Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alicia
The truck driver delivering the excavator was not impressed by my presence.
On my live stream he flailed his hands and called me very unflattering names, but I wouldn’t move.
One of the benefits of the road frontage was that it didn’t have a lot of driveway options.
If he dropped the giant piece of machinery just anywhere, it would be at risk of sinking into the mud.
Not that that would be a catastrophic issue for the excavator—it could definitely handle some sinking, but the truck driver was still pissed at me.
“Some silly bitch is standin’ here,” he hollered into his phone. “Nah, she’s got her phone out recordin’ or some shit.”
Considering all the nonsense I’d pulled in the past, I didn’t think there was anything more fruitless than what I was currently doing.
The sun was a hazy blotch in the overcast sky.
I shivered in my big puffy coat and wished I’d had the foresight to put my snow pants in my car.
My toes and fingers were already cold, not dangerously so, but uncomfortable.
And there was no way to know how long I’d be out there.
At least, he hadn’t threatened to call the police. Yet.
“Yeah.” He scratched at the high visibility stocking cap he wore over his messy hair. “I can drop it in the road. Where’s your operator? It can’t just sit in there.”
He was still grumbling as he rounded the other side of his trailer, but I couldn’t understand him.
A bind holding the excavator in place slackened.
And a little bit of the foolish hope I’d been holding on to plummeted.
One by one the bindings flicked loose, with each one I wondered what I was doing here.
Time. I needed to buy time.
But what was the point? Was there any worse feeling than the feeling of defeat? I sank under it. Overwhelmed by it.
To my left came a consistent thud like stone hitting sand. My eyebrows pinched together. It was familiar, but I couldn’t make sense of it, until I turned in the sound’s direction.
Wet sand kicked up from the hooves of a gray horse, atop it Remi sat straight backed.
His brown corduroy coat unzipped, the bottom caught in the wind.
Underneath, his navy blue hoodie strained against the flex of his pecs.
The waves of his hair flew back from his face all windswept like a romance novel cover model.
He swayed with the movements of the horse’s stride in a way that could only be described as suggestive.
And his damn thick-ass thighs were beautifully at eye level.
It was all so surreal, and—God help me—hot I was a little concerned that I was experiencing a hypothermia induced hallucination.
He pulled the reigns and slowed, as he neared.
I stood completely still, staring up and up and up at him, my eyebrows pulled high on my forehead. In my shocked stupor I’d somehow trained my camera on him and his steed.
“Hey, Leese.” He grinned down at me rubbing the horses neck, both of their breathing a little labored, steam circling them.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Being a pain in the ass,” he whispered back, as if that explained anything.
Louder he called to the truck driver, “Excuse me, sir. I’m going to need you to not unload that. I have the high school equestrian team on their way, and one of the horses might spook. It could be dangerous.”
“What?” I laughed.
After letting out a string of expletives, the driver yelled back, “Look, Seabiscuit, I’m unloading this goddamn thing and heading home. Tell your high schoolers to go ride their ponies somewhere else.”
“Seabiscuit?” Remi smiled huge and unbothered. “Sir, I’m really sorry, this is where we’re practicing our canter. Important stuff cantering. Gotta practice.”
The trucker mumbled something under his breath.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that.”
“I’m unloading this thing.”
“But the kids and their cantering.” I couldn’t keep the chuckle out of my voice. This whole thing was ridiculous, and if I wasn’t already head over heels for Remi this would have made it happen.
The crunch of dirt under tires joined our little group. Remi’s horse shook his head and took a couple of steps to the side at the arrival of a black truck that parked directly behind the semi-trailer.
Throwing his hands up, the trucker exclaimed, “You have got to be shitting me.”
Mrs. Creger stuck her head out of the driver’s side window. “Buddy, I’m gonna need you to pull forward. You’re parked right in the way.”
“In the way of what?” His face was bright red, and a vein protruded from his neck.
“Euchre.” She flicked her hand as if it was obvious.
“Euchre?!”
“Yup, I got a permit, right here. We’re going to be lining up for the next quarter mile and playin’ a tournament.”
Remi pressed a palm to his chest, his head falling back as he laughed at the overcast sky. My mouth hung open, and goosebumps prickled up my arms.
More cars turned on to the dirt road, and the driver cussed a string of swear words I’d never heard in quite that order.
He looked like he was going to argue with Mrs. Creger who was yelling at him to watch his language, when more hoof beats on dirt announced the arrival of Brooks’ and four teenagers all on horseback trailing behind him.
The kids’ riding in to save the day was less majestic than Remi’s with their thin limbs and uncoordinated movements. But they were absolutely perfect.
Equestrian team and euchre club to save the day.
Beautiful.
Too overwhelmed—my laughter sounding more like sobs—I hid my face in my hand not holding my still-streaming phone.
The driver shook his head in shock, his jaw clenched.
Remi lifted one large shoulder. “Canter practice.”
Throwing his arms in the air, the driver finally seemed to give up. “You’re all crazy!”
“That may be, but you are still in the way,” Deb yelled back.
“I’m movin’, lady, I’m movin’.”
“Thank you,” she said, but her tone did not sound grateful.
A battered, white work truck rumbled toward us from down the road. It slowed to a crawl, and one of the women in Deb’s truck bed called out, “Brian, I know you’re not here to operate that excavator.”
The man who wouldn’t sign my petition at Nora’s party brought his vehicle to a stop and rolled down the passenger side window. “Gran, it’s my job.”
“Well, you’ll have to find something else to do today, he’s packing it back up.”
“This is ridiculous,” he grumbled, casting a glare toward me and Remi. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Me too,” I shot back to which Brian rolled his eyes.
He turned back to his grandma. “You should go home. All you ladies, you’re gonna get sick in this cold.”
“We’ll be just fine,” his grandma answered.
“Does Grandpa know you’re out here?”
“You know what, why don’t you go on over to our place and tell him for me? See what he has to say about all of this.”
Heaving an irritated sigh, he rolled his window back up and drove away.
“Hey, Remi.” One of the high schoolers brought her horse to a stop next to his gray horse.
“Hey, Crystal, thanks for being here.”
“Conner and a couple of other kids couldn’t get permission from their parents, so it’s just us.”
He had that smile that melted my insides—all crinkly eyes, and white teeth. “That’s fine, you were enough. He’s tying it back down and driving away.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Remi’s midnight gaze met mine—an ever-expanding universe of emotions and promises in their depths. Happy tears trickled down my cheeks, wondering how life could deliver so many beautiful and unexpected outcomes.
“You did it, Leese. You bought time.” He swung a leg over the saddle and lowered to the ground.
I flung an indistinct hand at the general chaos of white-haired ladies in giant coats and hats heaving and propping each other into the back of pickup trucks and sharing blankets as they dealt cards onto TV trays.
Then I pointed to four teenagers looking like they didn’t know what to do with their hands or where to look, and like the most incredible future.
“I didn’t do this,” I sobbed, my voice raspy. I pressed a frozen hand to his cheek. At some point I must have dropped my phone because I wasn’t holding it anymore. “That was them. That was you.”
“You gave us something to rally for.”
“I can’t stop crying. I must look ridiculous.”
He pulled me against him, my puffy coat bunching. His lips were hot on my cold forehead. “You look perfect.”
Sobbing and laughing, I hid my face in the rough fabric of his coat. “How is this happening?”
Instead of answering, he held me tighter and pressed a kiss to my temple. It was good. It was more than good. It was solid. And I trusted it implicitly.
I trusted him.
I trusted me.
Pulling his mouth to mine, I savored the feel—claiming his kiss as if it were a trophy for my victory. As if everything was as simple as his touch, and as satisfying as the taste of his lips. As if, just like the challenges between us, everything would work out.