Chapter Eleven
I t was the middle of August before Sierra finally went back to her parents’ house for their usual monthly dinner.
She had claimed that she was too busy working both July 1 and August 1—not a lie, really—but her mother’s messages were relentless.
And Sierra knew that Mary Catherine was only going to keep escalating until she got what she wanted.
So on a hot Friday night, instead of going on one of the dates that Boone still insisted upon—and that Sierra still found unfathomably delightful—she drove down to her sterile and unwelcoming childhood home with her parents instead.
It didn’t feel like a fair trade.
She thought about inviting Boone to come with her, but common sense prevailed.
They would no doubt feel the need to vent their spleen and there was no need for Boone to witness that.
He’d been the target of entirely too many snide comments from them over the years as it was.
Instead, they agreed to meet at Grey’s Saloon later down in the middle of historic Marietta, and Sierra figured that was a good enough carrot to get her through the slog of a dinner that waited for her.
She also realized, halfway down Copper Mountain, that she hadn’t dressed for her mother’s approval.
The realization felt like a seismic shift.
She’d been running around her apartment, throwing things together with only moments to spare because Boone had made her late.
And he had continued to kiss her silly—until she was actually laughing at him as she climbed in her Jeep.
You’re going make me too dizzy to drive , she’d told him.
Baby , he’d replied.
That’s the idea.
She’d been grinning about that, and just dizzy enough, right up until the moment she’d realized she was dressed in a manner her mother was absolutely not going to care for.
Not that it was outrageous.
Jeans, nice shoes, a cute top.
Perfectly fine for a Friday night.
But she knew perfectly well what her mother expected.
Sierra wished that she could have felt nothing but a calm sense of purpose and pride, but as she pulled up in front of the gleaming old Victorian she felt a lot more nerves than anything else.
There was a part of her that would always want to live up to her mother’s demands.
Maybe that was normal.
“But that doesn’t mean you have to actually do it,” she reminded herself firmly.
When she got out of the Jeep she walked up the front door and let herself in.
No doorbell. No waiting on the porch like a traveling salesman.
Maybe it wasn’t much, but it felt like a revolution.
When she came upon her parents, already sitting in the study, they both looked at her as if she’d coming crashing in through the nearest window.
“I let myself in,” she said breezily as she went and sat down in her usual seat.
“No need to make a fuss.”
For a moment, everything was silent.
She had managed to shock them into speechlessness, and she was determined to enjoy it.
Because it wouldn’t last long.
Sierra was fully aware that explosion was coming.
“What on earth has gotten into you?” Mary Catherine asked, right on schedule.
She sounded appalled .
When Sierra only smiled, her mother drew herself up, looking as if she was trembling with outrage.
Literally trembling .
“First, to run out on poor Matty like that. Without so much as a backward glance. Then to up and quit your job and move to the back of beyond. I’ll be honest with you, Sierra. Your father and I have been discussing whether or not you’re having some kind of mental health crisis.”
“I was,” Sierra said, and suddenly it was easy to sound calm.
Because she actually felt remarkably calm.
Particularly when it came to this topic.
“I was married to a cheater for ten years. Not a great mental health space to be in, I’m sure we can all agree. But I’m all better now.”
“That’s hardly something you can complain about, is it?” Her mother retorted, crisply.
“Given the way you’ve been carrying on with that Boone Carey.”
That was less calming.
Sierra realized in that moment that she was used to what they liked to say to her .
But Boone was off-limits, as far as she was concerned.
Hearing his name in her mother’s mouth now, when so much had changed—well.
It felt like her mother had taken a swing at her.
Sierra didn’t like it at all.
“I’m not following you,” Sierra replied coolly.
“How does what I do after my divorce have anything to do with what Matty did all throughout our marriage?”
Her mother sniffed.
“I think we all know exactly what you did throughout your marriage, Sierra. Perhaps less of a high horse, please.”
In his chair, Kenneth tutted.
“Now Mary Catherine,” he said, reprovingly.
But not too reprovingly.
“Let’s not fling accusations about.”
“I never cheated on Matty,” Sierra said, as matter-of-factly as she could.
“If you think that I was having an affair with Boone the whole time, I can help you with that. I wasn’t. I wouldn’t. But I also see no reason to waste time now that I’m free. I’ve already wasted so much time. Too much time.”
Mary Catherine very dramatically threw her hands in the air.
“You’ve made us an absolute laughingstock,” she said.
“Our daughter, run off with some cowboy and become a milkmaid ? I’m ashamed to show my face outside of this house. What’s next, Sierra?”
“I don’t know,” Sierra said.
She settled back into her chair and folded her hands in her lap.
“You mean what’s next for you? Well, I’ll tell you, Mom. I think you should take some time and have a really deep think about why it is you’ve always treated your own daughter so shabbily.” Mary Catherine made a huffing sort of sound, but Sierra kept going.
“Even now, you’re predisposed to defend a guy who not only cheated on me repeatedly since the beginning of our relationship in high school, but wasn’t very nice to me when he was around, either. Why are you okay with that?”
“You were with Matty for a long time,” her father chimed in before her mother could finish all the outraged huffing , and now he sounded far more reproving.
“I know it’s the fashion to act as if everything was always terrible when a relationship ends. But if it was so egregious, why would you have stayed? And for all those years?”
And that was a terrific question, Sierra thought.
If not one she really wanted to dive into with the two of them.
Why had she stayed?
She knew the answers.
She’d told Boone why.
But looking at it now, when her life had changed so much for the better in so short a time—so much that it was unrecognizably more joyful and wonderful in every regard—she had to ask herself if she was really willing to put all of her choices into the hands of inertia.
If she’d chosen to stay, that was on her.
Maybe that was what had made leaving so easy.
All it had taken was her making up her mind and then going.
Maybe that was the answer to everything.
She had only been as trapped as she allowed herself to be, and she didn’t have the language to explain to her sad, rigid, judgmental parents how free she was now.
Or how she was never, ever going back to anything that resembled what she’d left.
Her parents started talking, stiffly enough to make it clear they were rising above Sierra’s many provocations, about the news.
About the usual town gossip.
About the things they liked to talk about in their pre-dinner hour, every night without fail.
But Sierra was thinking about Boone.
She could still remember seeing him for the very first time.
It was hard, now, to peel away all the layers of the best friend he’d been to her for so long and the lover he was now.
Though it was possible that was the whole point, she thought.
She could remember that first sighting, but she couldn’t remember herself before him.
She could still see that long-ago morning with perfect clarity.
The morning she and the ridiculously cute boy from Cowboy Point had laid eyes on each other on the very first day of junior high school.
Because it had been…
a transformation.
Not that she would have called it that back then.
She hadn’t had the words for it.
She hadn’t been able to explain it, not that day or for years after.
Because she’d felt that connection to him immediately.
They’d walked into that classroom together, looked at each other, and smiled.
Thinking about it now, it was like the whole world—and her entire life—turned around that moment.
A year later, she’d known, hadn’t she?
She and Boone had gotten closer and closer that year.
And sure, there had been external considerations.
Like what her parents had wanted for her—or more for themselves, and they’d never been shy about sharing their expectations.
She’d been perfectly clear about who they would and wouldn’t approve of.
They’d always been awful about her friends.
She’d assumed that when boys were involved, they’d be worse.
Besides, she’d already known the kind of people they were.
And how unduly pleased her father had been that she and Matty were in the same grade.
Like that would help him somehow.
But again, that was casting blame on a lot of things that weren’t her.
Like she’d simply been carried along all this time, swept this way and that by other people’s choices and desires.
Like she’d never had any of her own.
That just wasn’t true.
It wasn’t her .
There wasn’t one single part of her that didn’t react—badly—to the notion that she’d been helpless all these years.
And so she had to wonder if what she’d really been reacting to was the bigness of it all.
Everything with Boone was so huge.
It had been terrifying.
It still was.
She had been a girl who wasn’t even allowed to make a noise in her own home without getting in trouble so the idea of all of the intensity that swirled between her and Boone, all of that oversize emotion, all the places it might lead and the things it might mean—
It was no wonder that when Matty had asked her to go to Homecoming with him, a request that she’d always suspected had been something of a dare from his equally obnoxious friends, she’d said yes.
Because Boone as her friend she could handle.
Boone as a mainstay in her life, she could do.
If these last few weeks proved anything, it was that Boone really was every bit as intense and overwhelming as she’d known he would be when they were still basically kids.
When she never would have used the word nuclear to describe him.
Now she knew that it fit.
He not only physically took up so much space.
He not only claimed every part of her body when he touched her.
But he was everything else, too.
Their dairy business was booming and he insisted that they were partners.
They made a terrific team.
It would be so easy to fall head over heels and tumble straight into whatever forever looked like, just the two of them, letting all of this immensity claim her once and for all.
She could feel herself putting the brakes on in self-defense, even just thinking about it.
But tonight she had to ask herself what she was actually afraid of.
Were those her brakes?
Were they what she wanted?
Or were they left over from when she let everyone else drive her around?
Her parents processed into the stuffy dining room at the appointed hour and she followed, thinking about brakes and pulling back —thoughts that felt a lot like the same ones she distinctly remembered having as a teenager.
But as she took her usual seat and waited for her mother to dish out the tiny portions of the meal they were sharing, she found herself biting back laughter.
Because what on earth was she saving herself from?
More to the point—who was she saving herself for ?
“I don’t know what you’re snickering about,” her mother said, admonishing her.
“I was thinking about having my cake and eating it too, Mom,” Sierra said, and let herself laugh out loud.
Somehow, that did not make the dining room crumble into ash all around her the way she’d always imagined it would if desecrated with any inkling of joy.
“For once.”
Mary Catherine let out a huff of air, as if she could hold herself back no longer.
She made a point of catching Sierra’s eye and holding it.
“I think you’ve had quite enough cake, Sierra,” she said.
It was meant as a slap, there was denying it, but this time it didn’t quite land.
Sierra didn’t feel it the way she was meant to.
The way she would have a few months ago.
There was some noise from her father’s end of the table and Sierra was tempted to look that way to see how he was going to spin this into something not as vicious as it clearly was, but her mother was too busy putting on one of her virtuoso performances.
“Don’t try to silence me, Kenneth,” she cried.
“This is our daughter. If we won’t tell her the truth, who will?” That was melodrama at its finest, but then so was the way she turned to gaze at Sierra again.
“You’ve gotten quite heavy, Sierra. The last thing on earth you should be thinking about is cake. I’ve always warned you that no one likes a chubby girl. Especially not one who’s divorced .”
Sierra thought two things at once.
First, that she was not, in fact, chubby.
Second, and more importantly, it wouldn’t matter if she was.
“False,” she replied calmly and cut herself a generous piece of steak she assumed her father had grilled.
“Boone likes me just fine.”
“That’s enough,” her father chimed in then, as if Sierra had said something filthy.
Sierra swallowed, and leaned in.
She even dared to put her elbows on the table—another shocking breach of good manners that, as a child, she’d truly believed would level the house.
Etiquette is everything , her consistently rude mother had always lectured her.
Funny how clear everything seemed these days.
She held Mary Catherine’s gaze.
“What I’d like to know, Mom, is why it’s so important to you to shrink. To be tiny. Why is that the only thing you think about?”
She could hear Boone in her head.
Don’t ever make yourself small on my account.
It made her feel… expansive.
Or maybe that was just another word for free .
“I know that everyone is running around these days pretending that any kind of body shape is just fine,” her mother replied, shrilly.
“But it’s not. A trim figure is an indication of self-control. A higher purpose. It is a woman’s calling card, to indicate that she’s not…” Mary Catherine seemed at a loss.
Or maybe she was trying to be delicate, but then she failed.
“Some kind of slovenly glutton.”
Once upon a time, not very long ago at all, this would have killed Sierra.
She would have been humiliated.
Ashamed.
And it occurred to her for the first time that her mother was talking about herself.
That these negative thoughts and this insistence on starving herself was Mary Catherine’s cross to bear.
Not Sierra’s.
Not unless she went and picked it up again.
But she wasn’t that person anymore.
She took her napkin from her lap and placed it beside her plate.
“This will be the final time that we discuss my body in this house,” she told her mother.
She looked over at her father, then back at Mary Catherine, letting her words sink in.
Then she kept going before they could jump in.
“Or anything involving my personal life, unless it is kind. If you don’t have anything kind to say, I suggest you stick to the topics that you can manage to discuss unemotionally. That appears to be the national news, your wine club, and whatever it is you think the neighbors are doing with their shrubbery. But I’m off limits to you.”
Mary Catherine was sputtering.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You are our daughter .”
“I am,” Sierra agreed.
“And for the first time in a very long while, I’m happy. I’m doing work that I find fulfilling.” She ignored the sound her father made at that.
He was the one who’d pressured her to join his office.
She’d given in on that, too.
“I’m living in a place that feels like home. And yes, I’m with a man who actually sees me for me and loves me exactly as I am, the way he always has. I’m not going to apologize for that. And if you want to discuss it, you’re going to have to learn to do it while I’m not in the room. Or I’ll never be in a room with you again.”
“Don’t be absurd, Sierra—” her father began.
“This is not a debate.” Sierra pushed her chair back and stood up.
“You have one more chance. Our next dinner is supposed to be on Labor Day. If you can’t behave, I’m not coming back.”
And she left them there at that table, sputtering.
When she walked back out of that house, she felt light.
Airy. Like she could dance all the way to the moon if she wanted.
Instead of driving over to Grey’s Saloon, she left her Jeep where it was and walked, which was the closest to dancing on moonshine she could manage tonight.
It was a pretty, happy walk.
Marietta was cooling down after a hot, bright blue summer day.
She could smell campfires and barbecues.
Folks waved hellos from their porches and she waved back.
There were people out walking, taking in the sweet summer evening.
On Main Street, there were people on the sidewalks and gathering in loose groups outside the open restaurants and bars, and more of them as she got closer to Grey’s.
Sierra felt… outside her own skin.
Or maybe just turned inside out.
Halfway to the moon, somehow.
She kept thinking about that first year of junior high.
How much she had liked Boone.
How much that had scared her.
And how many years she’d spent trying to avoid the things that scared her when, it turned out, that didn’t work at all.
She stopped on the next corner and stepped back against the nearest wall so that no one would walk into her.
Then she stood there, looking at Grey’s.
It had been the first building ever to be raised up in Marietta, because Montanans always had their priorities right.
Maybe it was time she got hers in line.
When someone stopped in front of her she braced herself, thinking it would be something unpleasant, like Matty—
But when she looked up, it was Boone.
Everything else faded away, like he was the actual moon all along.
“You got out early,” he said, that curve to his mouth.
“I figured you’d be fighting with them for at least another hour.”
“Actually, I walked out.” She nodded when his brows rose.
“I told him they have one more chance to behave and if they don’t, then I’m done with them.”
“About time.” He reached over and smoothed his hand over her head, then down the length of the French braid she wore.
Like he was feeling her out in braille.
“I’m sure they took that well.”
“It was time to set a few boundaries, that’s all.” Sierra smiled.
“And they were not enthused, no.”
“I think—” he began.
But Sierra had been letting anything and everything lead her around for way too long.
It was high time she took charge.
It was past time.
And as she’d told her parents already tonight, she had wasted far too much time already.
“Boone,” she said, cutting him off.
“You keep telling me that you love me.”
His eyes sharpened, then focused in on her.
“I do. Because I’ve loved you forever. And still do.”
“It’s not that I don’t love you,” she whispered.
And when that seemed to make his face tight, she moved closer and slid her palms over his chest, not caring who was watching them.
She wouldn’t care if the entirety of Crawford County pulled up seats.
“Because of course I do. But when have I ever chosen anything? How can I be sure that this time, despite everything, I’m making the right choice?”
He grinned, though his gaze stayed serious.
“Come on, baby,” he said.
“That’s not a real question.”
“It feels like a real question to me.” She sighed.
“It feels like the only question.”
“Sierra.” He pulled her into his arms, clearly as unconcerned with the people who thought the worst of them as she was.
“You’ve been figuring out what to do with how much you love me since the day we met.”
Of course he knew.
She laughed, and she could feel all that light and air within her again.
Because he’d known all along.
There wasn’t a single thing about her that Boone didn’t know, and how lucky was she to finally be able to celebrate that the way she should?
“How do you know that?” she asked him, her voice shaking—though her grip on him didn’t falter a bit.
“I only realized I knew that tonight.”
“You have some stuff to work through,” he said.
“And I don’t think I made it easy for you. Maybe if I’d gone away left you to it, you would have figured it out quicker.”
But she found she was shaking her head.
“Maybe,” she said. “But being without you sounds a whole lot worse than being a little bit lost. I don’t think I would have liked that at all.”
The real truth was, she couldn’t imagine it.
The world didn’t make sense without Boone.
It never had. She doubted it ever would.
“I always thought so,” he said, in gruff agreement.
“But on the other hand, I could have done without you marrying that guy.”
Sierra stepped in closer and looped her arms around his neck.
“Maybe I had to. Because I can’t help thinking that if we got together and were this intense at fifteen, we would have been accidental teenage parents. And probably toxic. We would have broken up and hurt each other and who knows what else.”
“Speak for yourself,” he said, but he was smiling now.
“I would have been a perfect gentleman in all things, as always.”
It was funny, but there was a part of her that believed he actually would have been.
“Boone,” she said now, keeping her eyes locked his.
“I think you know this already, but I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I know that it makes sense to wait and see where this goes, and figure out what we’re doing—”
“Sierra,” he said, with nothing but intensity and sincerity all over him, “I’d marry you tonight.”
She felt herself smile then, so big and so wide that she was surprised it didn’t crack her face right open.
She felt as if she was as bright as the moon.
As if she might glow like this forever.
“That sounds like an excellent idea,” she said.
“Too bad the courthouse isn’t open at this time of night.”
And then she kissed him, wild and dirty, right there on the street—where anyone and everyone could see her and report back to her parents, if they liked.
She hoped they did.
But she was busy reclaiming her hometown, to Sierra’s way of thinking.
No matter where in the valley she chose to live.
And she wasn’t particularly surprised when Boone swung her up in his arms, carried her to his truck, and made certain that they never made it to Grey’s Saloon that night at all.