28. Dani
28
dani
Quinn’s little farmhouse is in Fall Springs, like my parents’ house. Her place was only about a ten-minute drive from me, and I would guess only five from the ranch.
It sits off the road and up on a little elevation, but whoever built it had flattened out the land where the house rested, so once you were at the end of the driveway, you felt like you were on your own little slice of heaven.
Her place, however, is Pinterest-perfect, and I see so the moment she opens the door. “It feels like a cottage in here,” I gasp when I see the adorable kitchen, its cabinets green, and a bench wrapping around two sides of her dining table, which is where Aveline is sitting with her little girl. Amelia, Aveline’s cousin, sits at the end of the table, playing peek-a-boo with Jenny.
Quinn laughs and ushers me farther into the house. “ Trust me, you should have seen it when I bought it. It was run down and halfway broken.”
I set down the salad I brought and look around. “You wouldn’t be able to tell now.”
“Well, then I will say thank you.”
“Graham helped her a lot,” Aveline chirps in. “When he was smitten.”
“Yeah, he was definitely handsy.” Amelia smacks her forehead jokingly. “Oops, I mean handy.”
“You two are the worst,” Quinn deadpans and holds up a pitcher of iced tea, asking silently. I nod my head, and she sets it in front of a seat clearly meant for me, and I settle in, smiling already at the three women’s jokes. “He wasn’t handsy until at least our second date.”
We all laugh, and I get caught up on Aveline and her cousin. I don’t know Amelia well, so we talk a bit about her life. Amelia moved back home after years away. She lost her husband in a fire and had no family, so she came back with her daughter Sophia and manages the lodge that Aveline’s husband, Ethan, and her brother, Lucas, built. Graham was also a part of that building, and they tell me Cade trains the horses for the trail rides.
“Speaking of CT,” Quinn starts, not in the least bit sly, her brow rising in my direction. Subtle. “How are things going with him?”
“Things are fine,” I reply, taking a sip of the iced tea. “No Alex today?” I ask, deflecting.
“She’s outside with Sophie.” She waves her hand. “Quit changing the subject.”
I blush, and Aveline and Amelia start to chuckle. “You’re relentless,” I tell Quinn.
“Blame them.” She points at the other women, who simultaneously gasp. “They taught me how to be this way.”
“Oh please,” says Amelia.
“How dare you!” Aveline adds, unable to keep from giggling. “Okay, it’s a little true. But you picked up on it quick, so we just woke the beast. We didn’t train it.”
I laugh at the dig, and Quinn rolls her eyes playfully.
“You guys are as bad as Meryl Mason,” I jest, bringing up the town gossip.
Aveline gasps and points a crayon at me that she is using to color with her daughter. “How dare you!”
I chuckle and offer to help when Quinn hops up, her oven beeps and she bends down to pull a fresh lasagna out of the oven. The aroma of tomato, garlic, and basil fills the air, and my mouth starts watering instantly.
After we all get settled with the food, they call the girls in, and we all sit around the table to eat.
I get to sit by Alex, and she tells me about her art classes and her dad, who apparently lives in London. Then she tells me about her riding and how she wants to show someday.
“You show horses, right?”
I’m surprised she knows this, but I nod, amused that this little nine-year-old was drilling me. “I do. It takes a lot of dedication.”
“Yeah.” She picks up a bite of lasagna on her fork but doesn’t eat it. “That’s what Uncle Cade says.”
I melt at hearing her call him “Uncle Cade.” As far as I know, I’m the only one aside from his mother who even calls him Cade, but I found it heartwarming that Alex does.
That he allows her to call him Cade shows me how much he truly cares for the little girl.
“He’s right,” I tell her. “But from what I hear from him, you’ve got what it takes so long as you keep at it.”
“He said that?” Her eyes light up, and I see a bit of hero worship in her eyes. Join the club, kiddo .
“Yup. He thinks you do well.”
“He told me that I should come to a show and watch you sometime, that you’d be a great role model for me.” Her eyes look almost pleading, and I hold back the “aww” that rises to my throat. The fact that Cade is out there telling little girls to think of me as a role model has me blinking in surprise.
I’ve most definitely never thought of myself as a role model, but Cade has always seen the best in me, even when I couldn’t see it for myself.
“Well, you’re more than welcome to come to a show sometime. Maybe I can find something more local.”
She turns to Quinn. “Or we could go to Denver next time!”
Quinn looks to me, and I give her an apologetic look. “No problem. Graham is dying to go back to town anyway.”
Alex makes a fist and pumps it. “Yes!”
I laugh at her antics.
Soon enough, lunch is over, and the girls go outside to play, this time taking Jenny with them. There’s a large back deck that leads to a little set of swings.
We all pitch in to clean up after lunch, and Quinn asks again, “So, how are things really with CT? ”
I smile and shake my head. “Things are good. Truly.”
She smiles. “I’m glad. I know I’ve been seeing a light in him that I haven’t before, and it makes me happy. He was such a grump when I met him.”
I sigh, running a sponge over a plate. “It wasn’t all his fault. He was dealing with a lot.”
“I can imagine,” Aveline says behind me, putting the leftover bread in a baggie. “Losing a parent is hard, but watching them slowly fade like that? Unimaginable.”
“That’s right, I forgot you lost your dad,” Quinn says quietly, remembering that tidbit.
“Losing people is really hard,” Amelia chimes in. “It feels like you lose a piece of yourself when someone dies, but you also are forced to find a new piece of yourself. You have to push forward, have to fill that void. I was able to go from being a stay-at-home mom to being the manager of a large lodge. I’ve found more in myself now than I might have before, as hard as that is to admit.” She folds a hand towel over and over as she talks. “The difference may be just…” She shrugs. “Timing. For me, it was a couple months. For others, it can take years.”
I think about Cade pushing me away, it was probably the hardest thing he ever had to do, but he was lost, scared. He felt alone.
I knew Graham being gone hurt him, even though Graham couldn’t help that. The military has very strict rules when it comes to family members dying.
Cal wasn’t much help, though he did try. But he was also losing his wife, so how much help could he have been?
Then Cade pushed me away, making me think that he didn’t want to be with me anymore, that things between us weren’t what I thought they were.
How could I have let him push me away? Granted, I was younger. But not so much younger that I shouldn’t have known better.
It’s not much longer until I’m back in my truck, taking roads that lead me back to Three Rivers to find Cade. All the talk about feeling alone, about how he must have been horrified that he was losing his mom, that his dad was also lost, that his brother wasn’t able to be there for him…my stomach hurt just thinking about it. I need to see him, to hold him, to kiss him. To let him know that I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to let us be sabotaged again by our grief or fear.
I’m glad when I walk into the barn, and my cousins are not around, but Cade is walking out of the arena with Milk, clearly just getting done with a session, judging by them both being slightly out of breath.
“Hey, honey,” he greets casually with a grin on his face. I walk right up to him, holding back the urge to run and jump onto him since he’s holding his horse, and I grab him by the face—his signature move—and kiss the hell out of the man.
He deserves to be loved and cared for, deserves to know that there’s someone out there who isn’t going to let him push them away.
That person was going to be me.