Blair （Sixteen Years Old）
Blair
(sixteen years old)
In a crowd of other barrel racers waiting in the August heat, I leaned forward to drag my nails along Chief’s neck, in that perfect spot about an inch below his mane where he loved to be scratched. I looked around at our competition and smiled at the only face I recognized—a girl from Sheridan who ran barrels faster than anyone I’d ever seen. And sure, their runs were rarely clean, but when it worked, it freaking worked.
Denver weaved through the throng of horses, stopping next to me and giving Chief a firm pat. “Hey, Bear. You two ready to kill it? You’re gonna ruin all of these girls’ days when you make their runs look like peewee barrels.”
“Den.” I pulled my foot from the stirrup to kick it at him. “Shush. You’re going to make people hate me.”
“Okay, okay. I’m just speaking the truth, but I guess we can rub it in later. I need to go find the best spot to watch you win from. Love you.”
“Love you, dork.” I leaned down to kiss him, feeling the heat of the other girls’ stares on me.
Turning back to the arena, I adjusted the straw cowboy hat on my head and tucked a sweaty lock of hair behind my ear. Then walked ahead, gearing up to take the next crack at the barrels. A clover pattern around three barrels, then straight on home. After hundreds of runs, Chief could do the pattern in his sleep, and my job was primarily to hang on and let him do what he loved.
With a deep breath, my heels squeezed against his side, ushering him forward. When Chief saw it was a straight shot from the alley into the massive outdoor arena, he took off like a bullet out of a gun. Around the first big barrel on the right-hand side of the arena, sticking so close to the barrel I had to pull my foot up and back to keep from knocking it over. Then the second, where I heard Denver whistling over Kenny Chesney blasting from the loudspeakers. The third barrel wobbled as Chief rounded it—I doubted it was enough to tip, as long as the ground was relatively even, so I didn’t hold back. Storming toward the finish, I egged him on to push faster, hooves kicking up dirt and mane whipping around in the breeze. Once we passed the timer, Chief slowed to a stop just before slamming into the fence panels. And I didn’t need to see the time to know it was a damn good run.
If Lucy had been there, she’d be cheering so loud my entire face would turn crimson. She was never one to care that the other girls stared, or that her children found it mildly embarrassing to have her literally jumping for joy regardless of how well they competed. But with her illness, she hadn’t been able to travel to rodeos since the spring.
Instead, Jackson, Denver, and I drove around the province by ourselves. The boys took turns hauling the stock trailer, and I made sure they followed the rules Lucy set for us. One of those rules being that we took videos of every single run to show her when we got home.
Sidling up next to Jackson’s roping horse, I climbed off Chief and tossed my hat on the trailer fender. In the middle of combing my fingers through my hot, damp hair, somebody pinched my side, making me squeal.
“Baby, you’re incredible.” Denver wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted my boots clear off the ground—no small feat, given he only had all of two inches and ten pounds on me.
“Denver Wells, if you drop me and I have to go collect my first-place buckle with a limp, I’ll kill you.” I laughed, leaning into him as my feet touched back down.
“Marry me.” He held a palm to either side of my flushed face. “Marry me, and we’ll travel to every rodeo in North America all year long.”
“You just want to claim half of my cash prize.” My fingers slapped across his bicep. “Hold your horses—we still have a whole year of high school left, then college. Plus, I don’t think my dad’s going to allow underage marriage.”
“Okay, well… agree to marry me. Say you will one day. Promise me you’ll be mine forever.”
“Denver, what the hell has gotten into you?” I shook my head, and his eyes grew wide, waiting for an answer. A confirmation that…I would marry him?! “Okay, okay. I promise I’ll marry you one day, and I’m yours whether there’s a ring on my finger or not. Even though you’re insane.”
Then he stole every last bit of oxygen from my lungs with an all-consuming kiss.
—
Days later, I walked into the big house to find Lucy in the kitchen for the first time in weeks, sipping on chamomile tea. Noticing me enter the room, she looked up and smiled weakly. “Hey, kiddo.”
“Hey, Mama.” I wrapped my arms around her small body, inhaling the musky scent of her favorite body wash—it was technically “formulated for men,” but she said it made her skin soft for half the price of women’s body wash. And anyway, it wouldn’t matter what she smelled like, because her husband, Bennett, would love her even covered in cow shit.
“You feeling good today?” I asked, pouring myself a cup of coffee.
“Great, actually. I was thinking I’d go sit on the back porch in the sun for a while. Boys probably won’t be back until dusk.”
I nodded, stirring the sugar cubes until they’d dissolved, then I led the way to the porch swing. “Maybe the meds are working, if you’re feeling better.”
Lucy didn’t say anything, but she sipped her tea and looked out at the lush hayfield separating the big house from the main road. And I took in her frail, pale body in my periphery—so different even from the last time I saw her. Her house slippers dragged on the wooden floorboards with every slow swing.
“Thank you for being in our lives, Blair.” Her voice wavered as she said it, and she stopped to clear her throat. “I know you’re sixteen, with big plans for university, and a whole life ahead of you. It’s a big ask, and I promise I’ll love you all the same if you tell me I’m being a selfish jerk.”
I turned to look at her, catching the glassiness in her eyes and the way her small smile faltered. “You know I’d do anything you asked me to do.”
“Look out for my boys? When…when they don’t have me here to make sure they’re staying out of trouble, and not fighting with each other, and…” She stopped to aggressively wipe the tears running in rivulets down her cheeks. And I did the same, my jaw quivering as I struggled to find words.
“I will,” I choked out. “You know I will.”
“I really hoped I would be having this conversation with you before your wedding one day. You know the whole ‘look after my baby for me’ speech.” She sniffled, blinking rapidly to clear the pooling in her eyes. Denver’s seemingly random proposal suddenly made perfect sense to me; she’d likely had a very similar heartfelt conversation with him recently. “And we can hold out hope for a miracle, but I don’t think it’s coming. So I want you to know now how lucky we are to have you—how lucky he is. I couldn’t ask for a better daughter.”
I grabbed her hands in mine, smoothing my thumb over her soft skin. No longer caring enough to keep up with wiping away every tear hanging from my jaw, or the snot running from my stinging nose. I swallowed thick saliva, fighting to breathe as I stared into the eyes of the woman I considered my second mother. A woman who had given me so much, and who looked completely at peace with this conversation—as if she innately knew I would follow through with looking out for her boys and taking care of her baby. Lucy trusted me like I was her own daughter, and I fell into her. My head resting on her shoulder as I wept, letting her stroke my hair softly.
“I know, honey. It’s going to be okay. You’ll all have each other, and it’ll all be okay.”