Chapter 14
I NEED SOMETHING TO brEAK MY FALL (FALLING IN LOVE)
The entire week was spent in grueling training since the rodeo is nearing. Though Quinn was there, her camera religiously recording, I didn’t lose my focus.
In fact, all week I’ve been able to train with such focus I didn’t really even remember she was there.
My mind is right, in the game, ready for my time, to claim those eight seconds, own that bronc, and collect my winnings. It’s not about the title. I had the title then; I don’t need it again. If it weren’t for the money, I’d never have come back.
My joy of the sport died with my wife, and I’ve mentally moved on.
That’s why I was surprised by the muscle memory in my body, surprised by my last few training sessions going so well, despite the fact that I’ve got years on me I didn’t have before.
Usually when I start to focus on my grip and timing, and add in marking out and exposure in my dry runs, I’m frazzled upstairs.
I run through all the things I did wrong, feel all my weaknesses as my entire body torques in the moment, and spend the remainder of the day worrying about it all.
Replaying it back, hoping it was better than I imagined.
Takes me a few tries to mark out, but on the mechanical rider this week, my spurs were well above my shoulders on every buck.
Today, a week earlier than planned, I’m starting live horse practice, away from the gym and the bucking machine. Putting a real live animal between my legs ought to tell me how training is actually going, and I’m ready to learn, eager to find out what else I gotta do to be so good I can’t lose.
I guess before, when I did this, I wanted to win. I was excited to experience the victory, to experience what it feels like to tame the animal in front of the entire town, for them to see in just eight short seconds how dedicated and hardworking I’d been.
This time, I have to win. I don’t care about the clout, the title, the cheers—I don’t care about anything but that paycheck signed to me, so I can save this ranch and keep my baby’s home intact.
Later, Tate’s comin’ by and we’re workin’ on me getting somewhere with Ten, his roughstock stallion.
I’ve pulled out all my old gear—stovepipe chaps that have saved me from spurs and rough landings, my vest complete with a built-in neck roll, and even my old hat, the old felt Biggs.
Not sure any of this will stand up to the PRCA rules when it comes down to it, but for practice, I’ll be square.
A little arranged marriage after breakfast, followed by an old man attempting to ride for eight seconds to save his life as he knows it. Not your average Sunday, but here we are.
“I like Quinn livin’ here with us,” Sadie says, kicking her feet as she sits on the side of my bed, watching me argue with my bolo tie.
“Yeah,” I tell her, fumbling with the tie I’ve tied and worn a hundred times.
Somehow, my hands aren’t working right and I know it’s from too many hours training this week.
A memory flashes through my mind of Quinn and Sadie rubbing antiseptic ointment on my hands where a blister gave way to a nasty tear.
Hurt like a motherfucker, but with those two treating my hand like a damn lace doily, I managed to forget for a while.
It ain’t as hard as I thought it would be, seeing Sadie warm up to another woman who isn’t Amelia.
I guess because I didn’t get to see Amelia with her own daughter much, I don’t have painful memories constantly contrasting with the present.
Nonetheless, I’m surprised at how much happiness fills me when I watch Sadie and Quinn together.
Last week, after our talk, we went back to Sable Sky Inn and broke the news of our impending nuptials to Mabel.
Obviously Mabel is much like Tate and Love, meaning we can’t lie to her because she’s been there for every step of our actual relationship, which has so far just been filmmaker and the old guy she’s filming.
She agreed that not only was the short-lived secret safe with her, but that she'd bear witness to us fake falling in love. Normally I’d never ask someone to lie for me or on my behalf, but with what’s at stake, asking is simple.
We also agreed that today we’d talk to Sadie. It took us a week of chatting on the back porch long after Sadie’s bedtime, watching the sun set as we made plans, ironing out details we both weren’t sure would even come up but wanting to be safe.
I learned her favorite color is pink, her dad and mom split when her sister was a newborn, her mom’s name is Diane and her sister’s name is Lane, she played volleyball in high school and her sister is following in those footsteps, she’s been making movies since her mom let her get YouTube at age thirteen, and she’s never lived anywhere but the Bay Area in California.
I told her I don’t have a favorite color because I’m a grown man (blue, obviously), told her both my folks were old and passed when I was young, dug out the old yearbook and showed her photos of a very young Tate and me in the rodeo club, crooked, youthful smiles staring up at us.
I explained how the ranch earns money (that, she asked about), told her Sadie was nine months old when she tried walking, and that her first word was duck, even though that’s the one animal we don’t have on Vaughn Ranch.
On Thursday night, Big Bertha got a hair up her ass and started a fight in the coop, which led to a battery of squawking.
On that particular evening, Quinn and I settled onto the couch together, no cushion between us.
Instead of talking, we watched three reruns of a sitcom together.
Neither of us laughed, nor even moved, and I don’t know what was going through her mind, but in mine, I was fully freaking out.
This marriage and my win will give me everything I’ve been killing myself to save for six years.
Literally rolling around sleeplessly in my bed, alone, fucking exhausted every single night.
And now I’m within months of having that struggle behind me, even if bartered under a slight false pretense.
There’s no harm in it… except for the fact that when all is said and done, it may kill me.
I like Quinn, the pass a note in class, rig a game of seven minutes in heaven to be with you type of like. And it’s been so long since I’ve felt this way, or even imagined life beyond the day-to-day.
Quinn is learning about herself out here, maybe learning that nature isn’t the enemy, maybe even deciding that she does want to be a mom one day, and discovering she can make any film she wants to make, as long as she shows up with her characteristic focus and determination.
Today, after another Sunday service with Quinn tucked between me and Sadie, it’s time for the talk. Not the birds and the bees, since Sadie’s just six, but rather, the whole “your dad’s getting fake married” talk. I may be the first generation for this one.
Quinn has been offering to cook dinner or make breakfast for weeks, but since she moved in last weekend, she simply began taking over some of the household chores, like cooking, cleaning, and she’s even done Sadie’s laundry a few times when mending fences in the sun turned to mending fences beneath the moon.
Last week, we told Sadie that Miss Mabel had a new guest coming, and that Miss Quinn would be staying with us for the remainder of the filming project.
She had zero questions about that but instead was excited and begging me to let Quinn tell her bedtime stories.
“I only get her for a few months, let her do it, Daddy! You always tell me stories!”
I wanted to say no for the same reason I didn’t want Quinn using terms of endearment or affection.
But I’ve asked such a big favor of Quinn, it hardly seems fair to dictate how she makes this little act work out.
I just have to be very clear and cautious with Sadie, whose little heart and mind can’t possibly understand a temporary marriage of convenience. Not when she’s fallin’ for Quinn, too.
Quinn plates pot roast over a healthy dollop of her homemade mashed potatoes, and passes one to Sadie, then to me.
She’s started getting groceries on her own, and I want so much to offer to pay her back, but I can’t, so I sit silently grateful.
It’s smelled good in here all day, and it turns out she put meat in the slow cooker before church and every time I came inside for a cool glass of water, my mouth watered.
I cook, and I do it well. But her cooking smells like heaven.
After making sure our water glasses are full, Quinn joins us at the table with her plate stacked just as high as mine.
“Did you wash your hands?” I ask Sadie, who winces, then slips from her chair, sounding like Daisy as she runs down the hall toward the bathroom.
Quinn stares down at her plate, then cuts her eyes my way. “I wasn’t sure how the talk was gonna go, so I supplied myself with an emotional outlet,” she explains, pointing the tines of her fork toward her mashed potatoes.
I stroke my hand through my hair, then scratch the side of my jaw, counting down the seconds till Sadie’s back and I can finally eat this food that’s been edging me all day. “It ain’t this talk I’m concerned with,” I admit, my stomach grumbling so loud that Quinn grins.
Her fingers play with the ends of the linen napkin, the one my mama handsewn when she was a newlywed, living in this house with my pop.
She looks up, and her fingers trace the edges of my pinkie and ring finger, and a moment later, she’s squeezing my hand and our eyes are tangled in a silent heat that has me wondering if I’m not about to save my daughter and my ranch, but destroy my own heart.