ash turned her attention then to the other two horses, and had to content herself with looking at them from a distance. She told me that all three horses looked healthy to her, and we exited the enclosure the same way that we had entered. I started to follow Ash back to her truck, and the stallion neighed, making me look back at him. He had taken a few steps forward and was watching us go. "I'll be right back," I told him.

Ash was tossing her microchip scanner, that we hadn't gotten close enough to use, back into her truck as I approached. "They look good," she told me. "I can schedule to come back out next week. I have some time on wednesday. We can ride out and I'll look over the herd for you, just to be sure that buckskin's feet are ok."

"Sounds great, thanks," I told her. "If you think they're good, I'm going to let them out."

"Go for it," she told me as she climbed back into her truck. "Hey, you need to set aside some time for a girl's night out. I might go crazy if I don't get some quality time in town pretty soon."

I laughed and assured her that I would text her soon to set something up. She waved out her open window as she drove away.

The dust that had been kicked up into the air by Ash's truck made the light cast by the setting sun look that much more hazy. I waved my hand in front of my face in a futile attempt to clear the air, and walked back toward the horses. Climbing through the outer wooden fence, I skirted around the corral fence and made it to the gate on the far side. Once I opened that gate, the three horses would essentially be set free. At least, as close to freedom as they were ever going to see again. Four thousand of my almost five thousand acres were fenced into one giant pasture that the wild Mustangs were free to roam as they wished. With the addition of these three, there would be thirty Mustangs roaming the land.

The three horses had all moved to the center of the corral and were eyeing me warily as I worked my way through the sparse grass to the gate. When he noticed me looking at them, the stallion tossed his head and flicked his ears. "Time to go home," I told them and swung the gate wide open.

It didn't take long for Sultan and River to go for the gate. As soon as I had backed off far enough for them to feel comfortable, the pair made their move. Walking at first, they soon picked up a trot that exploded into a full speed gallop as the Mustangs left the corral. Their hooves kicked up dirt and dust as they sped away, the bay paint just a step behind his palomino mare, guarding her back. I watched them go, hands shielding my eyes from the sun, until I couldn't see any sign of them any longer. There were tears in my eyes, watching the horses gain back their freedom always made me emotional, and I swiped them away with the back of a hand.

A knicker sounded from behind me, and I turned to look for the stallion, sure that he was calling after the other horses. Any second now, he would realize that he had been left behind, and he would run too.

But he wasn't looking after the other horses. Instead, those big brown eyes were trained on me. Bobbing his head gently, he whickered again. "You're free," I told him gently. "Go."

But he didn't go. The beautiful buckskin stallion began walking steadily toward where I was standing. I held completely still, afraid to even breathe, as he got closer. I looked into his eyes and felt like I knew him, somehow. The feeling was strange, and I couldn't put my finger on it exactly. I would have been hard pressed to explain it to anyone else. A few rapid heartbeats later, the horse was standing just on the other side of the wooden fence between us, so close that I could have stretched out a hand and touched his muzzle. I found that I very much wanted to see if he was a soft as he looked.

He bobbed his head and swished his long tail. My head was suddenly swimming. Breathe, I reminded myself, and sucked in a harsh breath of air. But my head didn't clear. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears again, louder than it had back when I first laid eyes on the stallion. A swirling storm had started inside my skull, and my thoughts were unclear. A strange uneasy sensation had started in my stomach. The horse bobbed his head again, and I felt like he wanted something from me. There was something that I needed to do, but I didn't know what.

All I wanted in that moment was to put my hand on the stallion, to feel his soft coat. I didn't think about the danger of trying to touch a feral horse, just acted. Stretching out my hand, I reached slowly toward the bridge of his nose.

The instant my hand connected with his nose an electric zap shot from the palm of my hand, up my arm and into my chest, knocking me back and startling me off of my feet. I landed on my butt in the dirt with a hard thump, hand stinging, and my mind suddenly very clear. "Ow," I said out loud and looked around in confusion. What had just happened? There weren't any electric fences on my ranch, but that zap sure had felt like I'd just grabbed ahold of one made to contain a bull.

Confused, I scrambled to my feet, intent on figuring out just what had happened. Where had the stallion gone? He wasn't standing on the other side of the fence any longer. Whatever that electric shock had been, it had probably startled the poor horse and sent him running away, I reasoned.

But then I noticed the figure on the ground inside the corral. I gaped at the sight of a very naked man sprawled in the dirt just on the other side of the wooden fence.