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The old man just looked at her with absolute incomprehension

It was at that moment she spotted the horse The horse was saddled, bridled and unattended

Unattended

She could just go

It wasn’t logical, nothing rational about her plan She was just going to go and she didn’t know anything other than to go, just go, and let the chips fall where they may

She cli the reins she kicked at the horse, urging hio

The horse gave her a funny sideways glance before stretching out in an easy canter They rode across the pale crea at the sa

This was crazy, foolish, dangerous But she didn’t turn back and didn’t slow She felt as if she were running for her very life Orfrom her very life

She wouldn’t be trapped again She wouldn’t let others control her life or her destiny

She’d had years of answering to others, years of giving up her own hopes, years of waiting and she couldn’t wait any more

With the dazzling sun shining in her eyes and the heat exploding all around therip, the blanket style saddle unfamiliar Part of her brain told her to slon and another part was just wild—frenzied—and she si at that reckless, breakneck speed

Maybe if she’d had a different past, a different experience with life, she could sit in the ca, not when she felt as though she’d spent her whole life waiting

Tally wasn’t an only child In fact, she was far fro the eldest in a family of five children She’d been responsible for so