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The Wild Horse Rides the Wind, Old Loves Never Meet Again
NovelShort
new
완결
Intro: At two in the morning, a blogger I followed suddenly posted an update. Day 1699 of Loving Little Delma: "The wild mare has left the prairie, and somehow she doesn't seem so special anymore. She was too wild to hold. I regret it." "My parents pushed me into a family-alliance marriage, but I really did fall for her. We come from matching backgrounds. I'm getting engaged. She's gentle and knows her manners. She's the wife I always dreamed of."
챕터 (4)
第1章
Intro:
At two in the morning, a blogger I follow suddenly posted something new.
【Day 1699 of Loving Little Delma Colton】:
"The wild mare left the prairie, and somehow she isn't so special anymore. She's untamable, and I regret it."
"My parents are pushing me into a family marriage alliance, but the truth is, I've fallen for her. Our families are well matched, and I'm going to get engaged. She's gentle and knows her manners. She's the wife I always dreamed of."
"I can give Delma everything except a name."
The comment section had already broken into an argument, and he deleted the post soon after.
But my face was wet with tears.
This was Douglas Sanchez's account, one I'd stumbled across by chance, and it had gone on recording our meeting on the prairie, day after day.
I am the Delma in the story. I am the wild mare of the prairie.
The 1699th day since I met Douglas Sanchez, and the 365th day since we promised to marry, and he is about to get engaged to someone else.
Fine, then. On our prairie, when a wild mare loses her home, she simply finds another pasture to settle in.
...
The light on the ceiling flickered on and off. I opened the skylight, and the stars were still shining, but the view wasn't as vast as it had been on the prairie.
The sky in the city was too narrow. High-rises stood packed together, sealing off all my old, unbound horizons.
That deleted screenshot on my phone, I looked at it over and over the whole night.
That light, offhand line of Douglas's was like a fine needle, pricking dense and deep into my flesh and bone, aching without a sound.
He regretted falling in love with this untamable wild mare. He regretted taking me off the prairie.
Day broke, and Douglas pushed the door open quietly and came in.
He wore a well-cut couture suit, cool and refined all over, while the clothes on me had washed pale. Maybe I really wasn't enough.
Douglas came to my side, lifting a hand to smooth back the loose strands at my forehead as if it were nothing:
"Why are you up so early? Didn't you sleep well?"
I looked up at him, and my eyes went red before I could stop them:
"Our wedding, is it going to be pushed back a while longer?"
His fingertips paused, and something reluctant crossed his eyes:
"Delma, Mother hasn't been well lately, so there's no time to plan the wedding for now. It works out. You can use this time to get used to each other a little more. She'll come to like you."
I stayed silent and didn't answer.
Douglas bent down and held me, his chin resting lightly on the top of my head:
"Don't sulk, all right? I know you're not used to life here. Bear with it a little longer. What do you want? Jewelry, a bag, a house? I can give you any of it."
Still I said nothing.
Douglas lowered his head, kissed my forehead, and sighed softly:
"You're so different from before."
"Your color's been bad all this time. Don't shut yourself in the house. Go take up riding again when you have the time. I still remember how you looked galloping across the prairie back then. You were dazzling."
His gentle words pulled open a sealed-away memory.
That year the rainy season flooded the marshes, and Douglas was saving a wild hare from the jaws of a mastiff when he sank into the mire.
I rushed in with my little horse without a second thought to pull him out, and the enraged mastiff lunged and drove its fangs clean through my calf.
Medical care on the prairie was crude, and the wound got infected and never healed properly.
From then on my left leg carried the damage. Whenever I walked for a long time, it would ache faintly.
Back then he was covered in mud, holding me tight as I bled, promising to the endless prairie that in this life he would love only me.
The vow was as clear as yesterday, yet now it was light as a passing wind. He truly had forgotten. I could never ride a horse again.
Douglas didn't stay long. He said a few things and then drove off.
I went to the cluster of cosmos flowers in the courtyard and lay down, but I couldn't press down the cold in my heart no matter what.
A little way off, a few of the servants' idle chatter drifted over:
"Yesterday the young master went in person to settle on the wedding gown, and it was an Italian tailor taking Miss Henson's measurements too. He even gave special instructions that the diamonds on the gown all had to be real."
"No wonder he wants to push the wedding back. That wild girl from the prairie, how could she belong in high society?"
"Last time I made her a fish stew special, and she said a bone got stuck in her throat and told me not to eat it either. It was so funny I nearly died."
I held my breath and listened.
"The young master really does have a soft heart. He gave special instructions that Miss Henson has to accept the wild girl as a kept mistress. That little wretch really was born lucky! Still, she did save the young master's life..."
"Pah, pah, pah. The young master is precious and highborn. She just happened to be in the right place, and off that scrap of goodwill she still dreams she can marry him? Haven't you noticed the young master won't even let her out? He must be ashamed of her showing her face outside."
Warm tears slid down without a sound, dropping onto the soil at the roots of the cosmos flowers.
My chest was aching, stopped up tight, and one line kept circling round and round at the bottom of my heart.
But when I met Douglas Sanchez, he hadn't even known Miss Henson yet.
第2章
Late into the night, Douglas came home again.
I was sitting at the dining table. A few little side dishes and a bowl of plain oatmeal were scattered across it.
He glanced at the table, his brow knitting, displeasure crossing his face.
"This is all they made for you?"
I looked at the gentle warmth in his eyes, but I couldn't ignore the red mark on his neck. A trace of lipstick.
"It's not about what's on the table, it's about who eats with me. Douglas, you haven't had a single meal with me in half a month."
A flicker of annoyance passed over his face. He crossed slowly to my side and sat down, and the smell of an unfamiliar woman's perfume drifted off him.
"Did one of the servants say something out of line? Bear with it as best you can, don't take it to heart."
"They've been with my mother for years. It isn't easy for me to come down hard on them."
I turned my head toward him slowly. The old wound in my left leg seemed to ache again, dull and low.
"Douglas, right or wrong, if your mother backs it, you'll do it without a second thought, won't you?"
"If she told you to marry someone else, would you go along like some lapdog too—"
Douglas went rigid, his voice cold as frost.
"Enough! This isn't the prairie, Delma. That free-and-easy nature of yours really does need to change."
The corner of my mouth curved into a bitter smile.
Back on the prairie, what he'd loved most was my untamed streak. But the moment I stepped into this city, the very thing that had drawn him to take me away became a flaw.
I didn't keep arguing with him. I walked back to the bedroom alone and shut the door, closing his hollow tenderness out.
With my back against the door, I opened the screenshots saved on my phone with trembling hands.
【Day 1,699 of Loving Little Delma】:
"The wild mare left the prairie, and somehow she isn't so special anymore. Her wildness can't be reined in. I regret it."
Line after line ground down my nerves. I had to admit it: Douglas had changed long ago.
After a long hesitation, I worked up the courage to log into my burner account, opened his social media page, and browsed his following list as a visitor.
My fingertip slid down slowly, and an unfamiliar account came into view.
Daphne Henson. The Henson heiress the servants said he was about to get engaged to.
I held my breath and tapped into her page. Her most recent post had gone up less than two hours ago.
The frame showed a lavish, grand proposal, and the photo caught Douglas clearly.
He stood at Daphne's side, and when he lowered his gaze to look at her, a soft smile spread through his eyes.
The caption was bold, and something in it stung on instinct:
"However vast the prairie, in the end it can't keep the one who wants to come home and settle down. Thank you, Douglas, for setting us on the path we were meant for."
My gaze slid down, and my heart was suddenly seized in a hard grip.
Douglas's profile picture sat at the very top of the likes. He'd seen this post, and of his own free will, he had liked it.
That wasn't all. I kept scrolling through Daphne's older posts.
A few photos caught my eye. The jewelry Daphne was wearing in them was a style I remembered all too well.
Not long ago Douglas had shown me a picture of it and asked if I liked it. I'd thought it was far too extravagant and shook my head, turning it down.
He'd said lightly that this piece would find the right person eventually.
So the right person, from the very start, had never meant me.
第3章
A weight like a boulder pressed on my chest, and the suffocation spread through my whole body.
The family alliance he claimed he'd been forced into had, all along, been something both of them wanted.
That post he'd deleted in a hurry was no confession. It was just a passing sentiment on a whim.
And I, the wild mare he'd brought down from the prairie, had lost my homeland and my freedom. I'd become a past that needed to be tidily put away.
All at once I understood. It wasn't me he missed.
It was the girl from years ago, the one without a single tie, galloping free across the grasslands.
I took out my phone and called back the business card I'd kept all this time.
"I'll sign. I'll take the experimental drug trial too. I want to ride again."
Out on our prairie there's an old saying. If a wild horse loses the pasture where it rests, then it goes and finds another patch of earth to stand on.
The pasture that belonged to Douglas Sanchez had already withered.
The next afternoon I got a call from an unfamiliar number.
The caller said she was the secretary for a brand partnered with Douglas, her voice gentle and polite.
"Good afternoon, Miss Colton. Mr. Sanchez has arranged a folk-style photoshoot and would like you to be the featured model."
"We'll need you in the plainest traditional dress. We're sending a lamb over. Please bring it with you to the shoot. The more natural and rustic, the better."
My fingertips trembled slightly. A long, long time ago,
I really had been the only model in front of Douglas's camera.
He'd photographed me chasing the wind on horseback, photographed me kneeling in a sea of flowers.
Back then he said I was one of a kind, a view the city could never replace.
Foolish as I was, I thought he'd finally decided to look back at me. After all, I had nothing left now.
If I could be of use to Douglas, then maybe I didn't only have to stay hidden behind him.
The caller added one more gentle instruction.
"Mr. Sanchez is very busy today, and phones are on silent at the shoot. Just come straight over. He'll be waiting for you there."
I called Douglas again and again. All I got was that cold, endless busy signal.
I dug out the plainest coarse-cloth dress, gathered up the lamb they'd sent, and arrived right on time.
At the venue someone came up to touch up my makeup, said it was the brand's unified look, and I let her do it without a shred of suspicion.
The foundation was a ghastly white smeared over my face, my brows drawn thick and stiff and black, my cheeks slapped with a garish red blush.
The person in the mirror looked crude and countrified, a complete mess.
Something uneasy stirred in me, but the thought of helping Douglas made me grit my teeth and bear it.
Then I led the lamb into the hall, and the deafening laughter died in an instant.
There was no photoshoot. This was an elite Sanchez family gala.
Everyone in suits and evening gowns, dripping with jewels.
Only me, standing helpless in that gilded ballroom with a ridiculous face full of makeup and a lamb in my arms.
Out of place. Ugly. A joke.
Every eye in the room fixed on me at once, and the mocking snickers rose one after another, not even hidden.
"Who is that? Was Douglas's taste really that bad before?"
"No wonder he kept her hidden and never dared bring her out. Cheap to the bone."
"Daphne Henson and her, one's a pearl and one's a weed. It's painful to look at."
In the center of the crowd, Douglas went rigid.
His pupils shrank, and almost at once he started toward me.
第4章
But in the next instant, Phoebe Sanchez strode forward and clamped down hard on his arm.
"Douglas, stop right there!" She lifted her eyes to me, her gaze full of contempt.
"I don't know this young woman. The Sanchez family has no such disgraceful acquaintance. My son's bride, from beginning to end, is only ever Daphne Henson."
"Throw her out!"
Phoebe's voice cut cold.
Two guards came at once, gripping my arms roughly, and the little lamb bleated in fright.
The night wind outside knifed through me. A message from Douglas came through on my phone.
"Delma, my mother didn't mean to make things hard for you. Wait for me at home, I'll explain everything tonight. After what happened, you can't go back to the prairie anyway. Just stay at the house, all right?"
Daphne came out after me, unhurried, nothing in her eyes but disdain.
"Delma? Don't be upset. Let me take you somewhere nice. Anything's better than making a spectacle of yourself here."
I was shaking all over. I bit down and backed away.
"I'm not going!"
Daphne didn't force me. She just cast a faint glance toward the shadows, and my mind slid quickly into fog.
I don't know how long it was before I jerked awake.
A strange, run-down room. Daphne was gone. But standing beside me were two men I knew all too well.
Their mouths and eyes were twisted, drool sliding down, their vacant, half-witted stares fixed straight on me.
Sheer terror seized my heart in an instant, and the memory I'd fought so hard to bury blew open.
Three years ago, my brother couldn't scrape together the bride price for his wedding.
The family talked it over all night and decided to trade me off to the bride's two mentally disabled brothers in a marriage swap.
I remember the day they held me down, those sticky eyes pressing closer and closer to my face.
Just as I was about to give up all hope, it was Douglas who broke through the door, took a horse, and carried me down the mountain through the wind and snow, all the way to his hometown.
I once believed he was the one heaven had sent to save me.
So it turned out that after everything, I'd fallen into the very same dead end all over again.
Back in the banquet hall, Douglas was on edge the whole time.
He gave the secretary a low order.
"Check Delma's phone location. Make sure she got back to the villa safely."
The secretary kept his eyes down, his face steady as he hid everything, and answered softly.
"Mr. Sanchez, Miss Colton's location is normal. She's already back at the villa, safe."
The knot in Douglas's chest eased a little, but it couldn't hold down the unease underneath.
The more he thought about it, the more wrong it felt. He couldn't shake the sense that those despairing eyes from before might never look at him again.
He broke away from the party and logged into the backend himself to check the original tracking records.
The moment the screen lit up, Douglas felt the blood in his whole body run cold to the bone.