The Perfect Letter by Chris Harrison

was paradise on earth. Real Thoroughbred men lived in Kentucky, Jake had complained, not Texas. Texas might as well be the ends of the earth.
    Leigh remembered the day they arrived, a dusty Sunday afternoon in August, the kind of day that stretched out sweltering and indolent,the kind of day she usually spent at Wolf Rock, a little pool at the back of her grandfather’s property fed by a clear underground spring. Above the lip of the pool stood a large limestone boulder that the wind and water had molded, over the centuries, into the shape of a wolf’s head—hence the name of the farm. The water there was always cool and clean, and in the long afternoon hours of the summer, she’d strip off her clothes and soak naked in the water, her skin turning brown in the sun, the air hot and still. Animals came from all over for a drink, and Leigh would hold herself as silent as possible whenever a deer or a coyote (even, once, a small black bear) came stealthily out of the bushes. They always ignored her; she was just another animal to them, not small enough to eat, not big enough to be a threat. The horses would come, too, sometimes rolling in the cool mud at the edge of the spring, scratching their behinds against a tree trunk. When the sun started to go down, Leigh would get dressed and wander home in time for supper, her grandfather admonishing her to take a bathing suit at least. “It isn’t seemly, Leela,” he’d say. “It isn’t ladylike. What will you do if someone sees you? You’re nearly a woman now. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
    â€œSure, Pop,” she’d say, and then do as she pleased anyway. Like mother, like daughter.
    The afternoon Jake arrived she’d promised her grandfather some help with a three-month-old colt that had taken ill. It had been born in May and walked just hours after birth, the way it was supposed to, but a few weeks later it had sickened, lost its glossy bay coat, and refused to stand. For weeks she and her grandfather had tended it, rubbing lotion on its dry skin, trying to encourage it to get to its feet. They’d had vets by the dozens to see it, but nothing had helped.
    Finally her grandfather had made the decision to put it down. Leigh was heartbroken—the colt had the best possible pedigree, out of her grandfather’s best mare and stud—but the poor thing wassuffering, and it was time for its suffering to end. She had been there to see the vet give it the injection, stroking its head as it closed its eyes for the last time. Afterward she’d gone for her swim, but her heart wasn’t in it. She’d managed only a quick dip, but the afternoon was already spoiled, so she’d turned and come straight home.
    The truck, a big, new red Chevy with Kentucky plates, was waiting by the tire swing in the circle driveway in front of the main house when she came around the bend. She’d forgotten about the new trainers her grandfather had hired, but there was Ben Rhodes, stretching his back after the long drive, looking the place over admiringly—the long, low stables, clean and cool and shaded from the sun by deep porches; the breeding shed and equipment barns; not one but two freshly painted white cottages for the trainers and the farmhands; the brick big house with its two long, low wings fronted by an impressive columned porch, a deep blue swimming pool in back; the rows of live oaks leading up to the house; and surrounding it all, four hundred acres of the best Texas pastureland, dotted by stands of bur oaks and cedars all fed by the best clear underground springs for hundreds of miles around.
    â€œWhoo, there’s a lot of money here,” Ben had said under his breath. He had dark hair shot with silver, wide shoulders stretching a red T-shirt, crinkly, friendly eyes. He gave her a little wave. “Hey, darlin’,” he’d said, “I thought I was coming to Gene Merrill’s