Blair
For three days, he didn’t leave my side for anything longer than a bathroom break. On day four, he sat in the waiting room and listened to Wanda talk about her Yorkiepoo for a full hour while I worked. Day five he left me home alone only so he could venture to the grocery store with my mom. Ignoring my insistence that I would be okay if he left for a while, Denver stuck it out through hard moments with Mom, kept track of the little day-to-day things I was constantly dropping the ball on, and held me close at night. And on day six, he finally agreed to go back to work under one condition—I would hang out at the ranch with the girls.
With my nephew, Jonas, tagging along to give my sister a break, we turn off the dirt road to spend the day at Wells Ranch. Drinking, watching the cowboys sort out cattle to ship off, and eating Beryl’s fire-cooked feast I’ve been hearing rumors about for the last two weeks.
“So, I’m not allowed to ride any horses today?” I glance at Denver in my periphery as the truck rattles over the cattle guard, teasing him. “No barrels— promise .”
“If I say no, you’ll do it for sure. So fill your boots. I think Jackson has a new horse in—never been ridden before.” Denver winks, testing me. “I’ll get tickets to that show any day.”
“I think I’ll leave the bronc riding to you.”
“That’s right, leave it to the pros.” He dusts some pretend dirt off his shoulder. “Maybe we can get Jonas on there, though.”
“Absolutely not. Whit would kill me.”
Jonas clears his throat from the backseat. “I’ve been bucked off before.”
“Wait, what?” I spin to face him, catching the way he and Denver share a mischievous smile. “When your mom agreed to let you come work here for the summer, I don’t think she was agreeing to you being involved in ranch-hand shenanigans.”
“Your nephew’s getting branded next spring. He earned it,” Denver says, shutting the truck down and grabbing his hat from the middle of the bench seat.
“He’s ten !” I smack him on the arm before stepping out into the sun. “It’ll be your funeral.”
Jonas hands me the crutches from the backseat before sliding out, and I start my hobble across uneven ground toward where the girls are sitting in folding camp chairs. Denver’s close behind me, as always—convinced I’m mere seconds away from toppling over any time I’m not on perfectly level ground. I swear he doesn’t take a breath until I plunk down in a padded chair, dropping the aluminum crutches beside me.
“You need anything?” he asks.
I know better than to say no, because he’ll look like a dejected puppy if I do.
“A drink would be wonderful.”
“We got you,” Cecily pipes up from a few seats down, quickly pulling something that looks a lot like a homemade Capri-Sun juice pouch from a large blue cooler. “It’s sangria! I found these reusable pouches when I was looking for wedding stuff online, and they’re perfect.”
“It’s nine o’clock in the morning,” I exclaim.
“Five o’clock somewhere,” Kate quips.
Denver laughs, passing me the juice box. “Okay, well, looks like they’ve got you covered here.”
I take a long drink of the sweet nectar, closing my eyes blissfully. “Oh, yeah— shit, that’s good— I’m fine here. Go do your hot cowboy shit now.”
“Hot cowboy shit? Jesus, how strong is that drink?” He leans in for a sip, and I clutch it to my chest, nearly tipping the chair as I play keep-away, giggling like a love-drunk teenager. “ Go away. You can’t drink and ride.”
“Mmm. I think the night of their”—he points at Cecily—“wedding proves that wrong.”
I blush furiously, and he smirks in response. Dimples highlighted by the summer sun, he gives me a playful wink just as Kate starts getting riled up.
“All right, you’re nauseating me.” She swats her hand in his general direction from her chair next to mine and he quickly dodges it. “Either go away or go get a room. There are kids around!” She gestures at Hazel, who is literally an infant incapable of understanding what we’re talking about, and her own two kids, who are playing in a pile of dirt too far away to hear us.
“Okay, okay. I’ll go do hot cowboy shit now. Make sure you’re paying attention.”
Boy, am I. I don’t care that I’m openly gawking. I sink into the chair with a long, continuous chug of sangria and watch his toned, denim-clad ass saunter over to where the rest of the guys are. Tight Wells Ranch branded T-shirt, fitted jeans, and a cowboy hat.
No words.
“I need you to know how bizarre it is to see him like this,” Kate says, leaning into me and breaking my focus from the incredible man I’m staring at unashamedly.
I blink over to her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s always going to be a bit of a jokester and a goofball. But it’s nice to see him joking around because he’s in love, not because he’s hiding behind it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch him mount his horse and instantly turn to look at me with a boyish smile that makes my heart skip.
“Yeah?”
“Trust me, I was here dealing with him like he was my own annoying little brother for years. I’ve never seen him like this. He looks at you like he’s trying to commit every little detail to memory…and he’s always looking at you. It’s adorable.”
Cass places a sleeping Hazel in the bounce chair at her feet and leans in to join the huddle. “And you’re always looking at him. Just go get married already.”
“Weren’t you the one telling me to be careful and take things slow at the start of the summer?”
“You two have always been inevitable. Sure, I was worried after how he hurt you before but…I don’t know. Seems different now.” Cass studies him with narrow eyes for a moment, then catches Kate’s eye with a look I don’t quite understand. “I don’t want to say he’s matured, because that is false . It’s pretty damn clear how in love with you he is, though.”
“I love him, too.”
“This is the closest we can possibly get to becoming sisters, unless Whit and I have a simultaneous bi-awakening one day in the future. I’m not ruling that out but…this feels more likely. So I love this for us.” Cass does a little dance in her seat, and I shake my head at her with a laugh.
Suddenly Cecily comes along, dragging her chair and the cooler behind her. Settling down in front of me so we become a misshapen circle. “I was feeling left out over there. What are we talking about?”
“How my fear of Denny being the next one to have a Wells baby is going to come true.” Kate grips Cecily’s knee for emphasis, pressing her lips together. “Nothing against you, . I’d actually be thrilled. This is a slight at Cecily.”
Cecily scrunches her nose and shrugs. “I mean…maybe he won’t be first.”
“Wait, are you pregnant?” Kate jabs a finger at the sangria pouch in Cecily’s hand.
“No!” She laughs. “No. But I did remove my IUD, so…”
Kate sits back, shaking her head with a sigh. “You’re all going to make me get pregnant again so we can have little babies together, aren’t you?”
Cecily snorts, sangria leaking out of her nose, and we devolve into a fit of giggles that doesn’t stop until we accidentally wake up Hazel. And even then, it just becomes slow, silent laughter while we sip our juice boxes like a bunch of small children on the playground. Listening to the steady sound of hooves as the men head out to round up the herd and drive them back to the sorting pen.
—
A little after noon, Beryl steals Kate and Cecily away to serve a massive amount of various hot and cold dishes to the dozen or more cowboys. In typical fashion, I’m feeling awfully useless and awkward sitting in my chair, despite Cassidy sitting next to me. Although, she’s technically busy feeding Hazel. So I zone out and pick at a loose thread on the seat, unblinking until something passes by my field of vision multiple times and breaks my focus—or lack thereof.
I look up to find Denver placing a plate on my lap as he sinks down to sit on the grass. “Did all that cowboy shit do it for you, or what?”
“I think you better do it again, for science.”
“It’s your lucky day, baby.” He grins, sliding his palm up and down my bare calf in a soothing way; something about feeling his skin on mine is grounding. “So, what evil schemes did you get roped into over here this morning? It looked like there was a lot of sinister plotting happening.”
“A pregnancy pact.” I shrug nonchalantly, and Cassidy spits out her drink, narrowly missing Hazel.
“Sheesh, Cass.” Denver stares at her wide-eyed. “Are you in on this?”
“God, no.” Cassidy pulls a face.
Denver returns his focus to me. “But you are?”
“What if I was?”
“ Okay. That’s my cue to leave.” Cass stands up, shaking the water droplets off her legs from her accidental mouth-sprinkler incident. “You kids make good choices.”
I snort. “Rich, coming from you.”
She flips the middle finger over her shoulder, then strolls over to where Red’s filling two plates with food.
“So, hey,” Denver says. “Want to take a drive with me when we’re done here?”
“And leave Jonas—”
“Got it covered. He and Colt have something potentially delinquent planned, so he’ll give him a ride.”
I open my mouth to protest, and he puts up a hand to stop me. “It’s fine. Colt’s been managing Jonas with his chores all summer, and so far nobody’s gotten seriously injured or thrown in jail. They’ll be okay.”
With an exhale, I nod. No sense in arguing when I know he’s right—from what I know about Colt, he’s not going to do anything that would put a kid in danger.
“I’d love to go for a drive. Where do you have in mind?”
“You’ll see.” He adjusts his Stetson in the sun and hops to his feet. “Back to doing more hot cowboy shit for your viewing pleasure.”
“You’re never going to let it go that I said that, are you?”
“ Never. Just like I know you love a backwards hat.” He flips his cowboy hat around. “Is this working for you?”
I toss my head back with a breathy laugh. “You’re a dork. But please wear it exactly like that, so somebody other than me can make fun of you, for once.”
“Just sayin’, if this makes you want to ride me, I’ll put up with some heckling.”
“A cowboy hat the wrong way is definitely not doing it for me. You look like a city boy at a rodeo for the first time.”
He leans in, putting his hands on my thighs. “Like Mark with his bitch-boy hands?”
“Precisely.”
He contemplates his words for a second, then chooses to continue with the Mark discussion, for some ungodly reason. “I mean, you liked him enough to get engaged. Which is more than you can say about me.”
His laughter does little to ease the bruising blow of his words.
“Are you jealous of a fictional man? You realize how insane that sounds, right?” I tilt my head, giving him a look.
“Well, I’m pretty sure these rough hands”—he glides his work-worn palms up my thighs—“make you come better than his fancy surgeon fingers could.”
“ Correct. Because again, he’s fictional.” I grab his face, middle fingers falling into the divots of his dimples. “Please turn the cowboy hat back around and go do some good work, because you know what really turns me on? A competent, hardworking man.”
“You’ve single-handedly convinced me to work the hardest I ever have. Bet the ranch can pay you, if you want a side-gig watching me work.” He winks. “I’m gonna be such a good boy for you.”
“You already are such a good boy.”
With a glimmer in his eyes, Denver kisses me softly, then turns to head back to his horse.
Picking up a massive slice of watermelon from my plate, I watch him sort the cattle and try not to drool at the way his shoulder muscles flex under his shirt. His body’s perfectly relaxed yet sturdy, moving with his cutting horse like they share a soul, completely trusting the animal to do its job. The cows fight separation from the herd, always looking for a way to get back. And it seems entirely chaotic, with Austin yelling at his guys from the top fence rail, horses moving through the cattle, guys working the cow squeeze to check ear tags and confirm every animal is safe to travel before they’re loaded onto a massive livestock trailer—destination: Alberta.
And Jonas, my short, skinny preteen nephew, is right in there. When Denver mentioned lining up some work for Jonas over the summer to keep him out of trouble, I didn’t expect this . He’s using every ounce of energy in his tiny body to open and close the backstop on the cattle chute—the sliding door that keeps cows from backing out of the chute once they’ve been loaded in.
I pull out my phone and zoom in to discreetly take photos for my sister. Then I turn the camera toward Denver, and when he looks at me with a smile, I snap my new favorite photo of him.
Denver said I brought the light back into his life, but I don’t think he’ll ever understand how badly I needed him to anchor me here. Before I came home, I had a career and a fancy apartment, but I was anxiously flitting about. Working as much overtime at the hospital as I could manage and spending a concerning amount of my free time at the gym—being busy kept my mind from wandering, and I confused that with my brain being calm.
But this? This is calm. Sitting in the sunshine with my best friends, catching smiles from the love of my life, and eating the most flavorful watermelon I’ve ever had.
—
Mildly sunburned, exhausted, and feeling the tiniest bit tipsy, I let Denver boost me into his truck and buckle my seat belt. Hopping into his seat, his right hand instantly finds mine in the center of the bench, and we pull away from the sun-soaked ranch. He insisted on showering at the bunk house before we left, and now heading down the long driveway, he rolls the windows down to get a breeze through his damp hair.
When he turns left—as if heading back to Wells Canyon—I look at him confused. For us, going for a drive has always meant heading farther into the middle of nowhere, not closer to civilization.
“Where are we going?”
“Just sit back and enjoy the drive. You’ll see it when we get there.”
Rolling my eyes, I do what he says, leaning my head against the back of the seat. Denver drives along the tree-lined dirt road, with classic country softly playing. Stretching my fingers, I stick a hand out the open passenger window and let it swim through the wind current. The other takes its natural place on his thigh.
The sun chases us down the mountain, threatening dusk. Then he turns onto my street, and I cackle. “The drive was a ride home?”
“Something like that.”