Chapter 13
TILLY
An hour later, Mom’s on the back of my borrowed horse. She clutches me tightly, her fists digging into my stomach as she grips onto the saddle horn for dear life. Her discomfort on the back of a horse isn’t anything new. She’s always been a chickenshit when it comes to them.
When I first started taking riding lessons, she would drop me off at the ranch and leave to do errands instead of staying like some of the other parents.
I didn’t need her to linger, so it didn’t upset me at all that it freaked her out too much to watch me ride.
Ash was worse at it than any of the other kids were, so he stopped coming after the first few classes.
I think he was the reason Rowe wouldn’t stop pestering me while I was learning, though.
He taught me more than the instructor did.
Painted Sky stopped offering lessons a few years after I started.
“I should just leave your father’s truck here for you. I’ll call him to pick me up when we’re done, and then you won’t need to ride this thing around all the time,” she rambles, jerking a hand back to grip me.
I wince at the pressure. “Did you forget that my entire job revolves around horses? Not riding one won’t help me avoid them.”
“You could have been anything in the entire world,” she says, exasperated.
“And I chose grooming. Don’t start.”
“I’m just saying that you could have picked something safer. Horses are wild regardless of how trained they are.”
“Yet I trust them more than I do people.”
A beat of silence. “Fine. You win this round.”
“Next time you come here, I’ll make sure to get one of the cowboys to come back and grab you in a truck.”
“No, you won’t. I can handle this. This horse is nice, at least. Calm.”
“Yeah, she’s alright.”
Her hands aren’t digging in so deep now. “What’s her name?”
“I’ve got no idea.”
“What?” She leans away from me enough to shake her head. “You didn’t ask?”
“Rowe didn’t tell me, and I wasn’t up for sparking a conversation with him about something so small.”
She tenses enough that I can feel it. “So, you’ve spoken with him, then?”
“Unfortunately.”
“How is he?”
“Don’t ask that. You’re not allowed to care about him enough to ask me things like that, Mom,” I bite out, knowing how ridiculously immature I sound. “Ask Ash if you really want to know.”
“Tilly.”
It’s more of an exhausted noise than a frustrated one.
Either way, it annoys me. Anything involving Rowe does recently.
Especially coming from my mother, considering the close relationship she had with him when we were all growing up.
Because his parents were far from nurturing, she took that role as her own.
He wasn’t her child, but she saw him like he was. For a while, he was the triplet we never had.
“Being here is bad enough. I don’t need everyone using it as an opportunity to try and get us to talk or something. It’s not going to happen.”
“I wasn’t thinking that you needed to be friends with him again.”
“What are you thinking, then?”
“I worry about him like I worry about you. You can be angry all you want because he hurt you, but you can’t pretend that he hasn’t gone through hell and back since then. Nobody else here has the nerve to ask him how he’s really doing.”
“It’s not my job to take care of him. He’s a grown man,” I mutter, shame colouring my chest a deep pink.
She pushes a hand back to rub my side soothingly. I grit my teeth at the comfort it gives me. It’s been so long since I’ve had anyone try to touch me like this. Like they actually give a shit about how I feel.
My mother is the only person besides me and Rowe who knows the truth.
The full expanse of it. She knows about my ridiculous crush and the letters we sent each other during the first few months of his sentence.
It was her shoulder that I cried on when his final one came through and my na?ve little twenty-one-year-old heart broke.
“You’re both grown now,” she murmurs.
“You’ve been conspiring with Ash, haven’t you?”
“Me? Conspiring? You insult me.”
I laugh roughly, adjusting the reins in my hand. The shape of the round pen appears in front of us, and I guide the mare to the left so we don’t run into it. She listens well, only needing soft commands. I know without needing to ask anyone here who trained her.
“It’s not normal for horses to look like that, is it?” Mom asks.
She lifts her hand from my shoulder and points at the black one pacing in the pen. It’s the same one I spotted when I got here earlier. Still as spitting mad, it swings its tail against the fence, snorting loudly at everyone who passes.
“Normal? No. But it’s not rare,” I answer, slowing the horse beneath me when we get close enough that I can meet the dark eyes of the angry one. “It’s like that for a reason.”
“I don’t want to ask anything else. I’ll get sad if I do.”
“We’re almost at the house.”
I dig my heels into the mare’s underside and wait for her to pick up her pace again.
We leave the pen, hitting the paved road splitting this area in half.
The stables are on the left, the first one open and quiet.
There are a few younger kids walking up and down the aisle with wheelbarrows, doing a task that I know from experience sucks ass.
“I don’t have to leave yet, you know? I’d love to meet some of the people you’re going to be working with,” Mom says when we approach the ranch house.
“You’re stalling.”
“Are you that desperate to get rid of your poor old mother already?”
I settle the reins on my lap and twist to stare at her. She’s already trying to wiggle off the horse, glancing around in a search for her first victim. It’s only a matter of seconds before she falls onto her face.
“No, Drama Queen.”
Swinging off before she can tumble, I force myself to keep from searching for anyone I don’t want to talk to right now.
Or more like one specific somebody. Mom waits for my feet to make contact with the ground before following suit.
She’s off-balance and uncoordinated as she flails slightly, an arm snapping out.
I stabilize her as best I can and huff when she leans against the horse and settles.
Once she realizes what she’s doing, she jolts away from the mare and smooths down her shirt.
It’s loose on her, fitting the way she’s always preferred her clothes.
I took after her for a while and always bought a size up until I turned sixteen and convinced myself it was the baggy clothes that were keeping boys away from me.
Shocker, it had nothing to do with the clothes and all to do with my brother and his best friend.
“Come on, then. Let’s see who we can find,” I tell her, taking the mare’s reins and leading her to the stables.
Mom’s face brightens, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. I look away from her, unable to see her emotional like this over something so minuscule. She hurries beside me, following as I tie the horse up and peek into the stable.
“Hey! What are your names?” I shout down the aisle.
The two boys spin around to face me, their jaws dropping before slamming shut. The one in front reaches behind him and punches the stomach of the other one when he bumps into him.
“I’m Brock!” the violent one says. “Logan’s behind me.”
I take Mom’s arm and pull her ahead of me. “Great. This is my mom, Shelly.”
“It’s nice to meet you boys,” she says, her frustration with me blatant. “This is my daughter, Tilly. She’s the new groomer.”
“Oh, cool. So, you’ll, like, be here all the time, then?” Brock asks, a hand slipping into the back pocket of his jeans.
I inhale slowly. “Yep. You’ll probably see me in the groom stall often.”
“I hope you don’t have to take care of Diesel,” Logan mutters, eyeing the empty stall on his left.
Brock digs an elbow into the kid’s ribs. “Don’t say that stuff to her. Rowe could be listening.”
It’s almost enough to make me laugh. Their nerves when it comes to him are adorable, really. There was a time when I felt them too. When I thought he was above life—a man meant for so much more than what this place could offer him. Then I grew up and realized he was human like the rest of us.
“I’m not going to tell him. But Diesel isn’t a bad horse. If you’re scared of him, he must not like you,” I say.
Brock frowns and turns to his friend. “Whatever. Come on, Logan.”
“It was nice to meet you, boys. Keep up the good work!” Mom rushes out.
I roll my eyes and nudge her to follow me out of the stable. “Are you happy now? You met two people.”
“That is not what I meant, and you know it. I want to meet the real cowboys. They’ll be who you talk to every day, won’t they?”
We leave my borrowed horse where I’ve tied her up. Rowe can worry about unsaddling her and putting her away. Besides, Mom’s already marching forward, leaving me no time to do it myself, even if I felt like it.
She takes a look around us, searching. I know that the moment she chooses to hit the ranch house, we’re cooked.
She’s going to force me into conversation with Rowe’s mother, and I can’t think of anything worse than that.
That’s the only reason that I snag her attention when I see a cowboy riding over past the ridge.
He’s older than the others I’ve seen while I’ve been here.
Shit. I recognize him the moment he brings his eyes to me.
They’re too familiar to forget. Somehow, he looks like he’s only aged a couple of years since we last saw each other.
Sitting atop the same grey stud, he waves a gloved hand at us and sets his sights on where we’re standing.
“Tilly? Shit, it’s been too damn long, honey,” Otis drawls, grinning.
In a blink, he’s swinging off his horse and leaving it behind him. The oldest wrangler on the ranch barrels toward me and hauls me into his arms. I choke on a laugh and hug him back, inhaling the scent of tobacco and sweat. It’s oddly comforting.
“Look at you. I feel a million years old now. You’re so damn grown.
” He pats my back the same way he’d do to any other man here.
I take solace in the slight pain from the hit, knowing not everything has changed while I’ve been gone.
“I almost didn’t believe ’em when they told me you were working here, but shit. Here you are.”
We separate, and I nod, glancing at my mom. She’s smiling softly, watching.
“Here I am. And here you are. No moving on for you after all these years?”
“To do what? Ain’t nobody else around here want to take on an old man. I’ve got too much say around here now to leave, anyway. No chance I’m starting over this late.”
“I’m Shelly,” Mom says, inserting herself.
I crook the corner of my mouth and let her have her moment. My cheeks are hot from the sun and the lack of sunscreen I put on today. I’ll be burnt by tonight, but I can’t find it in me to be annoyed by that. Not when I’m here with Mom, as frustrating as she can be sometimes.
“I remember. Your daughter would talk about you all the time, back when I’d find her hiding out in the stables to steal a few too many secret rides. It’s nice to see you again,” Otis says, amping up the charm.
The wedding ring on my mother’s hand doesn’t leave him a chance in hell, but it’s fun to watch him try.
“Oh, those secret nights that weren’t secret at all. Her brother tattled on her every time.”
“What?” I blurt, whipping my head toward her.
Otis’s deep laugh follows my question, and Mom simply waves me off before saying, “It was years ago, sweetheart.”
The old man shoots me a wink. “There’s no need for secret rides now. Not with you on the payroll.”
“Goodie,” I mutter under my breath.
I’m going to lose my mind here. There’s no question about it. I just have to decide if that’s going to be the worst or best thing for me.