Chapter 13
Definitely yoga could benefit everyone after riding several miles over the terrain to get to the beautiful plain where Wade wanted them to camp. A part of Viv had really thought he had been teasing about the camping and they’d arrive and there would be a cabin or some glamping-style setup. But there didn’t appear to be anything for miles around when they stopped, just gentle rolling hills, waving grass, and blue sky.
She stayed on her horse for a long moment and scanned the surrounding area, hoping against hope that she’d see something hidden. But she failed. Glumly she climbed down, her muscles screaming their protest at the unaccustomed exercise. She clung to Durango’s mane and the saddle for several long moments while she readjusted to life on earth and not the rocking sensation of the saddle.
“You okay there, city girl?”
She scowled at him.“You know, when I introduced you to ‘my world,’ as you called it, it was a lot more pleasant than this. And, for the record, upstate New York is not the city. It’s quite rural and I came from a farm. A vineyard in fact.”
He smirked.“That’s cute. A vineyard compared to a ranch. Everything is city compared to here. Be patient. This will be worth it.”
“Not likely,” she muttered.
Sure, she liked new experiences, possibly more than the average person. That tendency confused her family and made them often despair of her ever settling down with a “real job,” as they called it. They often asked her when she was going to stop flitting about and get serious about life. To them, everything she did was an indulgence, trying new things, keeping life exciting. But in reality, she was looking for her passion. And she believed she had found it in helping people find their own path to serenity.
It was ironic, really, that a woman who struggled with her own career and path would end up helping others in a similar way. But she felt she was uniquely qualified to understand them and their struggles. Not everyone needed to be a yoga instructor, but enjoyed the guidance of one. Others needed help balancing their energy and finding their centers through meditation. She could help them with that and, with her background from years spent on the business side of the vineyard, could also manage a staff and a center.
Back home, she was running a small studio and a couple of instructors. But here, at the Guest Ranch at Buck’s Falls, she’d found a place she enjoyed. While she’d never undermine her friend Greta, she wished she could have a more permanent place here. But she was grateful for the opportunity because it showed her the next direction in her life. And she was ready for that path.
“Shake a leg, Viv. We have to make camp before dark or it will be hard to see anything. No work, no food.”
Wade tossed her a line and a stake and pointed. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
* * *
Wade had been patient with Viv and had even done the cooking, which was good because Viv was definitely not a cook. She could burn food with the best of them and the microwave was her friend. Unfortunately, this camping expedition didn’t come with an outlet, generator, or microwave, so they were shit out of luck for her style of cooking—or reheating, as her friend Eden called it. Whatever Wade made was delicious, and she decided not to ask what it was, worried that he’d tell her it was some weird-ass cowboy thing and she honestly didn’t think she could handle it.
She glanced beyond the roaring fire and Wade to the decent-sized tent behind him.“I’ll admit, Buchanan, I really thought I’d be sleeping under the stars tonight. While it’s not a cabin or a fancy glamping tent, it looks really nice.”
He grinned.“You should have seen your face when I stopped us here. I thought you were going to cry.”
She kicked him in the shin, not hard enough to hurt, and he grunted.“The whole way out here, I thought you were kidding, stringing me along, and there would be a cabin out here.”
He shrugged.“Our guests come here for the authentic cowboy experience. Some of them do sleep on the ground with bedrolls and all that or in two-man tents. Others get this kind of tent, which is the plan for the meteor shower event over the next few weeks, weather permitting.”
She glared at him in mock outrage.“You’re telling me if the weather was lousy, I didn’t have to come?”
He laughed and tugged on a curl of her hair.“I wouldn’t have invited you if the weather wasn’t nice. It’s not worth looking at the stars if it’s cloudy or raining. We won’t have the camping with the guests either if the weather isn’t optimal. So our event calendar specifies weather permitting.”
She scowled a little, then tilted her head back to look up at the blanket of stars above her.“It really is gorgeous. In New York, we can see the stars, especially when we’re out in the vineyard, but it’s nothing like this.”
He took her hand and led her to the other side of the fire, where he’d laid out a blanket. He stretched out on his back and patted the spot next to him. She arched her eyebrow.“I’m not made for lying on the ground.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure? I shook the blanket out so there are no spiders and the snakes are all in bed. Trust me.” He tapped the blanket again and grinned at her.
She sighed and gingerly laid down, expecting a rock to dig into her back. Instead, only softness greeted her.“You laid padding down?”
“Anything for your comfort. Now you can enjoy the stars without hurting your neck.”
She took off her boots and sighed. She snuggled into the soft blanket, wiggling until her neck was comfortable on the pillow he’d also laid out for her.“This is perfect. Your guests will love this.”
Their hands were barely touching, a brush of fingertips against each other as they lay next to each other, yet somehow, in the quiet evening, with only the gentle breeze softly blowing over them, it felt more intimate than any other time she’d spent with a man, and they were fully clothed.
“Did you ever do much stargazing back home?”
“Not really. But my dad tried to teach us some of the constellations when we were out doing the ice wine harvest—that’s a harvest done during the first frost and often started at night, so he made a game out of it and showed us different constellations to make the night go faster.” She pointed to the sky.“My brother was good at finding the Big Dipper, but I could always find Orion. Though I don’t see it right now.”
“Orion is not visible in the summer at night, only during the day because of the position of the sun and the earth. Did you know the Lakota have their own legends about Orion? Some stars in Orion make up a left hand and the Lakota call it the Hand Star or the Hand Constellation. It goes from the belt of Orion down.” He held his hand up to the sky and traced his hand, pointing out where the stars would be in the constellation with his other finger.“The belt is the bottom of the palm of the hand. The thumb is the Orion Nebula. The index finger is Rigel, the brightest star. And the pinky is Beta Eridani, a star in the constellation Eridanis.”
She squinted at what he was describing, trying to visualize it.“I guess I can see that. What did it mean to them?”
“Well, it represented the hand of a great Lakota chief. Apparently, the gods were very upset with him and wanted to punish him for his selfishness, so they made the Thunder People rip out his arm. His daughter offered to marry anyone who would recover her father’s arm.”
She grimaced.“That’s awful. What a nice daughter. Though, did the chief deserve it?”
He chuckled.“She thought so. Fallen Star, a warrior whose father was a star and mother was a human, retrieved the arm and married the woman. The return of the arm symbolized harmony and peace between the gods and humans, with the help of the younger generation.”
“And all I want to know is if the chief learned his lesson.”
“One would presume so.”
Her head drifted to the side to settle on his shoulder and they rested there in silence for a long moment.“I like that story. Did your uncle tell you that?”
“No, his father did, or maybe Gabe. Gabe is another one of the brothers you probably haven’t met yet. He’s a mystery writer and was always asking about stories and legends. Uncle Daniel’s father had all kinds of stories about the area and Gabe soaked them up and often told them to us when we were out camping. Those stories probably fueled his writing later on.”
“Sarah told me about Gabe. I think he’s coming up later this summer with his wife. I have one of his books in my cabin. He’s really good.”
“Yeah, he was supposed to take over the guest ranch, but it wasn’t his thing. Uncle Daniel wasn’t too happy, but he’s come to terms with it. Mostly.” Silence reigned for several moments.“So, you have a family back in New York?”
She was so not ready to have this conversation, but she’d grilled him about his family over the past week.“Yup, all successful, gainfully employed, mostly in the vineyard that’s been in the family for a few generations. I’m the odd duck.”
She felt his eyes on her, on the tattoo that crept over the neckline of her shirt and the pink-tipped blond hair that was out of place almost everywhere.“Why come all the way out to Montana? Didn’t they have spas back in New York? I would have thought it was like the mother ship for that kind of thing.”
She gave him a side-eyed look, but he only stared at the sky.“I wanted to learn some new techniques and have new opportunities. Greta and I met at a workshop and struck up a friendship. She thought this might be a good place to grow and expand my skills.”
He snorted. She glared at him.“What the hell was that supposed to mean?”
“You hoity-toity easterners with your fancy words.‘Grow.’ Like you’re a fucking plant. You’re an adult. You just need to get on with it.”
“For your information, people grow and change. Maybe someone with the emotional or mental capacity of a gnat wouldn’t understand that, but some of us want to expand our skills and develop for a better future. We’re not content to do the same thing over and over forever.”
“Only people who don’t have to work for a living have the luxury of taking jobs to grow.”
She rolled over and braced herself above him.“I support myself, you know. My parents haven’t supplemented my income since college, which I didn’t finish.”
“Surprise, surprise. So you’re here to ‘grow.’ Then what? You’ll drift to something else?”
She sank back onto the blanket and stared at the sky.“You sound like my family.”
“Shit, Viv, I didn’t mean that. I just wondered what we’re trying to do?” He sounded remorseful, so she cut him some slack because the God’s honest truth was she was only here for the summer. It was almost like a vacation. She may love what she’s doing but she was still faced with the reality of how she could find a job doing it. Her friend would be coming back. Where would Viv go? At least she figured out what she liked. She had a direction. One step accomplished. But finding the place where she belonged, that was a horse of another color.
The fire crackled and popped as the silence grew between them. Finally, she said, “I want to find a place where I fit in, a place where I belong.”
“And you didn’t fit in back home?”
She gave him a wry look, blinking through watery eyes.“Have you seen me? Of course you have. I’m different, with the tattoos, the piercings, the colored hair. I don’t fit in with them. And what I do? They think it’s ridiculous. They’re waiting for me to get this out of my system and get serious about something.”
He rolled over and turned her chin to face him.“I respect you. It takes guts to leave everything you know and come somewhere different. And you work hard. I’ve heard it from the guests. They like you. Maybe you’ve found your place.”
Her lips quirked in a grin.“Making me feel better, Buchanan? Thanks, but I’ll get over this pity party. I always do.” She turned back to the stars.“So what’s your deal?”
He settled back.“Oh no. That’s enough deep shit for one night.”
She nudged his arm none too gently.“Nope, not this time. You’ve wiggled out of it too many times. I bared my fucking soul. Time for you to do the same.”
“What more do you need to know? I came to live here when I was ten, when my parents died. And I stayed. I don’t know what else there is to tell.”
Oh, there was more to that story. She had a sixth sense about these things. It was the way that he interacted with Michael and the family. The subtle way he held himself back from everyone. He rarely pulled out his last name, though he’d done it with the obnoxious asshole in her class earlier that week to protect her. But something was off and she wanted to know what it was.
“You’re a Buchanan, a member of the family. Why do you keep saying that you’re just a cowboy?”
“Because I’m not a member of the family.” The words burst out of him and he rolled away, getting to his feet and walking to the fire, leaving her staring after him in shock.