Kirk padded across the living room to the front door and opened it, knowing that he needed to take care of the horses. The spring had been exceedingly mild so far, and the dull sky-more gray-blue than blue-promised another cool day. Kirk grabbed his light-blue jacket from where it hung beside the door and pulled it on. As he stepped outside, he hoped that the sky would clear and that by the afternoon the mercury would climb.

Great expectations, he thought, but the phrase resonated less with respect to the weather than to his own life. On his way to the barn, he considered the classic novel, which he had already read several times before, and he suddenly faced a moment of self-revelation. Have I become Miss Havisham? he asked himself. Jilted at the altar, her heart broken, the Dickens character had subsequently locked herself away, spending the rest of her life in her manse, Satis House, which she had then allowed to decay around her.

And me? he thought. Have I locked myself away? Kirk had not been abandoned on the day of his wedding, but fifteen years ago he had watched as Edith Keeler had been killed. The death of the woman he’d believed his one true love had affected him deeply, and though he hadn’t physically sequestered himself away as Miss Havisham had-at least not then-hadn’t he isolated himself in other ways? After his loss of Edith, he had become involved with other women, and for a couple of them-Miramanee, Lori Ciana-he had developed strong feelings. But he had lost his memory prior to his romance with Miramanee, and in the end, he’d found that his relationship with Lori had been something less than healthy, something less than real. Yes, after Edith, he had become enamored of other women, perhaps even fallen in love with one or two, but in truth, he had kept the fullness of his heart locked away from all of them.

And now, he thought, like Miss Havisham with Satis House, I’m letting my uncle’s old farm crumble around me. He knew he exaggerated that last point, even as he pulled at the barn’s plank door and it creaked open in apparent support of the assertion. But while he hadn’t let this place fall completely into disrepair, neither had he truly lived here. He had survived, but not lived.

I need to change that, he thought. He had no desire to go back to Starfleet, but he wanted to regain his equilibrium, to return to being the entire man with whom Edith had fallen in love-and then he wanted to move past that. With a sense of determination, he resolved that when he returned to the house later in the day, he would bring some of his crates up from the cellar and dress the house with his belongings. He would also sit down at the com/comm station and contact Bones and Spock.

Feeling more positive than he had in quite some time, Kirk hauled bales of hay from within the ragged old barn and out to the corral, where he broke them down. Then, after cleaning and refilling the watering troughs there, he went back into the barn and checked the two horses he kept-Tom Telegraph and Fellow Jacob-for signs of illness or injury. After verifying their apparent health, he cleaned their hooves, then led them outside. While the horses ate and watered in the corral, Kirk mucked out their stalls.

Later, he walked Fellow Jacob around the grounds for a while, then let him out to pasture. He then saddled up Tom Telegraph and rode him out into the hills. There, he broke the horse into a gallop. The chill of the dawn had burned off now, the temperature rising nicely, and the rays of the midmorning sun warmed Kirk’s face. Tom Telegraph’s hooves beat rhythmically along the ground, accompanied by the whisper of the switchgrass through which they moved. As always, it felt good to ride.

Tom Telegraph moved well and seemed strong today, and Kirk decided to take him over to the ravine. He directed the horse into a moderately wooded area, and amid the trees and bushes, they picked up speed as they neared the meters-wide chasm. Kirk loosened the reins, leaned forward out of the saddle, and grabbed hold of Tom Telegraph’s mane.

At the ravine, the horse leaped up and forward. As it always did, Kirk’s heart beat faster in his chest as they crossed the wide gap in the earth. No matter how many times he had made this leap, it still scared the hell out of him whenever he did so again. A break in stride, a bad approach, a short landing, all could have spelled trouble for Kirk and the horse. But Tom Telegraph landed in stride and continued on up the rise on the other side. Kirk glanced back over his shoulder at the ravine, a last look at an old foe once more vanquished-

“That was foolish,” declared a voice.

Kirk peered forward again as Tom Telegraph reached the crest of the hill. There, in a saddle atop her own horse, sat a woman Kirk had never before seen. Tall and attractive, she had deep brown eyes, a Roman nose, and a wide mouth, all framed by full, dark hair that fell in waves past her shoulders. She appeared perhaps ten or fifteen years younger than Kirk, but the lines around her mouth suggested that the two of them might actually be about the same age.

As he brought Tom Telegraph to a halt in front of the woman, Kirk said, “Pardon me?”

“I said, ‘That was foolish,’” the woman repeated.

“Oh, I heard you,” Kirk said with a slight grin, naturally flirting with her. “It just seemed like a curious way to say hello.”

“Maybe that’s because I wasn’t actually trying to say hello,” the woman told him. She offered no expression on her face, and Kirk couldn’t gauge the seriousness or lightness of her disposition.

“I see,” he said. “You just wanted to administer a scolding.”

“No, not a scolding,” the woman said. “More a judgment about your poor horsemanship. I suppose I was just trying to protect a life.”

“Thanks,” Kirk said, his grin widening as he contemplated the number of times his life had been in far greater jeopardy than when he’d taken Tom Telegraph over the ravine. “But I don’t think my life really needed protecting.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” the woman said with a shrug. “But I wasn’t talking about your life. I was talking about the horse’s.”

“Of course,” Kirk said, feeling the smile fade from his face. At first, he’d thought the woman difficult to read, but now her attitude seemed both clear enough and harsh enough.

“Look, I’m not trying to start an argument here,” she said after a moment, her tone at least somewhat conciliatory. “It’s just that I watched you ride at full gallop and jump that gulch. You must’ve seen it, and yet you didn’t bother to pull up and examine it in order to make sure that your horse could make it safely across.”

“We’ve made this jump before,” Kirk said, reaching forward and patting Tom Telegraph on the side of the neck.

“Not today, you haven’t,” the woman persisted. “I’ve been around here for a while, so I know this is your first time out this morning. Which means that even if you have made this jump before, you didn’t know if the conditions had changed, if maybe the gulch had widened, its banks eroded by the weather. Maybe you made the jump two weeks ago, but this week, it’s half a meter wider. Your horse could’ve fallen and been very badly injured or even killed.”

Kirk nodded as she spoke. “Actually, I was out here two days ago,” he said when she had finished. “We haven’t had any rain since then, and no earthquakes or tornadoes or other serious weather events. And before I jumped, I took note of the plank.” He pointed back down toward the ravine, and the woman peered in that direction. “I actually placed that there myself as an obvious visual measurement of the ravine’s width. When I saw it there, I knew that the gap hadn’t grown.”

The woman looked back over at him. A bit sheepishly, she said, “I suppose that’s logical.”

Kirk burst into laughter, surprising himself with the force of his amusement. The woman tilted her head to one side and looked at him with obvious curiosity.