Chapter 18
eighteen
Tarr couldn’t believe what a difference two weeks made.
Just before Thanksgiving, he’d been feeling downtrodden and dejected, and now he followed behind his RV as his friend Jentzen pulled it with a tractor toward the arena.
They were maybe moving five miles an hour, and yet Tarr felt like he was soaring on top of the world.
Ashton would meet them at the arena, and the three of them would work on the RV to make sure it was level, stabilized, and hooked up to electricity and water before anyone left for the day.
Tarr had enjoyed his stay in the mansion, and the longer he was there, the more he could see staying with Tuck and Bobbie Jo.
However, they weren’t home, and Tarr knew the moment they returned, he would not want to be there. He knew no one understood it—heck, he didn’t even understand it—but they’d have two other people living with them, and he didn’t want to be the third.
So he inched along, watching the curtain sway in the back window of the RV, and then came to a stop as Jentzen masterfully turned it in a wide arc around the corner and continued.
They had to make one more turn, this time right, and then Ashton started waving Jentzen toward the long, south wall of the arena.
He parked it correctly the first time, much to Tarr’s astonishment, and the three of them met at the door that sat halfway from each end of the RV.
Tarr grinned and grinned. “It looks great right here.”
“Yeah, you could set up a whole patio and an outdoor area,” Ashton joked. “I thought this would be the best place, because we have an outdoor outlet right here, and we should be able to get your whole rig plugged in.”
“Let’s get it level first,” Jentzen said. “I’ve got cinder blocks and pallets if we need them.”
He set about doing that, and he set up an area in front of the RV with pallets to make a decent front porch where Tarr could escape the snow and mud, clean his boots, and then go up the steps and inside his temporary home.
The three of them crammed inside next, and Ashton took one look at the wood-burning stove and said, “I don’t think you need that. ”
“No? Just space heaters?” Tarr looked from the stove to the facility manager and expert cowboy here at the farm.
“If we sealed the roof up right, the wood-burning stove could be out here, and you could use a space heater inside in your bedroom,” Jentzen said.
He took the few steps to look inside the back bedroom, poked his head in the bathroom, and then started opening cupboards. “Are you showering in this thing?”
“If there’s hot water,” Tarr said. “I could shower out here.”
“We could probably do some sort of gravity system,” Jentzen said. “Especially if you’ve got water hookups to the arena here.”
“We should be able to do that,” Ashton said. “But it might take a hose.”
“Won’t a hose freeze in the winter?” Tarr asked.
“Yeah, probably,” Ashton said. “But I wonder if we could feed it out the second-floor window and kind of use gravity the way Jentzen just suggested.” He looked up to the ceiling, as if he could see where to place a hose coming from…where?
Tarr had no idea—and that was why he’d tried living in the RV without utilities.
“Or you could not shower out here,” Ashton said. “But all of your dishes and everything you need water for—washing your hands, cooking—would have to be done with ice-cold water—if it doesn’t freeze.”
Tarr honestly didn’t know how any of that would work. “What about a water tank?” he asked. “That I keep inside the RV, so it won’t freeze. What could we do? Fifty gallons, one hundred?”
“You could do that,” Jentzen said. “And it would be whatever temperature it is inside the RV. But you could heat it for dishes, or coffee, or washing your hands.”
“And I could just shower at Tuck’s,” he said. “Or Briar’s.”
Ashton nodded. “Yep, that’s what I would do. I don’t think you need to shower out here.”
“What about the bathroom?” Tarr asked. “If I had a hundred gallons, would I be able to use that?”
“I would just use the bathroom inside the arena,” Ashton said. “You’re only twenty-five feet from the door, and you’ll be able to get in and out real easy.”
Tarr nodded, though that didn’t sound entirely ideal, but he had Les scheduled to work on the house now, and Tarr told himself he could do anything for five months. Heck, he’d done a lot of things he didn’t like for a lot longer than five months.
“So I’m going to shower inside somewhere. I’m going to go to the bathroom inside. But I’m going to have electricity, and if we do a water tank, I can wash my dishes and have water come out of my kitchen faucet for tea, coffee, cooking, and small clean-up jobs.”
“Yeah, all that,” Jentzen said. “Your stove here will work with the electricity. We put an electric heater in the bedroom, fix up the wood-burning stove out here, and you’ve got a microwave.
” He smiled as he looked left toward the back of the RV and right toward the front.
“It’s not a bad place, Tarr. It’s actually really nice. ”
Tarr thought so too. He entered the RV to a dinette set that was really a booth on three sides. He had a living room down on the front end, closest to where someone might drive the RV, and that included a full-size couch and a recliner, with a TV mounted to the wall above the chair.
His kitchen was galley-like, and on its way to the bathroom and bedroom—which housed a king bed and a tiny closet in the back of the RV. He had plenty of blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags, and the wood-burning stove just needed to be shored up and properly vented.
Jentzen set about doing that while Tarr stepped out of the RV with Ashton to get it plugged into the electricity.
“I can head to town and get you that water tank,” Ashton said. “I think we can put it in the bathroom, above the shower, and run the lines into the kitchen. That’s what I would do.”
Tarr nodded, and it only took a few minutes to find the right cords and outlets and get things plugged in.
When he climbed the steps back into the RV and saw the lamp shining above the only free counter space in the kitchen, he whooped.
He grabbed his cowboy hat and threw it right up into the air. “There’s electricity in here!”
The other men laughed, and as they quieted, Tarr appreciated nothing more than the hum of electricity in his house.
“I need a few supplies for this stove,” Jentzen said. “I’m going to have to make a run to the hardware store.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ashton said. “I’m gonna get the water tank.”
“Let me send you guys with my card.” Tarr fumbled for his wallet and pulled out his credit card. “Get anything we need.”
“Do you need anything else?” Jentzen asked. “You’ve got silverware? Food? All that?”
“I’ve got stuff at Tuck’s that I can bring out,” Tarr said. “But otherwise, yeah, I’m good.”
“If you think of anything, text me,” Ashton said, and the two of them left together, chatting with one another easily, though they’d just met.
Tarr stood out on the pallets that Jentzen had used to create a clean area for him.
They ran two deep and three long, and he’d be able to wipe his boots clean before he had to go into his house.
Then he turned in a full circle and surveyed his RV, which had once looked like a dump but now shone like a palace.
Grinning, he went back up the steps and into the RV, letting the door slam behind him.
He straightened up the things that had fallen and moved while the RV had rumbled down the dirt road, made his bed, and decided to convert the bathroom to a storage space since he wouldn’t be using it.
He got behind the wheel of his truck and drove to Tucker’s house, collected his groceries and clothes and everything he’d left there, and moved it to the RV, because he’d sleep there tonight ahead of Tuck and Bobbie Jo’s return.
When he pulled back up to the RV, he found Briar’s SUV parked in front of his pallets. She sat on his front steps despite them being metal and probably freezing, and she raised her hand in a wave as he parked beside her.
“Hey, you,” he said. “Did you come to check it out?”
“I like this front porch-patio area.” She smiled at him, got to her feet, and came to collect some grocery bags. “You’re moving in today, huh?”
“I don’t see a reason to wait, do you?”
“Yeah, I do, Tarr. It’s called comfort.”
Tarr simply shook his head and led the way up the steps and into the RV.
“I’ve got electricity now, sweetheart. I can make breakfast. I can store things in the fridge and have them stay cold.
I’m going to be using an electric heater in my bedroom, and we’re going to fix up the wood-burning stove for out here. ”
Briar walked into the living room and then came back by the dinette, trailing her fingers across the top of the table.
With the two of them standing shoulder to shoulder and simply turning around, they put away his groceries and other goods.
Tarr returned to his truck and grabbed his duffel bag and took it into his bedroom.
When he came out, Briar stood next to the table holding a wooden sign in her arms. Tarr came to a complete stop and drank in the beautiful woodcraft she’d created for him.
“Home Sweet Home,” he said, noting the carved dog between the words Home and Sweet and the horse between Sweet and Home. “Briar, this is great.”
He moved over to her and took the sign from her. “Is it indoor or outdoor?”
“This is an indoor sign, baby,” she said, leaning her head against his bicep and linking her arm up and through his. “I was thinking maybe you could hang it in the living room here.”
She walked over to it and indicated a blank spot on the wall, where he’d duck under to get to the driver’s seat. “You’re not using the loft, right?”
“Nope,” he said. “But, I mean, it could be a guest bedroom.” He grinned at her.
She giggled. “Some guest bedroom. How do you even get up there?”
“There’s a ladder that comes out,” he said. “See that knob right there?”
“Oh, right here?” Briar reached up just above her head and pulled on the knob. A ladder came shooting out, and she lowered it all the way to the ground, then climbed up a few steps to look into his “loft.”
“There’s no mattress or anything.”
“I’d put an air bed up there,” he said. “Wiggins would love it.”
“You would never get Wiggins up this ladder.” She grinned down at him as he positioned the sign on the solid wall there. “I think it’d look real nice right there.”
“I’ll have to find some hammer and nails.”
“I brought some,” she said. “I’ll go get them.”
Before he could protest and say he would get them, she hopped down from the ladder and scampered out of his RV.
Tarr gazed down at the hand-cut and sanded wood shaped into letters and glued to another slab of wood that had been lovingly stained a dark brown.
The letters were more oak-colored, and she’d painted the dog and the horse with colors.
He ran his fingertip around the outline of the gray dog with the black nose, his heart expanding with every breath he took and every thought of Briar making this for him.
She returned after only a minute, and as he exchanged the sign for the hammer and nails, he asked, “When did you make this?”
“In the past few days,” she said. “Now that my guest bedroom is back to being an art studio, I’ve had time.”
He hammered a nail into the wall and then turned and reached for the sign. “You’ve been staying over at the mansion until nine-thirty or ten every night with me.” He lifted his eyebrows. “So when have you had time?”
He still hadn’t kissed her, because he usually walked her out to her SUV, hugged her, and waved to her as she drove away—all while Tucker or Bobbie Jo could see them.
Maybe now that he’d be living in the RV, Tarr could drive her home and kiss her there—or kiss her right here in the RV.
Or he might spend evenings with her at her house for comfort.
“I’ve been staying up a little bit late,” she said. “It’s too high on the left, Tarr.”
He lowered it and looked over his shoulder to her. “Now?”
“Yeah, it looks nice.”
She smiled, and when she did, she transformed into a pure angel. Tarr put the ladder away and went to join Briar, easily lifting his arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, that’s real nice, Briar. Thank you so much.”
“You need some art for these walls, Tarr,” she said. “This looks like a 1970s nightmare.”
“Hey, it’s from the nineties,” he said.
She giggled. “That’s still thirty years old.”
“Well, I wish I knew someone I could commission for some art for a thirty-year-old RV.” He grinned at her.
Briar beamed back at him, turning fully into him. “What do you like, cowboy?”
She wore her hair back in a ponytail, so Tarr couldn’t tuck it behind her ear. He lifted his hand anyway, and he ran his fingers up the side of her jaw and along the curve of her earlobe to the ponytail. He tightened his fingers around it and then pulled them down, letting the hair slip through.
“I like you, Briar.”
She swallowed, then said, “I like you too, Tarr.”
“And I like that there are no cameras here.” His heartbeat picked up its pace, especially when Briar turned slightly tense in his arms. He leaned down and let his eyes drift closed as he drew in a breath of her hair, her skin, her perfume.
“I like that you made me that sign, and I’ll like any art you make for me at all.”
Briar’s breath tickled as it moved across his chin. “And I’d like to kiss you, sweetheart.”
“Do it, then,” she whispered.
Tarr didn’t second-guess or ask twice. He moved slightly, sensing where Briar was right in front of him, his hand sliding up to cup her face on one side and hold her steady at the waist with the other.
His lips touched hers, and every magical, fantastic thing Tarr had imagined would happen when he kissed Briar came true.
Sparks and pops moved through his whole body, and she tasted like that cherry Chapstick that made her lips a little bit pink.
She pulled in a sharp breath, and then her hands landed in his hair, his cowboy hat somewhere else, and all of Tarr’s focus went solely to kissing Briar—again and again and again.