Forgotten Favor

A whole lot of things were looking up the afternoon Jake dropped by Mark's ranch just outside of Calgary one hot afternoon in August several years ago. The need to go up into the hay loft and do what's been done in hay lofts for thousands of years had come to a head and it just seemed...right.

What wasn't right was the black riders waiting for his brother's fatal accident that same afternoon. They came for the golden, perfect son and heir, and left Mark alone with their disapproving father and the empty hole his brother had filled.

In the following years, Jake has dropped off the rodeo circuit and got pretty much out of Mark's life forever, until a debilitating accident almost takes Mark and his favourite mare. Mark survives, with pins and plates in his leg and his horse walked away from it too, and yet somehow still ends up in a slaughter yard. But Jake's been working hard at a horse rescue centre and with one purchase, he's able to save them both.

But Jake's rescue centre isn't a complete haven. It has its own issues and concerns between the constant need for funding and the over-enthusiastic developer who has his eyes on the hay fields Jake is dependant on to feed his herd through the winter.

Mark knows, as he always has, that he and Jake were meant for each other. Arson, extremely disapproving fathers and ghost riders come back to collect someone else close to him are nothing when compared to how good this thing between him and Jake is. A single moment could change his whole life, if he doesn't remember an old-time favor owed.