Stepdaughter Stables: S4 #5

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Molly’s Point of View

I had needed Beth.

I’d needed her milk and the comfort of a body that was warm and giving and growing at the same time. She’d given me ten minutes of silence and sweetness and the low hum in her chest that said, you are held. And then she’d left, and the orangery was quiet, and the Swiss man was somewhere in my house, and I sat until my eyes wanted to close.

I didn’t close them.

I went to the stables.

My feet knew the path. Fourteen years of walking it in the dark — barefoot on the flagstones, then the gravel that bit but not enough to slow me, then the packed dirt that sloped toward the bottom of the hill.

I could have done it blindfolded. I had done it blindfolded, once, at thirteen, to prove to Bliss that I could.