I headed for the hay barn first. Filling the twenty-four haynets that got hung up in the stables for the horses to eat would take half an hour. They got one in the morning, one at lunchtime, and another in the evening. It wasn't my favourite job because of the dust, but at least it was quiet.

I was stuffing haynet number twenty when Susie and Hayley walked past, Susie pushing a wheelbarrow and Hayley carrying a mucking-out fork.

"What are you doing out here? Don't both of you have the day off?" I asked, knowing full well that they did.

"Uh, we thought we'd give you a hand," Susie said, carefully avoiding eye contact.

"I've been out here almost four hours. Nearly everything's done. Now, tell me the real reason you've dragged your asses out into the cold to shovel shit."

"Portia Halston-Cain's just arrived," Hayley said, as if that explained everything.

Portia owned three of the horses in my barn, but she rarely visited on weekdays, so I hadn't met her yet. Gameela, Samara, and Majesty, her Arabians, were all stunningly beautiful, but according to Susie, she only ever rode two of them.

"Why doesn't she ride Majesty?" I'd asked.

"That horse is far too clever for her. He's worked out she's not a good rider, so he just dances around until she falls off," Susie said, trying, and failing, to keep a straight face.

"Why the hell doesn't she sell him to somebody who can ride?"

"Because then she'd have to admit she can't. Plus he's pretty, and she imported him from Qatar for some stupid amount of money that she never misses an opportunity to brag about."

Majesty reminded me of Stan, which meant even though he was an arsehole, I still liked him. Plus he had the measure of his owner, which made me even fonder. Still, none of that explained why Susie and Hayley were traipsing out to see her.

"From what I've heard, Portia being around is a good reason not to be out here."

"Her brother's come with her," Susie said, a faraway look in her eyes.

"So?"

"Just wait until you see him."

Wait until I saw him? Yeah, I could wait. I finished filling the haynets then returned to the barn to fetch the feed buckets, and when I walked in, it seemed as though everybody at the farm had gathered there.

Susie and Hayley were walking up and down, looking for non-existent poop, while Jessica and Marianne brushed horses that had already been groomed. Half a dozen girls whose horses lived in the other barns pretended to talk to them, and a couple more hovered around Arabella, another of the owners. Arabella was sitting outside her horse's stable, stuffing her face with crisps.

All heads pointed in the direction of Samara's box, and I could hear a high-pitched whine coming from inside. A whine I could only assume came from Portia.

"She's got dirt on her rug. She needs a new one."

A male voice replied, smooth, low and seemingly exasperated. "If you get her a new one, she'll get that dirty too. She's a horse. She doesn't understand she needs to stay clean. Can't we just get it washed?"

"No! That's not the same. She doesn't want a used rug. Besides, this colour doesn't suit her."

"But you chose the colour," the man said.

"Well, it was difficult to judge the exact shade in the shop. But now she's wearing it, I can see it doesn't suit her."

"She probably doesn't realise that."

Ooh, wrong thing to say. I felt sorry for the guy as Portia's voice rose in both pitch and volume.

"Well she might not know, but everyone else does, and they'll think I'm a stupid colour-blind person who can't even pick a rug that matches her horse. Sammy can't wear it anymore. And Majesty and Gameela need new rugs too, because if Sammy has one and they don't, they'll think I love her more than them."

Impeccable logic there. I bet horses talked about things like that all the time while the humans were asleep.

The poor bloke sighed and admitted defeat. "Okay, get them new rugs. Just make sure they're the right colour this time, because you're not buying more next week."

Now she'd got her own way, Portia's voice turned sickly sweet. "Ooh, you're the best brother ever."

The guy emerged from the stable, and there was a collective intake of breath from everyone except me. He breathed deeply himself, leaning against the wall outside Samara's stable with his eyes closed. His clenched jaw and balled fists suggested he was a man on the edge.

I took the opportunity to get a good look at him. Just over six feet tall, he had tousled, dark blond hair a month past needing a cut and a day's worth of stubble. Were his jeans well-worn or designer? Hard to tell these days.

Three months ago, Bradley, who looked after my wardrobe as well as my diary, had presented me with a pair full of holes and informed me they cost over a thousand dollars. I'd counted up—sixty dollars per hole. He hadn't been impressed when I told him to go with the cheap ones next time and I'd do the holes myself.

Next time. A sigh escaped. When would that be?

I shut down that wayward thought and looked back at Portia's brother. Surely he must be freezing in only a T-shirt and a beaten-up leather jacket? Still, his lack of clothing let me see his goods, and I ran through my mental checklist. The verdict? Not bad. I'd had better. I worked with better. In the department I ran, every day was Diet Coke Break day. But yeah, in Lower Foxford, I could see why Mr. Halston-Cain warranted a fucking fan club.

I checked the thermometer on the wall. Judging by the flushed faces around me, the temperature seemed to have risen by a couple of degrees, but the mercury remained steady.

Good grief.

While the rest of the girls gawked, I collected up the buckets and headed off to the feed room. I'd long since learned to see past people's looks and judge them on what sort of person they were, so although I freely admitted the guy could have his own calendar, I didn't feel the need to swoon.

Before I reached my destination, my stomach let out an almighty grumble, reminding me I'd skipped breakfast in favour of five extra minutes under the duvet.

I decided to nip inside and make myself something to eat before I carried on. After all, there were enough people on duty in my barn that I felt like a spare part. The horses never got that much attention on weekdays, and some of them were looking downright confused by it.

Back in my trailer, I stuck two slices of bread in the toaster, and when they popped out, I covered them in butter and raspberry jam. Toby's voice prattled on about the amount of saturated fat in the butter and the sugar content of the jam, but I ignored him. At least the bread was wholemeal, and I poured out a glass of orange juice to go with it. Having one of my five-a-day would offset the butter, right?

Hunger temporarily banished, I walked back towards the feed room. What were the chances of getting Portia's brother to stop by every day so people would do all my work for me? That way, I could get an extra hour in bed.

The feed room was a converted stable, dingy because it didn't have any windows. I flicked on the light then cursed myself for jumping when I found said brother sitting on a feed bin in the far corner.

"What on earth are you doing here?"

"Uh, checking my emails." He held up his phone to prove it.

"Which requires darkness?"

"No, but..."

I thought back to the posse hanging around in the barn. "You're hiding?"

"Yeah." He gave a sheepish shrug. "Normally, no one comes in here."

"I can't really blame you."

I'd hide too if I was like the Pied bloody Piper for socialites and stable girls.

"So it's okay if I stay?"

"If you want. I'll admit I was hoping you'd stick in the barn a bit longer so your groupies would clear the cobwebs and scrub out the water drinkers, but I can see why you wouldn't want to."

He chuckled. "Thanks. I promise I won't get in your way."

The grin he flashed revealed a perfect set of white teeth. Either he had great genes, or his dentist was on speed dial. They looked even lighter offset against his tan. How did he get that in winter? Holiday or tanning salon?

"What makes you think you'll be any safer in here with me?" I asked.

"You didn't shriek or faint." He gave a wry laugh, but sadly there was some truth in it.

"I'm not the shrieking kind. Or fainting."

I got on with making up the feeds, scooping the right amount of conditioning cubes and chaff into each bowl according to the chart on the wall. Then I added the supplements. The horses got so many, the shelves looked like a branch of GNC. It seemed to be a competition among the owners as to who could pump the most extras into their beloved steed. Some of them got more vitamins than food.

"Do you need a hand with those?" Portia's brother asked as I picked up a pile of bowls to carry to the barn.

"Nah, you'll get mobbed. Just stay here."

He was being a gentleman, but he clearly hadn't thought his offer through.

"Good point. You won't tell them where I am?"

"Your secret's safe with me."

An hour later, after Portia had ridden Samara and the group of admirers had dispersed, her brother re-materialised in the barn. As I watched the pair walk back to his car, I felt sorry for him. Sitting in a cold feed room couldn't have been his favourite way to spend Saturday morning. Why didn't he stay at home? Or at the gym or on the sunbed? I suspected they were both places he frequented.

"Do you want to have dinner with us?" Susie asked before she disappeared inside.

"Sounds good." Anything was better than my own cooking.

It wasn't that I'd spent my life trying out recipes that always went wrong. It was more that I'd never needed to cook. When I was a kid, we rarely had proper food in the house, and as I got older, someone else made me food or I ate things that didn't need cooking. My microwaving skills were legendary, and I knew how to build a campfire, but I didn't know where to start with ingredients.

Maybe I should buy a recipe book? It would give me something constructive to do with my evenings rather than watching crappy TV re-runs. And worse, the files on the cloud drive kept taunting me. Part of me wanted to buy a laptop and start looking at them, but at the same time, they scared me. I didn't want to anger my husband's killer, and I didn't want to make my nightmares any worse than they already were.

The nightmares were a monster that fed off the black parts of my soul. Each one started with an event from my past then twisted it into a horror that consumed me. I was a helpless participant, unable to stop the visions in my head until I woke.

And that wasn't the worst of it. I remembered every vivid detail of the nightmares, but it was the night terrors and the sleepwalking that terrified me.

Nothing was as bad as finding out I'd done something in the middle of the night I had no memory of. Nothing. Especially when that something involved hurting somebody I cared about. I'd seen some of the most horrible things imaginable, but what scared me most was my own mind.

Over the years, I'd learned the medical details and tried every treatment possible. The only thing that had helped was talking through the worst of it with my husband, a therapeutic debrief if you like, but I no longer had that option.

No, my only choice was to stick with Carol's strategy of using time to heal and hope for a miracle.