Fall Too Well (Cozy Creek Collection)

Chapter 19

Nash

S weat pours down my back as I pound the red-hot metal and shape it into a shoe. Farrier work is grueling and hard, but I love it. It’s where my mind can wander, and instead of using it to drown out thoughts of Everly. . . she’s all I want to think about now. I wonder what she’s doing and where her mind’s at on everything with us. I make an extra shoe, and it’s hot and tiring, but my body needs it. Something about being outside with the horses clears my mind and makes me dream of what life will be like on my own property someday. This property has been in my family for four generations now on my mother’s side. My father’s family is from Ireland, and he’s a first-generation American. Ireland has always been a special place for us. We’ve spent a part of many summers there as kids visiting our grandmother. We’d stay with her and help her at her bakery, and she’d come here to visit us. She hasn’t been well enough to make the trip over here for a few years, which worries us all. It’s hard to be so far away from her. The back part of land on my parents' ranch has forty acres, so I’ll have my own ranch someday. I have a tiny home out there right now that I placed near where my house will be built. I like to go out there every now and then and dream. But it was hard to dream about a place where I couldn’t see myself living at until now. I can see Everly and Willow there with me, and it feels like it could really happen. I can see us having a big, beautiful home, lots of animals, and a horse for Willow to ride. My brother and sister have the same number of acres on either side of mine, so we’ll be neighbors someday with our own families. None of us have settled down. Kincaid is off working the rodeo circuit and isn’t home very often, and Hayley seems…lost. She’s been different, and maybe it’s because we’ve been so busy with the pub. Although she does seem somewhat happier now that Everly is back in Cozy Creek.

I look out over the mountains and dream of having a wife and a family that I can take care of here. I’ve only ever wanted to live here in Cozy Creek. Even in high school and after, when I was still doing dumb shit, I wanted to get it right. I just didn’t know how. And now I feel like I’m getting it right. And I’m going to tread very carefully with Everly. I can’t mess it up. They are everything to me.