Wendy's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Wendy planned weddings for a living, and now she had lost her own groom. Three weeks before their ceremony at the country inn, he walked out the door and did not come back. She still carried her leather planner, the one with his initials stamped beside hers. She flipped past seating charts and cake tastings to the blank pages that should have held their honeymoon. She had no address, no note, no clue where he went. Until she found one, she could not chase him. She drove to the inn anyway. The weathered wood siding still glowed from the lantern-lit windows. She had booked it for the two of them, and she wanted to walk the grounds where she last felt sure of anything. The innkeeper met her at the porch. He wiped his hands on a rag and would not look her in the eye. "He came by," the innkeeper said. "Last week. Paid to cancel the room." Wendy gripped the planner against her chest. "Where did he go?" "Didn't say. But he left something in the barn. Wouldn't take it with him." She followed the innkeeper across the wet grass. In the barn stood a small, shaggy pony. It flattened its ears and stamped one hoof when she stepped close. She knew this animal. Her groom had bought it for their farm, the one they planned to buy together. He would never leave it behind. "He said a friend would keep it," the innkeeper added. "Some fellow up north. Left an address so I could send the feed bills." He handed her a folded scrap of paper. Wendy opened it. A town name. A street she had never heard of. The pony snorted and turned its back to her, stubborn as ever. She pressed the address flat inside her planner, right on the empty honeymoon page. For the first time in three weeks, she knew which direction to drive. Her hands stopped shaking. Then the innkeeper spoke again. "You should know. He wasn't alone when he came." He nodded at the pony. "A woman waited in the car. She's the one who signed for the feed." Wendy looked at the paper again. The name at the bottom was not her groom's. It was a woman's. And it was the person she now had to find first.