Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Although kissing Mark like this had come to Val as a solution to both missing him and the intrusion of a certain hotel manager, now that it was actually taking place she had to appreciate the impulse. Because having her lips pressed to Mark’s was a revelation. Even a benediction.
All that time she’d spent pining for him culminated in this one moment. Everything else fell away. The background of the other guests strolling by in the corridor. Her worry for her dad. Her near miscalculation at her latest show. Even Biggs. All of it disappeared as she became completely consumed with the warmth of his arms belting securely around her shoulders as they breathed the same air at the same time.
He tasted good, too. Just the faintest hint of mint, and she closed her eyes to imprint this memory on her brain forever. His taste. His smell. His touch. How it felt to tear off his cowboy hat and push her fingers through the short hair along his scalp. It’d grown at least an inch since the last time she’d seen him. Maybe more.
“Your hair’s longer,” she mentioned after their kiss naturally came to a breaking point. Not that she stepped away. Oh, no. If anything, she pulled him in closer as she rested her forehead against his.
He didn’t seem to mind.
“Need to get a trim.”
“No,” she protested. “I like it. This way I can drag my fingers through it.”
“True,” he said, his eyes rolling back in his head as she purposely did it again, her nails creating gentle furrows in their wake. “You coming here is the best thing that’s happened to me in a long while, you know.”
She smiled at him, pleased as punch when his mouth copied hers like a reflection. Over these past months, she’d gotten to know the sheriff despite all the separation. The talking and texting late into the night. The Zoom calls. And those letters. Maybe she shouldn’t feel like she knew him based on the amount of hours they’d shared together, but she did. She knew him, anyway.
Maybe even better than if their relationship had followed a more traditional path.
He cupped her cheeks in his palms, and the sheer tenderness sparkling in his periwinkle eyes made her heart melt. They stared at each other in that alcove, and it was like transcending all the years of her life. Like they’d somehow traveled outside of time and space to be here with one another. And she knew why. For the first time ever, she knew exactly why.
Because they belonged to each other.
The sensation flowing through her was such a far cry from anything she’d ever experienced with anyone else. Certainly with Biggs. Her ex had pushed a romance onto her for the sake of taking over her stake in the rodeo business. He’d never loved her. Never even claimed to.
After years, he’d never once said the words. Nor had she ever stated them to him.
She felt grateful for that now. Not only because they would’ve been a lie but because it would’ve tainted the concept of love. Love was what she felt right now. And she felt it for Mark. Only for Mark.
This was what falling in love with someone felt like.
“Mark…” she began, ready to espouse the sentiment. It just felt right.
“I love you, Val.”
Her mouth gaped open. “I was just about to say that to you!” She wanted to be indignant at him stealing her thunder, but how could she react poorly when his love for her was so palpable in his voice, his stance, his everything ?
Long story short, she couldn’t. Not one bit.
Not even when he chuckled. Probably because while amusement shone from his lit-up features, he wasn’t laughing at her. He was laughing in delight. In pure joy and exaltation.
“Were you now?”
“Yes.” She shoved at him playfully, knocking him up against the wall again. “Not that it’ll have the same effect anymore, but I love you, too.”
It didn’t have the same effect, either. If anything, it had a larger effect. Mark seized her by the waist, lifted her off her feet, and kissed her even more dramatically than she had him. Then, he proceeded to spin her around until she became lightheaded, which as a trick rider with a high tolerance for such maneuvers was saying something.
She might’ve hollered at him to quit if she hadn’t enjoyed it so much.
This was something she hadn’t realized about missing him, likely because they’d been through so much turmoil together. But being with Mark Talbot when horrible or crazy things weren’t transpiring was fun .
As he set her on her feet, Val peered at him. Now that they’d conquered the big L-word hurdle, she felt more confident in them than ever. “So, I seem to recall someone mentioning that they planned to take me on a tour of the great Montanan town known as Rocky Ridge. Was that you?”
He smirked at her, arms crossing over his chest. Even without his uniform, he naturally maintained that quiet air of authority. “It better have been.”
“It was.” She full-on winked at him. “So, you gonna show me? Or was that all talk?”
He pinched her elbow, and she wiggled away, secretly marveling that being like this with him felt so normal. As if they’d hung out like this a million times. As if being friendly, flirty, and sassy with him was an everyday occurrence.
“That was a promise.” He arrowed out a crooked arm for her to hold on to. “Lets go meet the town founder.”
Val remembered. The statue at the center of the town square. Which meant…
“Wait… what about Prudence?”
Mark laughed out loud. He laughed so loud in fact that people started to make grumbly noises about rude guests. Val had to hide her grin.
“The stone likeness of Mr. Jethro’s finest mare will also be there, yes. The one you actually want to see.”
That was true. For a town founder to prize her so much must mean Prudence had been a magnificent beast. She clasped her arm around the arm he’d left waiting for her.
“Well, then, by all means, let’s go.”
Having grown up in the state, Val found that Rocky Ridge had many of the earmarks she felt familiar with. The rugged, hard-working citizens. The natural beauty. And yes, the quaint town square.
She enjoyed taking selfies—with both her and Mark—at the statue and of some of the summer blooms that had been planted along the landscaping. She meandered arm in arm along the various businesses nearby, spending a long time at Horseshoe Antiques where she bought her dad a hurricane lamp that reminded her of one that used to belong to her mama.
They spent even longer at Landry Saddle Crafting. The leather and other materials they used were top quality, and while she didn’t need a new saddle for Maybelline yet, this might be a viable option to look at when she did. Val drew her fingers along the intricate designs and craftsmanship, internally admitting to herself that it was equal to the work that went into her own saddle.
“This is my saddle,” she scrolled through her phone pics to show an image to the store owner.
“That is a beaut. Our main requests haven’t been for trick riding, but we’ve made a handful of those. It’s a very specialized area. And my husband and I have watched you for years now. You’re one of the best.”
“Thank you kindly. I try.”
“You succeed,” Beth Landry insisted, and since Mark had introduced her as someone who knew saddles better than anyone, Val took the compliment with the reverence it deserved.
It was always great to be around people who understood businesses related to rodeos. They knew more than most the effort and multiple pieces of the puzzle that went into it.
They finished up their day at The Steer House, and after hearing Mark go on and on about their barbecue cheeseburger, she had to give it a taste. She didn’t expect much. After all, she’d been all around the country sampling burgers who claimed to be the best or the tastiest. Some had even won awards with various publications and online sites. And while this still didn’t beat her number one, it did well.
“I’d put it in second place,” she informed Mark after swallowing. No sense talking with her mouth full. “It’s close. Real close.”
Mark tipped his head from side to side. “Doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Oh, it’s not. This is extremely good. It’s wonderful to know that the next time I’m hungry for another burger, I know just where to go.”
He grinned at her sardonically. “But I have nothing to do with it, I suppose.”
“Oh, you might have a little to do with it.”
After indulging in a decadent dessert she had to share due to being too full, Val glanced at the time. It was nearing eleven at night, and the restaurant staff were beginning to clean up in preparation to close. How had her this first day here flown by so fast?
“I’ll take you to Sweet Everything tomorrow. You have to have their Black Forest Brownies. There’s nothing else like them.”
She readily agreed, and somehow despite staying in a strange location rather than her trailer, she slept like a log. But the next day seemed to zip by even more quickly than the first.
They drove out together to the Bernard homestead and stables the next day, and she and Mark stayed by each other’s sides every waking hour. Part of her felt as if she’d known this man her whole life while another part of her felt as if they’d just met the previous day. Yet, in her bones, she accepted something for the first time. Being in love with him meant that this could last. That it should last.
Even though they were about to go their separate ways again.
As the sands of the hourglass sped into the lower globe with unending swiftness, she took the opportunity to go riding with Mark. He settled onto Black Lightning, a stallion they’d once boarded only to purchase in the last year, with somewhat of a bobble when he first seated himself on his back. But soon, her sheriff grew steadier, even trying one of Val’s simplest tricks.
“ You’ve got it ,” she shouted in encouragement as he stood in the stirrups with Black Lightning maintaining a relatively slow walk. She wasn’t about to admit to him that she’d learned that as a child.
No sense in making him feel bad.
He sat right back down, his expression one of relief. “I have no clue how you do all those bounces and flips off the horse’s rump. You’re a dynamo, you know that?”
She batted her lashes at him, demurring. “Why thank you, sheriff.”
He drew up right beside her. “I mean it. You amaze me. Every single time.”
To reward him, she arranged Maybelline so that she was in line with the stallion but facing the opposite direction. Then, she leaned backwards, hanging off Maybelline’s side like a handle. Once there, she cinched up the chambray shirt Mark wore and gave him a lip lock that she hoped he’d never forget.
She never would, that was for sure.
Then, she sprang back into place in her saddle, but not before stealing his hat and plopping it on her own head. He smiled so widely that it stretched from ear to ear. And if she’d had any doubts about loving him more than ever, they instantly dissolved.