Chapter 20 #2
Dolly starts walking, and sure enough, mine falls behind at a slow pace.
So slow, in fact, that Dolly is already getting a little bit ahead of us.
I start to get worried I’ll get lost if I don’t get my horse moving, so I give her a tiny little squeeze with my heel, at which point she picks up the pace to a faster walk.
“Whoa,” I say, holding the saddle, nervous that I might slide off. But once she catches up to Dolly, Cleo slows again. Fitz looks over his shoulder at us and grins.
We follow a road to the edge of town and then take another path that turns into an unpaved trail.
That leads to a pasture where a few dozen cows graze on the last bits of grass.
I wait, half-expecting the cattle to turn troublesome and ornery, but it turns out that they just need to be nudged to move one field over.
Fitz gives his horse a command, and rounds up the cattle, circling them and urging them forward until they start walking in one direction. Eventually, Cleo follows slowly behind, seeming wholly disinterested in the activity.
Once Fitz moves the cattle to the next pasture, Dolly comes back toward me at a canter with Fitz sitting high in the saddle, backlit by the sun, emphasizing his sexy broad chest and cowboy hat. He slows down and I catch his broad smile. He seems happy out here, and it relaxes me.
“That was a mini cattle drive, but you get the idea,” Fitz says. “You crushed it.”
I laugh, and Cleo starts plodding along again behind Dolly.
Before long, we're climbing, taking a switchback pass up a gentle rolling hill, crisscrossing over a creek, and walking under stands of trees in a quiet area that shields the valley from view.
It's almost like someone planted the trees intentionally for dramatic effect.
As soon as we finish the final switchback, we’re treated to a dramatic view from the top of the entire valley.
“Oh, wow,” I gasp, having never seen such a beautiful landscape that didn't involve the ocean. Spreading before us is a patchwork of green fields, golden grasses swaying in the breeze, and clusters of wildflowers growing along the winding creek until it disappears.
A large bird circles overhead, its wings wide and steady. Fitz points. “That’s a red-tailed hawk. Love them.”
“You love hawks?” I raise a skeptical eyebrow.
He chuckles. “Who doesn’t?”
Sunlight dapples the trees, which give way to the glint of water in a stream below.
The hills spread out in easy rolling humps of tans and greens with rustic fences dividing properties along twisting lines.
In the distance, the rooftops of a few low-slung ranch houses pepper the landscape, surrounded by grazing sheep and horses, lazily going about their business, oblivious to us.
Just like the dolphins I sometimes see along the Pacific coast.
The air smells earthy and fresh, and I inhale deeper, wanting to remember the way the breeze feels against my skin in this quiet moment. Just us, on top of the world, with so much unknown lying ahead.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I feel at peace for once in my life. It’s a heady, addictive feeling.
It's also the first time in my life I understood the appeal of living out here in a place like this, or at least visiting it an awful lot.
“Fitz,” I call.
He slides off his saddle and walks toward me, eyes tracing me from head to toe. Dolly wanders over toward a patch of grass that will keep her busy for a while.
“Yeah?” he asks, offering me a hand.
I slide off the saddle and onto the ground, where I stand toe-to-toe with him, our bodies nearly touching. It would be so easy to take a step closer and tip my lips up toward his, but that is not the agreement we made. So instead I look down, not at the ground, but down at the valley below us.
“This is so incredibly beautiful,” I say. “I had no idea.”
“No idea anything could look this pretty?” I turn to find his eyes fixed on me.
My skin blazes, and I feel a flutter of awareness that I need to crush. I turn back to the scenery and work to regain control of my racing pulse.
“Just no idea what existed out in the world. Maybe you're right. Maybe I've been cooped up in my city life for too long, and this is what I need. Time in the outdoors. Time on the back of a horse, time with a nice guy.”
“Is that how you see me? A nice guy?” He leans toward me with a smirk, his tone half teasing, half serious, and I wonder how he wants me to characterize him. Or how he’d characterize himself.
“Yep. You’re pretty darn nice,” I say, but I’m lying. “Nice” only scratches the surface of how I’m beginning to feel about him. He makes me feel brave. Daring. A capable cowgirl riding a horse up a mountain.
And the way he takes care of every detail—takes care of me—is a sweet, addictive balm for someone who’s always the responsible adult in the room.
Not to mention his protective instincts, his dry wit, his hardworking nature, and that lone wolf thing he has going.
All of that, plus the way he takes care of the people in Willow Springs, makes him far more than handsome.
He takes a step closer to me and points at an eagle circling over the valley. His proximity ramps up my pulse and heats my skin.
I look out at the view, and for the first time in my life, I understand what it means to be speechless. There's nothing I can say that could possibly sum up the beauty that lies in front of me.
“This—this is…” I stutter and stumble, trying to put into words what I am looking at.
It's better than the view I first had when I climbed up the berm and looked out over Fitz's property.
Thinking back to that day, I want to laugh at myself.
After living in Los Angeles for my entire life and spending ample time staring at the Pacific Ocean, I thought I knew the extent of natural beauty.
That first glimpse of lush, flowering greenery on Fitz’s land looked like Mother Earth had given birth right there, her crowning achievement. I feel pride on her behalf.
And now that I know Fitz was responsible for the vision for the place, I appreciate him for the quiet way he makes things happen without fanfare. Like this ride, which he made sound like an idle idea that might be fun to explore. It’s so much more.
I don’t tell him any of this because I need to respect his boundaries. He will always live two hours away from me and have his own life. It is enough that we’re bound as co-parents. It has to be enough.
We stand there so long that eventually the sun dips behind a mountain covered in sheets of tall green grasses that blow in the breeze like a wave. I watch the wind catch one end of a field and take the tips of the stalks with it as it shimmers across. Over and over.
It's mesmerizing. The same feeling I have when I look at the ocean, its powerful churn kissing the sand on the shoreline, pulling seashells into the tide and washing them back onto the beach.
My eyes travel upward to where the green meadows meld with the trunks of trees stretching to the sky.
Some of the leaves are evergreen, and some are starting to turn a golden brown.
The weather is still warm this time of year because this is California after all, and even for a place with normally temperate weather, it's an unseasonably sunny day.
It's so still and quiet where we are, with only the slight churn of water from a brook somewhere nearby, which only serves to amplify the chirping of birds in trees I can't even see.
Sounds of nature are all I hear, other than my own heartbeat, which flutters at the sheer beauty of the place. But also in the presence of this man, who’s able to push me and reassure me in the same moment.
“I know,” Fitz says. “It's the best place in this whole damn valley. I used to come up here once a day just to let my thoughts roam and enjoy the peace and quiet. But lately, I’ve been too swamped to get here as much.”
“When's the last time you were here?” I ask.
He thinks about it, letting out a long, slow breath. “It's probably been a month, easy.”
It surprises me. If I had access to this view, I’d make a point of coming once a week.
Then again, I have access to hikes in the Santa Monica Mountains with incredible ocean views, and I can’t think of the last time I put on my trail shoes.
Maybe it’s the same living out here. We take too many things for granted. For months, sometimes. Years.
“Really? You went from coming daily to not coming for a month?”
“You know how it is. When you get busy on a project and work takes its toll, even the important things in life start to fall away.”
“True. I can’t remember the last time I left work in time to see the sunset, and lately, I don’t even know why I’m working so hard. Somehow, I jumped into the race and forgot that maybe it’s not a race I want to win. I think I got caught up in the noise.”
It feels good to admit my dissatisfaction with my job out loud, but I have no idea what to do about it. “Anyway, it shouldn't be like that,” I say.
“But that’s life. The times when you need the peace and quiet are the times you convince yourself you’re good with the noise. Even when there’s a place like this a couple of miles away. Our brains know what we need, but that doesn’t mean they’re good at listening to what's right.”
I cling to this small reveal, wondering about the noise he lives with.
He stares out, and his chest expands as he breathes in the cool air. I know how good his muscular torso looks under his chambray shirt, but I’m more interested in watching him breathe right now. Seems like he needs it as much as I do.