Blair
Strolling into the kitchen, I spot Mom in the family room watching Wheel of Fortune , as always. Sitting on the old leather sofa, her silvery-brown hair atop her head in a messy bun. When she first got her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, she kept a brave face. Now she’s firmly in stage four out of seven for the disease, with no way of knowing how long before she forgets everything and needs 24/7 care. Whether it was the door alarms, the medic-alert bracelet, her eldest daughter moving home to care for her, or a combination of factors that made her depressed, we can’t be sure. But the hopeful smile is gone.
“Morning, sweetie,” Dad says, pouring himself a cup of coffee on his way out the door.
“Morning.” I grab Mom’s pill sorter and the mug of tea Dad has set out on the counter as I stroll past. The mug clunks onto a marble coaster, and I pop open the lid labeled Tuesday a.m ., dumping the pills into Mom’s open palm.
“Hey, I was thinking maybe we could go get a manicure after your doctor’s appointment in Sheridan next week? I desperately need one.”
Refusing to break her gaze from Vanna White’s demonstration of a white hybrid sedan, she shrugs one shoulder as she swallows the colored assortment of pills. “Sure.”
“Perfect. Let me do your hair for you before I head out to Cassidy’s house to babysit, okay?”
She nods once and I head for the bathroom to grab supplies. Then spend a solid ten minutes teasing away every knot, dampening the strands with a light mist of water, and pulling her hair into a secure bun. It’s not that she isn’t physically capable of brushing her own hair—she simply doesn’t care. And her depression is making things harder on Dad, who’s been busting his ass to keep her safe and happy since the diagnosis. He installed the door alarms and cameras, spent hours googling medication options to ask the doctor about, and insisted I didn’t need to move back in with them. And, for a brief second, I considered staying in the city; I loved my gorgeous apartment, my wonderful roommate, and my well-paid career at the Women’s Hospital. But the relief in Dad’s eyes when I pulled into the driveway with all my belongings made it clear this was the right choice. The only choice.
Seeing me grab my purse and sunglasses from the dining table, Mom asks with a warm smile, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to help Cass out, remember?”
Crap. I knew as soon as the word slipped out that asking her if she remembered was stupid. The first bit of expression I’ve seen in her today disappears, eyes falling to my feet. “Right. Right, yes, of course.”
“Dad’s going to be home around lunchtime. Love you.”
I double-check the oven lock, straighten the large sheet of neon yellow paper with my phone number on the fridge, and lock the front door behind me. The alarm alerts my phone on the walk to the car, and I send Dad a text to let him know I’m heading out. So many little steps which often feel entirely unnecessary when Mom’s having a good day. But sometimes she leaves the house without knowing where she’s going. Or she turns the stove on and forgets about it. Or she asks me questions about things that happened a decade ago. Those days—where she doesn’t quite feel like my mom anymore—are the hardest.
—
I squint up at the worn Wells Ranch sign hanging over the driveway. Once flanked by overgrown lilac bushes, the entrance is more clean-cut now, with manicured grass and tidy flowerbeds waiting to be planted.
Pulling into the ranch, I release a small sigh of relief when there are no cowboys in sight. It’s not that I want to avoid Denver, but…I want to avoid Denver. Cassidy’s on the front porch of the big house—the sprawling white farmhouse the Wells brothers grew up in, which is now where Jackson, his wife Kate, and their kids live.
Just my luck, my best friend had to fall in love and have a baby with an honorary Wells brother, then move to this ranch. A place filled with memories far beyond my high school boyfriend. His parents and siblings were a second family to me, and this ranch was home. My family’s never been the tight-knit kind you see on sitcoms, but the Wells family was. And I adored them.
Denver and I traipsed over every inch of their land, explored every nook in every outbuilding, kissed on the same stupid porch Cassidy and the other girls are sitting on. Now for the two months since moving back, I’ve been sneaking on and off the property to visit my baby niece almost daily. Unable to take a full breath from the moment my car rumbles across the cattle guard at the end of the driveway.
I step out into the warm spring air. It’s lightly perfumed by early floral buds, and my best friend has Hazel tucked against her chest, swaying gently in an old wooden rocking chair. Denver’s two sisters-in-law, Cecily and Kate, sit stretched out on the front steps with steaming mugs in their hands. I don’t know Cecily well yet, but I know if it were any later than eleven o’clock, Kate would be drinking something a lot stronger than coffee.
“Morning!” Kate’s daughter, Odessa, calls from where she’s sitting in a pile of topsoil with her little brother, Rhett. They’re playing with toy excavators and bulldozers, covered in dirt from head to toe.
“Hey, kiddos.” I steal glances in their direction for the entire walk up the footpath. Wondering how so much time has passed that Kate and Jackson—who were in full denial about being a couple back when I left Wells Canyon—have two children now. It’s an uncanny reminder of how much time has passed.
Kate waves as I approach the house. “Perfect timing—a fresh pot just finished brewing.”
“Thanks. I need the caffeine to function,” I say, climbing the front porch stairs. “I have to head to the clinic pretty soon, and I’m getting a migraine from thinking about Dr. Brickham’s outdated filing system. I’ve been meaning to catalog it for weeks, but organizing is not my thing.”
“I keep telling you to let me come help.” Cass shakes her head in annoyance.
“With all the free time you have?”
“I can make the time.”
“Babe, don’t worry about it. I’m just complaining for the sake of complaining.” I softly shut the screen door behind me, careful not to wake the baby.
It’s surreal to be back in this house, and the strange tightening in my stomach isn’t helped by the fact that the kitchen is the only thing that’s changed over the past decade. What used to be firmly nineties style is now updated with modern wood cabinetry and quartz countertops. Otherwise, the same photos hang on the wall—with a few additions, of course. The same stair banister we’d grip to round the corner and fly up the stairs to the boys’ rooms when Denver and I were running away from his brothers—typically after pranking them. I can’t help but wonder how similar upstairs is. Obviously, the bedrooms have changed somewhat. Did they sand and stain the floors, or are there still scuffs from when Denny and I danced for hours?
My chest seizes, breathing choked with wistful nostalgia. If things had played out differently years ago, Denver and I could be the ones living in this house. It could be our kids playing outside. Our ranch, home, family.
“You okay, honey?” Beryl, the head of the ranch’s kitchen, pokes her head out from the pantry with a lilting smile.
“Oh, yeah.” My voice comes out thick with emotion, but I smile back and continue beyond the kitchen entryway to pour a cup of coffee. She watches me, not saying anything aloud because her expression does the job just fine.
I clear my throat. “Sometimes it’s weird being back here. It’s all so different and yet very much the same.”
“Mmmm, yes. I imagine so. We always expect time will change things, but sometimes that’s not the case.”
I slowly stir the two sugar cubes, allowing them time to dissolve before adding creamer.
God, does this woman always stare into your soul like this?
“So, uh…need any help in here?” I ask.
“Oh, no, honey. Go sit with the girls.”
I nod and turn to head back outside. Though there’s a small bit of reprieve when I step out of the house filled with equal parts happiness and pain, the porch isn’t a whole lot better. I doubt there’s anywhere on this property that doesn’t hold memories.
I sink into the chair next to Cass with a short sigh. “How’s our little Hazelnut doing today?”
“She just ate, and I think she’s saving up a big poop for Auntie B.” Cass stands and delicately lowers the sleeping newborn into my arms. I tuck the thick blanket around her tiny body—though it’s a warm day for late April, this elevation still has a good nip in the air, and her pink sleeper isn’t quite warm enough. The fresh, cool air helps Hazel sleep like a rock, though.
“Perfect. I can’t wait to get back at her one day for saving every bowel movement for when I babysit.” Shifting in the chair to get comfortable, I motion my head toward the cabins in the distance. “Go. Take your shower and do your leatherworking. I got her.”
After one last glance at her sleeping daughter, she heads off to have coveted alone time. This is our routine, and I cherish every second of it, even if some days I feel like I’m the exhausted new mother with everything I have going on. The clinic, my parents, Cassidy and Hazel, and toss in overwhelming anxiety around seeing Denver—I’m run ragged and always feeling behind the eight ball.
“Aside from Brickham’s old-school methods of filing, how’s the clinic going?” Cecily asks, leaning back on her elbows to look over at me.
“It’s pretty slow—which isn’t the worst thing because it gives me more time to be here and with my mom.” I shrug. “The old-school ranchers want Brickham because I refuse to perform medical procedures in the middle of a dirty barn or field. But I’m hoping more of the women will start wanting to come to me, at least.”
Kate gives me a knowing look. I’m sure most of the cowboys at Wells Ranch would also rather see Brickham, the seventy-year-old doctor with techniques that are equally as old. But she says, “Count me in. I’m excited to not have to drive to Sheridan every time the kids get hurt or sick. Jackson can have Brickham bandage up whatever injuries he gets, but I refuse to let him work on the kids.”
“As much as I don’t want to talk shit about my boss, I can’t say I blame you.” I press the balls of my feet against the floorboards and push, sending the chair rocking backward. “I fell off a horse and dislocated my shoulder when I was a teenager. Brickham tied my arm up in a makeshift sling with baling twine. In his office. It’s not like we were out in the middle of nowhere and he was forced to make do. And I know at least once he stitched Denver up right on this porch with questionably sterile tools.”
“Jesus.” Cecily widens her eyes at me, as Beryl’s singsong voice floats through the fine mesh of the screen door, beckoning the two women to help knead bread dough for the hundreds of sandwiches they make for their cowboys each week.
I glance down at Hazel’s fine red hair blowing in the slight breeze and pull the blanket up to keep her perfectly round head warm. Honestly, this tiny human might be the main reason why I haven’t spiraled into a deep depression over moving back into my childhood bedroom. Sure, the prescription medication helps, but one hit of oxytocin from snuggling this little Hazelnut is enough to get me through a lot of bad moments.
Mid-sip of my coffee, the clomping of hooves on compact dirt deflates my chest. Typically the one thing I can count on here is that the ranch hands will be gone from sunup to sundown—my saving grace to avoid seeing Denver because the way he smiles at me makes my brain foggy, and seeing another woman all over him at the bar left me feeling like my heart had collapsed in on itself.
“Oh, it’s lucky you’re cute.” I pull a face at the infant nestled into the crook of my arm when I feel her stomach rumble on my hand. “You literally save it for me, don’t you?”
Her giant blue eyes blink up at me, and she starts to work up a cry when she realizes I’m not her mom. Her mom…who didn’t think to leave a diaper bag with me. Fuck, Cass. She’s supposed to be the organized one out of the two of us.
“Let’s go for an adventure, Hazelnut.” Up until now, I’ve spent my time with Hazel over at Cassidy and Red’s cabin on the property. But I’m sure Cass isn’t walking back there to change a diaper every time, so I head inside to find Kate wiping loose flour from the countertop.
“Hey, does Cass have diapers around here?”
“Upstairs in the first bedroom on the left. Her diapers are in the second drawer below the change table.”
Upstairs.
I take the stairs at a painstaking pace, my free hand on the banister with a rigid grip. Thankfully, Hazel doesn’t seem too bothered by what’s happening in her pants, because I’m incapable of moving faster. I don’t look to the right—to the bedroom I spent countless hours in. Instead, I slip carefully through the door of Austin’s— um, Rhett’s— room. Making quick work of changing Hazel so I can get back outside, away from the nostalgic smell of old wood and antique furniture.
But I lose every ounce of self-control when I step out and notice Denver’s old bedroom door cracked open. I tread softly, wary of creaky floorboards, like I’ll get in trouble for stealing a peek. With a gentle nudge, the hinges groan and the door swings all the way open. Everything in the room is pink now, so I don’t know why I feel the urge to lie down in a bed that definitely won’t smell like him. Or why I expect to open the closet and find a hoodie of his to steal. Despite the changes to the paint and furniture, the floor remains dented and marked up from the summer we taught ourselves country swing dancing, and it guts me. I blink away the burning in my eyes and take calculated breaths as I descend to the main floor, clutching Hazel to my chest like a security blanket.
“Wow. Feels weird seeing you walk down those stairs again.” Denver’s voice rings out from the doorway.
I should’ve handed the baby off to one of the women in the kitchen and left the moment I heard those horses outside.
“Since you’re already here, mind doing a house call to save me the drive into town?”
Of course he’s the appointment Brickham told me I have today. I would’ve known it was Denver, had I been able to navigate the office’s stupid appointment system. But at this point, it feels like his method of booking is partially done via Post-it notes scattered across his desk, and partially kept nowhere but in Brickham’s head. Which is an organizational method I can appreciate, except when my appointments are in his head instead of mine.
“I don’t do house calls.”
He tilts his head, giving puppy dog eyes. “Not even for an old friend?”
Old friend? That’s what we boil down to?
“Call Brickham and get him to come out here.”
“But I need you to sign off that my collarbone is fine so I can ride this weekend.”
“The collarbone you broke a little over three weeks ago and haven’t been letting heal properly? Not a chance.” I shake my head and move to brush past him. Though I’m not sure where I’ll go, considering I have an infant in my arms. Can’t exactly hop in the car and flee.
Unsurprisingly, he follows me out the front door and leans against the porch rail when I sit back down in the rocking chair.
“Please, . It’s totally healed up, I swear. No pain.” He makes a crossing-his-heart motion, and I can’t help but notice it’s done using the uninjured side of his body.
“You know I don’t have X-ray vision, right? I’m not signing anything based only on your word. I know how cowboys are—you could be dying and you’d lie straight to my face, telling me you’re fine so I’d let you ride.”
“Come on. Brickham would do it.”
“Go see him, then. The most I can offer you is a requisition form to get an X-ray in Sheridan. Then we can talk about it.”
“The powers that be want your signature since you were the one at the rodeo.”
I squint at him, rocking the chair more aggressively to keep Hazel calm. Would love for Cass or Red to come collect their child now, so I could get out of here. “Then it sounds like you won’t be able to show off on a bronc for any women this weekend. Though I bet if you wore your sling around the rodeo grounds they’d feel real sorry for you. Might work out better in your favor than being flung off again.”
“Would you feel sorry for me?” The dimple in his right cheek hollows until it’s so deep I worry I’ll be pulled into his charm like a black hole.
I sharpen my gaze, ensuring my lips don’t transform into a smile. Regardless of how warm I feel right now, I refuse to fall victim to his shameless flirting. “Yeah, I typically feel a lot of sympathy for grown men who can’t be bothered to take proper care of themselves. Nothing hotter.”
The indent in his cheek flattens out as he becomes serious. “Okay. You win. Give me the form, and I’ll go get X-rays.”
“I’ll send them to the clinic when I get to my computer.”
“Great. Thanks.”
I press my lips together with a small nod. Manifesting my best friend walking around the corner to grab her baby, so I can leave this ranch in my rearview mirror for a little while. Because the more time I spend with Denver, the more likely it is one of us will say something about what happened nearly fourteen years ago. The more likely it is he’ll make me laugh and I’ll be right back to who I was at eighteen. The more likely it is I’ll regret ever leaving this place.
He turns to head back down the porch steps—all six-foot-whatever of him with tanned, muscular arms, dusty Levi’s, and shaggy brown hair. With him unable to see my face, I let my eyes drift up and down his body. Slowing in a few places that make the hair on the back of my neck stand.
“Oh, and ?” He spins, undoubtedly catching me ogling. “Thanks for the house call today. Super helpful. Aus will be happy I can get right back to work.”
My tongue tucks into my cheek. “You got me. Consider this your one free house call.”
“So next time I have to pay? Got it.” He winks. “Do you accept payment in the form of dinner? Or maybe ice cream—Neapolitan with walnuts still your dream combo?”
I’m already paying for this conversation with the knowledge that I’ll be up all night replaying it, self-aware about how pathetic I am.
“I’ll forever stand by the belief that somebody needs to make that.”
He snorts. “Good to see all those years in the city didn’t make you less weird.”
Shoving his hands into his jean pockets, he mulls over a thought as the dimple in his right cheek bobs in and out. I stare at the boy I never stood a chance at moving on from. You would think a decade away, thousands of dollars’ worth of therapy, and the knowledge that he’s moved on with plenty of other girls would keep my heart in check.
Time is a fickle bitch; days are long, years are short, and it seems to stand still altogether when Denver and I are involved.